The Epic of Gilgamesh [Paperback]

Danny P. Jackson (Author, Editor), Thom Kapheim (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1997 | ISBN-10: 0865163529 | ISBN-13: 978-0865163522 | Edition: 2

The longing stretch toward the infinite...the reluctant embrace of the temporal. This is the eternal lot of mankind. This is The Epic of Gilgamesh. Our revised 2nd edition of mankind's first epic features a lucid historical and cultural introduction by Dr. Biggs, a new interpretive essay on the themes of Gilgamesh by James G. Keenan and their echoes in other literature, and ancient world and original illustrations.

Though The Epic of Gilgamesh exists in several editions, this version has been undertaken with a very specific intent -- to remain faithful to the source material while attempting to convey the poetic scope of a work that is both lusty and tender and that retains the ability to arouse compassion and empathy in all who follow Gilgamesh on his journey. This edition aims to reanimate the story of Gilgamesh and Enkidu for modern readers, bringing it new life through indelible poetic images.

For centuries the beginnings of the literary history of the West were defined by the Hebrew Bible--what most people call the Old Testament--and Homer's epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey. These texts were once naively imagined to have come about in splendid isolation either as a miracle of divine creation or the spontaneous combustion of the ?Greek genius.? The mighty stream of words down over the millennia to our own time are so many generations of offspring still somehow beholden to their initial begetters. Thus do we construe Western Literature.

- from Ancient Epic Poetry Chapter 8: Gilgamesh

Charles Rowan Beye

Special Features

* Story Commentary
* Historical Notes
* Illustrated Introduction
* 15 Original Woodcut Prints
* 18 Photos

Also available:

Ancient Epic Poetry: Homer, Apollonius, Virgil With A Chapter On The Gilgamesh Poems - ISBN 0865166072
The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic - ISBN 0865165467

For over 30 years Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers has produced the highest quality Latin and ancient Greek books. From Dr. Suess books in Latin to Plato's Apology, Bolchazy-Carducci's titles help readers learn about ancient Rome and Greece; the Latin and ancient Greek languages are alive and well with titles like Cicero's De Amicitia and Kaegi's Greek Grammar. We also feature a line of contemporary eastern European and WWII books.

Some of the areas we publish in include:

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Editorial Reviews

Review

Epic of Gilgamesh is an excellent achievement. It makes this great work accessible to college and general readers. -- Kevin Herbert, Professor of Classics, Washington University

I welcome this edition of The Epic of Gilgamesh for making accessible to modern readers the poetry and the drama, presented in heroic terms of life, love, friendship and, finally the recognition and acceptance of the ultimate reality of human existence. It is one of the great epic tales surviving from the ancient world of 'The Land Between-the-Two-Rivers,' Mesopotamia, and though incomplete, reflects an ancient range of human experience and emotion not so far removed from our own...

The epic states, 'When the gods created mankind, they allotted death to mankind, keeping life eternal for themselves.'? Yet while death is inevitable, Jackson's lyrical and moving presentation gives renewed life to this wonderful tale of Gilgamesh. -- Robert D. Biggs, The Oriental Institute, The University of Chicago

The Great Books Foundation has declared The Epic of Gilgamesh a classic...The Bolchazy-Carducci edition has been adopted by Great Books Foundation.

Gilgamesh permits us to tie the ancient Near East and the ancient Mediterranean together like nothing else: no other document makes so clear the symbolism of the snake or the divine bull, or the situation of temple prostitution, or even the background of Plato's Aphrodite Pandemos and Aphrodite Ourania. They are all here in Gilgamesh, plain as day. These unifying tie-ins make it logical to use Gilgamesh as a lead-off text in a classical mythology course.

The Bolchazy-Carducci edition, more readable than its predecessors, makes it practicable. Students liked it, and for the professor it is one light bulb after another. -- Thomas N. Winter, University of Nebraska

The text is excellent in its clarity of story line and motif. -- Jim Caputo, Instructor of English, Latin, Humanities, Regis University

With Kapheim's remarkable woodcuts that go so well with Jackson's powerful poetry, and with Biggs' excellent introduction, including those fascinating photos of cuneiform tablets, ziggurats, and cylinder seals, the paperback is a steal... It should be an ideal textbook for a college (or high school) course in mythology or epic literature... --Anne Groton and Jim May, St. Olaf's College

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 115 pages
• Publisher: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers; 2 edition (July 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865163529
• ISBN-13: 978-0865163522
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #548,681 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #95 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > African

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars seminal work of western literatureI, October 5, 1999

By 

Sharon E. Murphy (alto, nm USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Epic of Gilgamesh (Paperback)

I would draw the attention of readers to the story of the flood, as related by the Book of Gilgamesh.In particular, "for six days and nights the wind blew, torrent and tempest and flood raged together like warring hosts. When the seventh day dawned the storm from the south subsided, the sea grew calm, the flood was stilled: I looked at the face of the world and there was silence; all mankind was turned to clay. The surface of the sea stretched flat as a rooftop." This is not a river flood. This is the breach of the Black Sea basin - then inhabited - by the ocean waters of the Mediterranean Sea - as is attested by recent geological documentation. Fresh water mussels are succeeded by salt water mussels at precisely 5500 BC: also, the remains of fresh water mussels occur only at great depths where fresh water lakes previously existed. Only fishermen with boats could have survived the flood when the Bosporus was breached. The historical implications of this geological cataclism have not yet been absorbed into the thoughts of philologists in search of the origins of the Indo-European languages nor by historians of the pre-history of the Middle East. I believe this information adds to an appreciation of the significance of this early epic, insomuch as it incorporated an oral legend of an actual geological event two thousand years after the fact. Lest the survival of such remembrances in the oral tradition be doubted, the Oregon Indians preserved the oral tradition of the eruption of Mount Mazuma (Crater Lake) eight thousand years afterward.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, September 24, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Epic of Gilgamesh (Paperback)

I teach Gilgamesh every year in my Freshman Honors Seminar, and it has always been one of my and my students' favorite texts. That is, until the anthology I was using put out a new edition and switched from David Ferry's to Jackson's translation. I found that Jackson managed to obscure (or just ignore) most of the important themes of the work. He gives his reader no sense of the bond between Gilgamesh and Enkidu; his account of Enkidu "becoming human" through his interactions w/ the temple harlot focuses almost completely on sex, with no hint of Enkidu's growing self-consciousness. Next year I'm bagging the anthology and going w/ a self-contained copy of Ferry.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The BEST Gilgamesh out there, April 4, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The Epic of Gilgamesh (Paperback)

Danny Jackson's Gilgamesh is the best translation out there for 21st century American readers. It captures the essence of what may be the first and most important work of fiction in human history, yet his modern language brings the story alive in a way no previous translator has done. He does this by treating it as what it was written to be: the ancient world's version of a modern blockbuster movie, not a dry-as-dust study in how boring a professor can make literature or history. (For those of you who wonder, I have a Ph.D. in history from the University of California, and a love of and healthy respect for both literature and history, which I teach.) I was surprised to read the review from Tempe, AZ (a prof at AZ State?) who denigrated Jackson's work. I have taught Gilgamesh at four seperate colleges and Universities over 14 years, and the one universal complaint I got from students was: this is boring! The only translation students unanimously enjoyed, actually read all the way through, and learned from, was Jackson's. I first used his text in 1993, and it has been a priceless part of my teaching arsenal ever since. My students love it. I recently switched teaching jobs and found myself stuck with my predecessor's choice of Gilgamesh texts: Sanders' translation. My students, predictably, found it obtuse, dry, and lifeless. I am now sent to teach Gilgamesh again this fall, and using Jackson, I know the story will be well received AND useful to my students. BOTTOM LINE: If you want to read a smashing, exciting, and readable heroic epic from the dawn of time, the first ever written, buy Danny Jackson's translation of Gilgamesh. It is the best.