The Epic of Gilgamesh in Epic Poems Read Along!

May 09, 2020 Brett C rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classic-literature

I read excerpts of this many years ago for a literature class. I'm glad I reread this in its entirety now. This was a very imaginative and epic story centered on Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu. I saw in this plot the struggle of time and immortality. Gilgamesh was the harsh king of Uruk who was part-god and part-human. After confrontation, he became friends with Enkidu, the wild man created by the gods to stop Gilgamesh's oppressive rule. There are various Babylonian gods, Watchers of the Fores ...more

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Apr 26, 2015 Michael Perkins rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

how to read the Epic....

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...

As told by Patrick Stewart....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLDzh... ...more

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Jun 13, 2018 Alan (The Lone Librarian) Teder rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry, 2018-reading-challenge, prose-poetry, mythology-fiction, not-on-the-1001-books-to-read-offic, ancient-mesopotamia, translated-from-akkadian, gilgamesh

Still has the power to resonate after 4,000+ years

...the oldest story in the world, a thousand years older than the Iliad or the Bible. Its hero was a historical king who reigned in the Mesopotamian city of Uruk in about 2750 BCE. In the epic, he has an intimate friend, Enkidu, a naked wild man who has been civilized through the erotic arts of a temple priestess. With him Gilgamesh battles monsters, and when Enkidu dies, he is inconsolable. He sets out on a desperate journey to find the one man

...more

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Jun 27, 2018 Alan (The Lone Librarian) Teder rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2018-reading-challenge, mythology-fiction, ancient-mesopotamia, translated-from-akkadian, translated-from-sumerian, gilgamesh

I was intrigued to read a "closer to the source" edition of Gilgamesh after my recent discovery of Stephen Mitchell's Gilgamesh: A New English Version which is considered controversial as Mitchell is not translating it but simply adapting it based on the translations of others and fills in any missing sections with his own poetic extrapolations on the text. Mitchell does use this present 1999/2003 edition by A.R. George as his primary source.

Andrew George has done a spectacular job assembling he ...more

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Apr 29, 2023 Vlad added it

all things, big or small, will turn to dust in the winds of time

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Jun 04, 2023 William Schram rated it really liked it

Shelves: literature, classics, mythology, poetry, fantasy

The Epic of Gilgamesh is an ancient Mesopotamian epic poem in Cuneiform. It describes the friendship of the God-King Gilgamesh and Enkidu, a wild man created to be his opposite in every way. It explores themes of friendship, heroism, and mortality. The poem is incomplete because of the material it's on. Although clay tablets last a long time, it doesn't prevent accidents.

The book covers Gilgamesh's story in a scholarly fashion but still allows the layman to read and understand it. Translator Mau The Epic of Gilgamesh is an ancient Mesopotamian epic poem in Cuneiform. It describes the friendship of the God-King Gilgamesh and Enkidu, a wild man created to be his opposite in every way. It explores themes of friendship, heroism, and mortality. The poem is incomplete because of the material it's on. Although clay tablets last a long time, it doesn't prevent accidents.

The book covers Gilgamesh's story in a scholarly fashion but still allows the layman to read and understand it. Translator Maureen Gallery Kovacs does an excellent job. There are several points in the story where the translator mentions missing lines and sections of text. When the context is lost, the translator retains the original language. The translation copyright is 1989, and I don't know how accurate it still is. It is my first experience with The Epic of Gilgamesh.

The beginning sets the stage in Uruk, Gilgamesh's city. Although Gilgamesh did many great works, the citizens got upset at his cruelty or behavior. The poem does not specify, so I suppose it was well-known. They pray to the gods, and the entire pantheon creates the wild man, Enkidu. Enkidu dresses in skins and lives in harmony with the animals. He frees the animals from traps and accomplishes other mischief. A trapper sees these things happen and talks to his father about Enkidu and how to deal with him. The trapper's father tells the lad to find Gilgamesh and get him to send a specific harlot, Shamhat. Shamhat and Enkidu make love for six days and seven nights. At the end of the session, Enkidu loses his wild powers, and the animals no longer accept him as their own.

Enkidu and Gilgamesh meet each other as rivals but become fast friends. They go off on adventures but eventually anger the gods with their hubris. The pair chop down a sacred tree and slay the forest guardian, Humbaba. So, the gods make Enkidu sick, and he dies. Gilgamesh goes on a quest to find immortality and meets a Mesopotamian version of Noah, Utnapishtim. Utnapishtim gives him a plant that can grant eternal youth, but Gilgamesh loses it. Humbled, Gilgamesh realizes that the best way to live forever is as a memory.

Despite the Mesopotamian flavor inherent in the text, I can see why this story stood the test of time. Thanks for reading my review, and see you next time. ...more

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Jan 21, 2014 Not Well Read rated it really liked it · review of another edition

4.5 stars

I loved the narrative, though I didn't think the repetition was necessarily used to the best effect (though some of it made me smile, which I suppose is a good thing). It was also particularly moving, especially towards the very end. I would recommend this translation and edition (Stephen Mitchell), which is good enough that I have added some of his other work (The Sonnets to Orpheus and Letters to the Young Poet) to my TBR, which should be at least as good given that they have good rat ...more

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Jun 01, 2018 Geoff rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2018, audio-book

I'm glad I've finally read this. I'm also glad that there have been improvements over the last 4000 years in story structure and plotting. ...more

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Sep 20, 2021 Parmida rated it liked it · review of another edition

نسخه ی فارسی دیگه‌ای از گیلگمش در دسترس هست؟ یا کلا داستان نسخ مختلف چقدر باهم تفاوت داره؟

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Apr 20, 2019 William Schram rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, literature, mythology, poetry, adventure

The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest recorded myth in human history. Going into the story I knew a bit about it. I knew about Gilgamesh being the King of Uruk, I knew about a character that becomes his friend named Enkidu, and that is about it. Thankfully, this book contains all of the backstories you need. It discusses the entire story before it gets into it, so I am unsure if I should read it first or the actual poem first.

Now, this poem is written by an Anonymous author. Stephen Mitchell is a The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest recorded myth in human history. Going into the story I knew a bit about it. I knew about Gilgamesh being the King of Uruk, I knew about a character that becomes his friend named Enkidu, and that is about it. Thankfully, this book contains all of the backstories you need. It discusses the entire story before it gets into it, so I am unsure if I should read it first or the actual poem first.

Now, this poem is written by an Anonymous author. Stephen Mitchell is a translator who adds his own flavor to the work. Even though Gilgamesh is an ancient myth, it contains a believable cast of characters with great motivations and an excellent look into how the Sumerians lived. Take the fight between Gilgamesh and Humbaba for instance. Humbaba doesn’t really do anything to gain Gilgamesh’s animosity. Instead, Gilgamesh just wants to make a name for himself.

Basically, this is how it goes down. Gilgamesh is awesome, but the people of Uruk are dissatisfied with his selfish and shortsighted nature. The gods answer the prayers of the people of Uruk to create a man to act as a counterpoint to Gilgamesh. This man is named Enkidu and is born wild and innocent. Gilgamesh hears about him from a trapper and orders a Priestess from Ishtar’s sect to go and make sweet love to Enkidu for seven days and nights. This civilizes Enkidu and he becomes a complete human being. Then Gilgamesh and Enkidu become fantastic friends. They go around having fun and beating up monsters. Then the Humbaba incident happens and Enkidu is killed. Gilgamesh is inconsolable. Gilgamesh hears a tale of a wise man named Utnapishtim and goes to meet him far to the East of the World. Gilgamesh succeeds in going to meet Utnapishtim and wants to know his secrets of immortality. Utnapishtim tells him that if he can forego sleep for seven days he can be immortal too. Gilgamesh fails because he falls asleep immediately. This trip to the far East of the World has also aged Gilgamesh greatly. Utnapishtim goes and tells him a way to regain his youth, but Gilgamesh foolishly loses it. Thus does he return to the City of Uruk a wiser king and man.

The poem is fragmentary and much of it is lost. Mitchell’s edition is a version of the Epic of Gilgamesh rather than a straight translation. Mitchell explains this by saying that he doesn’t read Cuneiform and can’t understand Akkadian, which is the language that the poem is originally in. So he gives out his method along with it. He compiled a translation he felt worked out and converted it into acceptable English Prose. It works really well in my opinion. I guess when I was younger I was exposed to more tame versions of this story; I did not realize how much eroticism was in it. I guess it is easy to ignore the homosexual parts and make it more Platonic but is it ever really a good idea to Bowdlerize something? No, it is not. So in conclusion, this book was excellent. The scholarship was top-notch and the prose was very enjoyable. ...more

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Jun 06, 2020 Justin Labelle rated it it was amazing

Consisting of shorts bursts of fragmentary genius, Gilgamesh, in its given form, almost feels like the epic Kafka would have wrote had he not died so young.
It makes me think of borges’s take on Hawthorne as existing within a clearer literary space when one reads him as a Kafka devotee.
If I remember correctly, Borges believes Hawthorne is best read and understood as being influenced by Kafka though he started writing prior to his birth.
He writes this under the assumption that they have similar s ...more

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