Customer Reviews

Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The result of a collaboration between Sumerian scholar Noah Kramer and folklorist Diane Wolkstein, this book is a thoughtfully annotated translation of the major Sumerian cuneiform texts devoted to the goddess Inanna-among the oldest religious texts in the world. It is illustrated with black-and-white reproductions of ancient Sumerian art, mostly on clay tablets.

Our understanding of Sumerian culture continues to grow as new texts are found and our perceptions change. This book was published in 1983, and included material unknown to the general public at the time. There are four major stories of Inanna told here: "The Huluppu Tree," "Inanna and the God Of Wisdom,"
"The Courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi," and the extended epic "The Descent of Inanna." Seven hymns to the goddess round out the collection.

In "The Huluppu Tree," we meet the adolescent Inanna, expectantly awaiting the attainment of her queenship. The Huluppu tree, which she has planted and tended as a symbol of her hopeful authority, becomes infested with evil creatures, like personal demons, that will not depart and bring her to despair. She eventually appeals to Gilgamesh to vanquish the demons, and they exchange gifts made from the wood of the tree, bringing them both to greater power.

In "Inanna and the God of Wisdom," Inanna, now sexually mature but still youthful and unproven, is welcomed by Enki, God of Wisdom, who acts the role of proud grandfather, giving a feast in her honor. Enki's magnamity increases as he drinks, and he ends up offering Inanna all the magical keys to human civilization. Inanna, with enthusiastic politeness, accepts the gifts, and then makes a quick exit, getting a head start before Enki thinks better of his generosity and sends his monsters in pursuit of the errant goddess. Inanna, with the help of her trusted companion goddess, gets passed the monsters and arrives in Uruk with
her magical cargo, where she comes into her full power. Enki, apparently wise enough to let go of his greed in the face of fate, acknowledges Inanna's victory and ascendance.

In "The Courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi," Inanna, after some initial resistance, enters into an erotic courtship with Dumuzi the shepherd. This text is strangely alluring, moving with untroubled ease from sexual frankness to touching detail. (The scene where Dumuzi knocks on the door of Inanna's house for the first time feels like it could have come straight from a modern teenager's diary). After the marriage is consummated, Dumuzi curtly informs Inanna that he's going to be very busy being king now-don't wait up, hon. This poignantly rapid slide from courtship to neglect sets the scene for events in the next narrative.

In "The Descent of Inanna," the goddess, now Queen of Heaven and Earth, finds herself drawn to enter the underworld, realm of the dead, ruled by her evil and somehow tragic sister-self, Ereshkigal. One by one, she is stripped of all the symbols of her power at seven gates, to be left naked and alone before the Queen
of the Underworld, who kills Inanna with a single blow and hangs her on a hook to dry. Inanna has planned her own rescue in advance, though, and escapes to the surface, thronged by demons intent on finding someone to take her place. Inanna will not surrender to them her loyal sons, but when she returns to find her husband Dumuzi, not in mourning, but proudly sitting on his thrown and dispensing authority, she strikes him down and sends the demons after him. The tale of Dumuzi's flight is nightmarish and filled with dream imagery. Thanks to the efforts of his compassionate and self-sacrificing sister, and the softening of Inanna's own anger, a Persephone-like bargain is reached, and Dumuzi is allowed to return to the living for half of each year.

The hymns that round out this book are an exciting glimpse of the actual religious practice of the Sumerians. Especially interesting for modern Pagans is the annual ritual wedding between goddess and king.

I'm someone who tends to be rather skeptical about the ancient precedents of modern goddess worship, but these texts caught me off my guard. They are amazingly modern (or is it timeless?) in their content. The goddess actually grows psychologically and spiritually through the series of narratives, and the
portrayal of the sexual dynamic between men and women rings uncannily true across four millennia. Inanna's story is the original heroine's journey. And, unlike most of her male counterparts, she doesn't need to kill anything to attain her spiritual victory. (Well, almost. Dumuzi gets a serious lesson in raw goddess power!). Her character seems to flow from woman to goddess and back again so smoothly, that it is impossible not to feel a living religion in these texts, one in which there was an intimate dialog between the powers of the goddess and the human experience of her priestesses.

These original texts are better than any modern retelling of Inanna's story I have come across, not just because they are more "authentic", but because they are hauntingly moving. Unlike the familiar mythology of the Greeks and Romans, which has come down to us in a more or less "literary" style, these works seem
more spiritual, even liturgical. Repetition is combined with a directness of wording, and the result is often very powerful; there is a primal intensity about them. They disarm you with their open, almost child-like language, and then leave you sitting, mute and amazed, in that timeless central cavern of the human experience.

Diane Wolkenstein revives ancient poetry that reminds us of a Goddess tradition, long lost to the Western world. In conjunction with Samuel Noah Kramer, a noted scholar on Sumer, she works with the subleties and ambiguities of the texts to reveal experiences long ago pressed into clay and forgotten.

This book is a collection of stories & hymns, translated from the cuneiform by Kramer. Wolkenstein, an expert in folktales, mythology, & storytelling, worked with his translations to craft an essence of the myths that reads coherently; confronting the reader with stories that are at once archaic and contemporary.

Numerous relief images from ancient Sumer enhance the "otherness" of the text. Rhythms and repetitive lineation loudly proclaim the exotic nature of this sacred poetry. And yet, at the heart of these stories, lie essential & archetypal material, which underlies the lives of each of us. I like this feature of the book best--I can read these ancient hymns and find a resonance within my modern soul. Wolkenstein and Kramer have well accomplished what they set out to do.

One notable feature of this poetry is the erotic content. Whether veiled in metaphor:

"At the king's lap stood the rising cedar."

or explicit:

"As for me, Inanna, / Who will plow my vulva? / Who will plow my high field? / Who will plow my wet ground?"

this erotic sacred literature of a vanished people stands in stark contrast to the purified verses of the canonical Judeo-Christian scriptures. Long before religion villified sexuality, we read--we experience in this poetry--that it was an honored sacrament, inseparable from spirituality.

The book concludes with chapters on Sumerian history, commentary on the material and translation, notes on the artwork, and a bibliography for further research. It contains an useful index.

This book is appropriate as a translated primary source for undergraduate work about the ancient Near East or mythology. It is a great source for those seeking to explore (and reclaim) the history of the Goddess, and for those who just can't get enough good Sumerian poetry! Five stars for an excellent balance of the literary with the scholarly, for breathing new life into a lost tradition.

(If you enjoyed this review, please leave positive feedback. My other reviews can be read by clicking on the "about me" link at the top of this review. Thanks!)

In the "White Goddess", Robert Graves speaks of true poetry as that which sends chills up your spine because it clearly has divine origins. While Graves' work does not meet that standard, "Innana" more than does so.

With the fist stanza, "In the first days, in the very first days, in the first weeks, in the very first weeks, in the first years, in the very first years", you enter a primal Dreamtime where the the Goddess exists as a real being made tangible by enchanting words. It takes a true poet to translate words from a dead language into a modern one and have them retain their effect. Wolkstein does this with grace and power.

The imagery of the tales and hymns themselves is lush, erotic, and real. I reccomend this book for anyone interested in finding a sacred text that opens up a living channel to the Goddess.

This is a wonderful translation of the hymns to Inanna. I highly recommend it to those who are interested in ancient Sumer. However, I would like to add a cautionary note. These hymns were written in a much earlier time by a people not bound by our victorian prudery. They revelled in and honored the body beautiful. Much of the language is extremely frank.

The hymn regarding the courtship of Dummuzi and Inanna is indeed beautiful and touching. It is an intimate peek into a very different time and culture where woman was treated with reverence and respect.

This book would make a wonderful addition to any personal library, especially those interested in ancient civilizations.

I found this book very fascinating, what little I knew about Inanna wasn't even covered in this--and this book covers alot. It is completely mind blowing to read these actual (though slightly adapted) Sumerian poems that are so...sensual and nearing explicitness. I would have liked to have seen more on Inanna's context in the Sumerian pantheon and her role in society. Also more on some of the art in the book would have been great, though seeing all of the pictures of these clay seals and such was great.

A very interesting book, though if you are looking for some Sumarian equivalent to Bullfinch's Greek myths this is not it at all.

I think I need to know more about Sumerian mythology and society in general to really appreciate this book, though. It is not really a good starting point.

This excellent book is the result of a collaboration between Samuel Kramer, a renowned Sumerian specialist, and Diane Wolkstein, a talented writer and folklorist. Wolkstein took a selection of Sumerian poems about the goddess Inanna, translated by Kramer and others, and rendered them into modern and highly poetic English. Kramer worked with Wolkstein to ensure fidelity of Wolksteins renderings to the original Sumerian. Beyond the translations/reinterpretations, Wolkstein also assembled several poems into a sequence based on life history starting from early life to maturity, and in the case of the poem The Descent of Inanna, beyond life to resurrection. This arrangement may not be strictly historically correct but it gives this sequence real dramatic integrity. Individually, Wolkstein's versions are vivid. As commented by other reviewers, some of these poems contain sexually explicit sections, which may not be to everyone's taste, though these sections are also some of the most striking poetry in this selection.
Accompanying the texts are an excellent series of short essays. One is by Kramer and gives a nice overview of Sumerian literature. Kramer also describes the history of the recovery of these texts. Wolkstein provides a very good set of interpretative comments on the poems. This book has a particularly nice set of illustrations drawn from Sumerian art and these selections are described very well in another short section of the book.

Anyone who wonders what life and love were like in pre-patriarchal times should read this book. In fact, anyone who has a heart should read this book. It contains a beautiful, unique love story, and tales of a great and karismatic goddess-queen, Inanna. My wife and I read the love story to each other now and then, and weep with joy, love, and sadness every time. The book shows just how much a great translator, Kramer, and a great story teller, Wolkstein, can do to bring alive a culture that is completely foreign to us.

Diane Wokstein's book of the story of Inanna, the original Goddess of the first recorded civilization five thousand years ago between the Tigres and the Euphrates, astonishes with its poetry and power.

This legend, unlike the story of Persephone, describes a woman/Goddess who receives the wisdom of civilization, chooses her mate (with advice from her mother), and willingly descends into the underworld. Also, unlike the Greek myths, there are positive and loving male figures (especially Enki, the God of Wisdom.)

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in mythology and the evolution of myth.

This a great volume! First off, having a folklorist help with the translation is a tremendous idea because there's a big difference between translating words and reproducing meaning. Wolkstein brings us the poetry and power of these works, while Kramer provides a guarantee everything is grounded in fact rather than being a Neo-Pagan/New Age snow job.

Aside from the welcome addition of more Sumerian literature to my library, the volume includes brief essays on Sumerian history, the story of how the tablets were amassed and translated, and analysis of the works by Wolkstein. This material provides a welcome context for the poetry, and I liked that they put it after the works. You read and then hear what the experts have to say. The volume also includes photos of Sumerian art. As a result, this small volume gives you a taste of Sumer from multiple perspectives. It's an approach that should be used by others translating ancient texts.

Although Wolkstein's analysis is illuminating and astute (particularly in her parsing of structure), I got a little uncomfortable with her analysis of the Descent poem. Rather than analyzing the work, she seemed to take an idea and run wild with it. Her insistance on a triple goddess identity for Inanna smacks more of modern-day feminist/neo-pagan cliches than anything in the actual text. On the other hand, since we will probably never know the exact meaning of these ancient texts, why not take some risks and analyze from a contempory perspective? After all, myths only have power if people can relate to them. I just wish in doing this she had picked a perspective that was less trite.

But that's a minor point, and I'm sure there are others who would find it useful. Bottom line: If you're into Sumerian literature, this is a wonderful book.

In Sumarian times, Inanna was queen of Heaven, and with the "me", queen of Earth. Inanna would not be very accepted in modern day times because she tends to respond and react to situations quite differently than society would today. Inanna is not in love with the man to whom she is betrothed, and reacts rashly to the marriage, only to find herself suddenly in love soon after. Inanna changes her opinion of many things and sometimes judges situations too quickly. In today's society, Inanna would be regarded as a pompous goddess who gloats of her own powers and attributes. She admires her sexual attitude and her perfect body and appears to have much to learn. Thus, Enkidu, god of wisdom, is brought into the story to perhaps correct this flaw. However, she proves to be a cunning woman and warrior when she repeals the many monsters Enkidu throws at her, and thus earning the victory over the "me". She proves to have wisdom as well when she enters the underworld and dies only after she has planned her own resurrection. When Inanna leaves the underworld, she must have someone take her place. She quickly throws the demons at her husband only to realize that she may have made a mistake and feels regret. A queen/goddess that makes these careless decisions would be worshipped by few in modern day. One must look at the picture as a whole, however, and realize that this is a goddess that is going through her adolescence and is having to make choices in her life. Though they may not always be the right choices, she is starting to learn what is good and bad, right and wrong. Her life's journey has been hard and the events that she has experienced are beginning to shape who she is as a woman and goddess. We must respect Inanna for having the pride to marry, courage to enter the underworld, and remorse after committing a thoughtless choice. She is growing up and the hubris that she once had is turning into strength.