Epic of Gilgamesh A New Translation, Analogues, Criticism

Summary: More than a thousand years before Homer or the Bible, Mesopotamian poets sang ofthe hero-king Gilgamesh, who sought to crown his superhuman exploits byfinding eternal life. This Norton Critical Edition presentstranslations by Benjamin R. Foster, Douglas Frayne, and Gary Beckman ofthe entire Gilgamesh narrative tradition, with some texts now inEnglish for the first time. In addition to the eleven tablets of thegreat A...kkadian epic, written around 1700 B.C.E., the book includesseven Sumerian poems about Gilgamesh , written before 2000 B.C.E., aswell as the later Hittite version and other related sources, among thema Babylonian parody of the epic. "Criticism" provides interpretive essays by William Moran, ThorkildJacobsen, and Rivkah Harris and concludes with a modern poetic responseto the Gilgamesh epic by Hillary Major. A Glossary of Proper Names and a Selected Bibliography are alsoincluded. [read more]