The Epic of Gilgamesh: A Norton Critical Edition

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

Book Overview

This Norton Critical Edition includes:

An expanded translation from the Akkadian by Benjamin R. Foster based on new discoveries, adding lines throughout the world's oldest epic masterpiece. Benjamin R. Foster's full introduction and expanded explanatory annotations. Eleven illustrations. Analogues from the Sumerian and Hittite narrative traditions along with "The Gilgamesh Letter," a parody of the epic enjoyed by Mesopotamian schoolchildren during the first millennium BCE. Essays by Thorkild Jacobsen, William L. Moran, Susan Ackerman, and Andrew R. George, and a poem by Hillary Major. A Glossary of Proper Names and a Selected Bibliography.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393643980
• ISBN13: 9780393643985
• Release Date: April 2019
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.63 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" 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.