The Epic of Gilgamesh: The Babylonian Epic Poem and Other Texts in Akkadian and Sumerian - Brossura

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0140449191 ISBN 13: 9780140449198

Casa editrice: Penguin Classics, 2003

Riassunto

The ancient Sumerian poem The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the oldest written stories in existence, translated with an introduction by Andrew George in Penguin Classics.

Miraculously preserved on clay tablets dating back as much as four thousand years, the poem of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, is the world's oldest epic, predating Homer by many centuries. The story tells of Gilgamesh's adventures with the wild man Enkidu, and of his arduous journey to the ends of the earth in quest of the Babylonian Noah and the secret of immortality. Alongside its themes of family, friendship and the duties of kings, The Epic of Gilgamesh is, above all, about mankind's eternal struggle with the fear of death.

The Babylonian version has been known for over a century, but linguists are still deciphering new fragments in Akkadian and Sumerian. Andrew George's gripping translation brilliantly combines these into a fluid narrative and will long rank as the definitive English Gilgamesh.

If you enjoyed The Epic of Gilgamesh, you might like Homer's Iliad, also available in Penguin Classics.

'A masterly new verse translation'
The Times

'Andrew George has skilfully bridged the gap between a scholarly re-edition and a popular work'
London Review of Books

Su questo libro

Recensione

"Andrew George has skillfully bridged the chasm between a scholarly re-edition and a popular work”
—London Review of Books

“Humankind’s first literary achievement...Gilgamesh should compel us as the well-spring of which we are inheritors...Andrew George provides an excellent critical and historical introduction.”
—Paul Binding, Independent on Sunday

“This volume will endure as one of the milestones markers...[George] expertly and easily conducts his readers on a delightful and moving epic journey.”
—Samuel A. Meier, Times Literary Supplement

“Appealingly presented and very readably translated...it still comes as an exhilarating surprise to find the actions and emotions of the Sumerian superhero coming to us with absolute immediacy over 30-odd centuries.
—Scotsman

“Andrew George has formed an English text from the best of the tablets, differentiating his complex sources but allowing the general reader a clear run at one of the first enduring stories ever told.”
—Peter Stothard, The Times

“An exemplary combination of scholarship and lucidity...very impressive...invaluable as a convenient guide to all the different strands which came together to produce the work we now call Gilgamesh.”
—Alan Wall, Literary Review

L'autore

Andrew George is Reader in Assyriology at SOAS (the School of Oriential and African Studies) in London, and is also an Honorary Lecturer at the University's Institute of Archaeology. His research has taken him many times to Iraq to visit Babylon and other ancient sites, and to museums in Baghdad, Europe and North America to read the original clay tablets on which the scribes of ancient Iraq wrote.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Penguin Classics
• Data di pubblicazione: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0140449191
• ISBN 13: 9780140449198
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 304