The Epic of Gilgamesh [Hardcover]

Maureen Kovacs (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1989 | ISBN-10: 0804715890 | ISBN-13: 978-0804715898 | Edition: 1

Since the discovery over one hundred years ago of a body of Mesopotamian poetry preserved on clay tablets, what has come to be known as the Epic of Gilgamesh has been considered a masterpiece of ancient literature. It recounts the deeds of a hero-king of ancient Mesopotamia, following him through adventures and encounters with men and gods alike. Yet the central concerns of the Epic lie deeper than the lively and exotic story line: they revolve around a man’s eternal struggle with the limitations of human nature, and encompass the basic human feelings of lonliness, friendship, love, loss, revenge, and the fear of oblivion of death. These themes are developed in a distinctly Mesopotamian idiom, to be sure, but with a sensitivity and intensity that touch the modern reader across the chasm of three thousand years. This translation presents the Epic to the general reader in a clear narrative.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This translation is a verse rendering of The Epic of Gilgamesh, the cycle of Babylonian poems preserved on clay tablets surviving from ancient Mesopotamia of the third millennium B.C. One of the best and most important piece of epic poetry from human history, predating even Homer's Iliad by roughly 1,500 years, the Gilgamesh epic tells of the various adventures of that hero-king, including his quest for immortality and an account of a great flood similar in many details to the Old Testament's story of Noah. Kovacs's edition is satisfying both for its engaging verse translation of the poem itself, as well as for the introduction and appendix that provide historical context, and not least for photographs of Mesopotamian art and of one the actual clay tablets. The tablet was broken into several pieces and incompletely reconstructed, demonstrating the difficulty of the translator's task. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Stanford University Press; 1 edition (September 1, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0804715890
• ISBN-13: 978-0804715898
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,376,058 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Head and shoulders above any other Gilgamesh!, March 6, 2000

By 

David Elliott (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Epic of Gilgamesh (Paperback)

I think it's safe to say that I've read them all, or at least, all versions of the Epic of Gilgamesh available in English. This is the best. Kovacs builds upon scholarly advances in Ancient Middle Eastern Studies without ever becoming dryly academic. Her background materials are excellent and extensive, and above all, her discrete inclusion of parallel Old Babylonian Version excerpts, as extended footnotes, is a wonderful solution to the problems posed by those numerous clay tablet gaps in the Standard Version narrative.

I'm a professional teller of myth and epic, one of only two tellers (as far as I know) regularly presenting the full Gilgmesh epic in English, and I approach these texts with an eye for integrity of scholarship, beauty of expression, and passionate commitment to the epic itself. Ms. Kovacs' fellow presenters of Gilgamesh often manifest one or two of these qualities, but hers is the only one to satisfyingly combine all three in a contemporary publication that benefits fully from scholarly progress. (Several should definitely be avoided, or checked out from the library first.) I frequently refer back to her work when puzzling over a turn-of-phrase or interpretive challenge in my teller's adaptation.

A final word -- if you've been bitten by the Gilgamesh beast, (and you're in very good company if you have been) you may also wish to purchase The Gilgamesh Reader, edited by long-time Gilgamesh lover and writer, John Maier: it's another jewel. And guess where you can buy it!

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well presented for even the casual reader, October 30, 2000

By 

Robert Anderson (Pacific Northwest) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Epic of Gilgamesh (Paperback)

I read this with almost no familiarization with things Mesopotamian. The story itself is cryptic and many parts are still missing, but Kovacs organized the book so that there is a seperate chapter for each of the eleven tablets, and provides a one-page summary at the start of each chapter so that it's easy to understand the action and context unfolding.

Keep in mind, however what the purpose of this book is. It is simply an updated translation of the epic. She doesn't provide a lot of commentary about peripherals such as how the epic fits into the broader body of ancient literature, or other historical information about Gilgamesh himself. So, if you're interested in those things, look elsewhere.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A few comments, November 3, 2002

By 

magellan (Santa Clara, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Epic of Gilgamesh (Paperback)

I previously wrote a more extensive review of the Andrew George edition of the Epic of Gilgamesh, but I was looking at this version, and there was one thing I liked that Kovacs did, so I thought I would mention it.

In the introduction, on page xxxiv or xxiv, if I recall, Kovacs has a very nice chart showing the chronological history of all the versions we know of for this epic, which is a couple of dozen, ranging from the first known versions around 2700 BC in Uruk down to the Syriac versions more than two millenia later. Although he discusses the various versions in his book in his introduction, George doesn't include this nice timeline and chronology.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is notable for the fact that it's considered the oldest text understandable by a modern reader without special knowledge, and it's also the most ancient text for which we have an author attribution. Around 1200-1300 BC, a Mesopotamian by the name of Sun-Liq-Unnini compiled the well-known "Standard Version" of the epic. He wasn't actually the "author" of the text, but it seems likely he was steeped in the historical tradition and the different versions of the text which had come down over the years in both the Sumerian and Akkadian traditions, and he seems to have gone to some trouble to gather and compile the best versions of the various stories and legends about Gilgamesh in his "edition," which became the most widespread and popular version.

We also know that he was employed as an exorcist, an important job in Mesopotamian society, since they were called on for everything from driving out evil spirits in the ill and sick, to making sure dwellings and new buildings were free of evil spirits, to blessing farmland that was about to be planted for the new season.

I found the Epic of Gilgamesh surprisingly accessible for a modern reader. This is mainly due to the character of Gilgamesh himself, since his concerns are easily understandable to a reader of any day and age. He is motivated by several concerns, such as his fear of mortality and death, the ephemerality of life on earth, the desire to accomplish heroic feats to prove himself worthy of immortality, to protect his friends and loved ones, and to destroy evil and preserve the good.

Overall, a surprisingly interesting tale that was much better than I was expecting, and that was as accessible as has been claimed for such an ancient text.