The Epic of Gilgamesh: A New Translation, Analogues, Criticism

By Anonymous, Ingen Forfatter, Stephen Mitchell, et al.

Book Overview

More than a thousand years before Homer or the Bible, Mesopotamian poets sang of the hero-king Gilgamesh, who sought to crown his superhuman exploits by finding eternal life. This Norton Critical Edition presents translations by Benjamin R. Foster, Douglas Frayne, and Gary Beckman of the entire Gilgamesh narrative tradition, with some texts now in English for the first time. In addition to the eleven tablets of the great Akkadian epic, written around 1700 B.C.E., the book includes seven Sumerian poems about Gilgamesh, written before 2000 B.C.E., as well as the later Hittite version and other related sources, among them a Babylonian parody of the epic.

"Criticism" provides interpretive essays by William Moran, Thorkild Jacobsen, and Rivkah Harris and concludes with a modern poetic response to the Gilgamesh epic by Hillary Major.

A Glossary of Proper Names and a Selected Bibliography are also included.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393975169
• ISBN13: 9780393975161
• Release Date: April 2001
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.86 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.1" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Book is in horrible condition. The front cover has been cut up and it looks to have water damage.

Haven't read the book yet

A work of art!

Translating poetry is a tricky thing. Some people maintain that it can't be done. I would say that the translator can set himself three possible goals. First, he can try to create a "trot," a plain, "literal" translation where every word of the original is explained. See Nabokov's "Eugene Onegin" for an example of this. Second, he can try "simply" to translate it, to give his reader a good idea of what is there on the page, the mood, and so forth. LOTS of translators do this. Third, and most elusive, most difficult, is to create a work of literary art IN ENGLISH (or whatever the target language is). Hopefully this third goal will automatically include all the most important elements of "mere translation." But, if the translator succeeeds, he will have created an independent work of art which will then take on a life of its own. The most famous example of this would probably be FitzGerald's "Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam," probably better described as a fantasy and variations on themes of Omar Khayyam. Alexander Pope's translation of Homer's "Iliad" surely has legs, still in print after all these years. David Ferry has attempted the third goal in his translation of "Gilgamesh," and to my mind he succeeds. The result is a moving and beautiful work of literary art, and I predict a very long life for it.