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How to Read “Gilgamesh” (2019)

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Re: How to Read “Gilgamesh” (2019)

#61

Post by isk517 »

soco wrote: post #54
handrous wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK there's no reason to favor English translations of the Old Testament (or anything else) that use now-archaic English, except maybe for passages which are themselves written, in the original, in a kind of archaic or very formal mode, relative to the rest. It can be accurate enough (for whatever purpose—poetic, literal accuracy, et c.) without being stuffy or outdated. Another factor in my naming it the probably…

I guess they were not writing stuff for "readers"? This might be a well-known theory of which I'm just unaware, but could it be that writing fulfilled a different role/need in those epochs?

I would think that is a good guess. Repetition is irritating to read but works well when something is performed since the audience does not have a readers ability to simply go back and reread a difficult or important passage.

Re: How to Read “Gilgamesh” (2019)

#62

Post by isk517 »

handrous wrote: post #60
soco wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess they were not writing stuff for "readers"? This might be a well-known theory of which I'm just unaware, but could it be that writing fulfilled a different role/need in those epochs?

Oh, that's absolutely a big part of it. There was no "reading public". Very few people could read and write. I assume all the repetition has to do with making the stories better-suited to memorization and oral retelling. I don't mean any of that as some kind of put-down of the ancients, it's just a fact that a modern reader is going to find the material difficult, and, even once acclimated to the difficulty, of limit…

I would imagine the repetition benefits the listening audience since there is a chance they may not hear something or may miss the significance of something the first time it is spoken.

Re: How to Read “Gilgamesh” (2019)

#63

Post by handrous »

jedimastert wrote: post #44
handrous wrote: post #8

I'm not an expert but I've probably read a whole lot more Near East literature than, considered over a population of billions, nearly everyone. In English translation, but still. A half dozen volumes, I think, cover to cover? Maybe seven? Gilgamesh is the only work out of all of that, that I'd recommend to pretty much anyone who likes literature. Egypt has a couple promising, if relatively late, tales, but both are o…

I don't know anything about it, is there a single canonical translation? If not, which one would you recommend to someone who, lets say, wants to read for enjoyment more but is woefully out of practice

I dunno about "canonical", but, as others have mentioned, Stephen Mitchell's version is good. It reads very easily without, as I understand it, taking too many liberties with the text. I'm sure there are retellings that are even smoother, but I doubt you can do much better for casual reading with anything else that's at least fairly faithful to the original.

Mitchell's careful to (accurately) frame his as a new version, not a new translation, though, because he does not read the original language and is leaning on several existing translations to assemble his version. You probably don't want it for, say, deep scholarly purposes.

My copy of Mitchel's version has what's effectively a 60 page retelling at the beginning—which I've not read, so maybe it sucks, I dunno—as the Introduction, then a brief author's note about the book (in which he explains that it is not a new translation, among other things), and ~140 pages of Gilgamesh itself, in largish type. It's very long for a (mostly) surviving pre-classical near eastern story, but it's still pretty short. The rest of the volume is notes.

Re: How to Read “Gilgamesh” (2019)

#64

Post by snambi »

emodendroket wrote: post #15
handrous wrote: post #8

I'm not an expert but I've probably read a whole lot more Near East literature than, considered over a population of billions, nearly everyone. In English translation, but still. A half dozen volumes, I think, cover to cover? Maybe seven? Gilgamesh is the only work out of all of that, that I'd recommend to pretty much anyone who likes literature. Egypt has a couple promising, if relatively late, tales, but both are o…

The Ramayana sounded like fun though it's hard to figure out which version you're supposed to read.

There is only one Ramayana written by Valmiki Ramayana. All others are based on "Valmiki's Ramayana".

Re: How to Read “Gilgamesh” (2019)

#66

Post by burnafter185 »

lalos wrote: post #37
AlwaysRock wrote: post #19

I had a class in college that focused in large part on Gilgamesh. It was one of the few classes I enjoyed in college. I loved that my very religious teacher said the flood story in Gilgamesh added to the validity of the Bible since it is another historical account of a large flood. I thought it did the opposite and showed that the Bible is just another book of myths with some historical events peppered in, like Gilga…

Or maybe the Bible and Gilgamesh comes from the need to pass on important lessons and facts to the next chunk of humans i.e. this is why it's important to learn how to make boats, sometimes climate changes and you need a backup plan, don't eat pork because God says so -- and also because if not properly cooked you'll get trichinosis (they didn't know this but throwing a label of pork = evil is good enough). If you re…

Yuval Noah Harari in "Sapiens" has an interesting take on religion. Essentially they form a fictional narrative that deigns this and that. In doing so they create a system which can thread together far larger groups of people, we're thought to be near maximum capacity in dealing with 150 people (according to Dunabr's number). But the fictional narratives of religion (and later government, laws, corporations...) help us to identify our personal relationships, and also help us to ascertain expected behavior, both of self and of other. Thus we can drastically expand interoperability between individuals and groups. This is of course entirely contingent on belief, which basically serves the argument issued in "The Social Contract". He defines this as inter-subjectivity.

I think it's a pretty interesting take.

Re: How to Read “Gilgamesh” (2019)

#67

Post by CalChris »

shantnutiwari wrote: post #11

I read Stephen Mitchell's translation, which isnt the most academic but certainly the most readable. It was the 1st time I actually finished the book. My only problem is: It looks like parts of the story are missing. Certainly, the ending is very downer. Spoilers: Gilamesh fails to save his friend, loses the immortality herbs, and comes home empty handed and humiliated. Certainly, one of the lessons is that Gilgamesh…

Parts of the story probably are missing. His Iliad translation leaves out Book 10 with the Night Raid, entirely. A wonderful takedown of Mitchell is Homer, Inc.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v34/n04/edward-luttwak/homer...

Mitchell as a 'translator' is poetry in, garbage out. He bowdlerizes. Read Lattimore or Fagles or Mandelbaum or Fitzgerald.

Re: How to Read “Gilgamesh” (2019)

#68

Post by boomboomsubban »

dotancohen wrote: post #48
AlwaysRock wrote: post #19

I had a class in college that focused in large part on Gilgamesh. It was one of the few classes I enjoyed in college. I loved that my very religious teacher said the flood story in Gilgamesh added to the validity of the Bible since it is another historical account of a large flood. I thought it did the opposite and showed that the Bible is just another book of myths with some historical events peppered in, like Gilga…

> my very religious teacher said the flood story in Gilgamesh added to the validity > of the Bible since it is another historical account of a large flood. You very religious teacher was not alone. At the time when Gilgamesh was first translated, this was the prevailing thought.

It still provides limited credibility to the idea that the Bible can be used as a historic document. Their teacher seemed to be using it to say the Bible is literally true, which is a ridiculous argument as Gilgamesh has examples of people unrelated to Noah surviving.

Re: How to Read “Gilgamesh” (2019)

#69

Post by pfdietz »

shantnutiwari wrote: post #46
idoubtit wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was after Gilgamesh, fearing death, tried to gain immortality and failed. He's back to his town, but he's not afraid any more. I loved this poignant ending: he's not bitter; cities are there to stay through buildings (walls) and society (agricultural production, religion); meaning we cannot gain immortality as individuals, but what we achieve as a collective outlasts us.

thats a great point-- I never realised it in my reading. An I suppose Gilgamesh the epic survived, even though the culture/civilisation that created it died out. Which just goes to show that immortality is possible for beautiful ideas/stories, just not for humans

Egypt's might is tumbled down

Down a-down the deeps of thought;

Greece is fallen and Troy town,

Glorious Rome hath lost her crown,

Venice' pride is nought.

But the dreams their children dreamed

Fleeting, unsubstantial, vain

Shadowy as the shadows seemed

Airy nothing, as they deemed,

These remain.

(Mary E. Coleridge, 1908)

Re: How to Read “Gilgamesh” (2019)

#70

Post by JoeDaDude »

handrous wrote: post #34
soco wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends a lot on the translation I suppose, because my experience with the old testament was rather unpleasant - reading it in centuries-old language brought me no joy at all.

AFAIK there's no reason to favor English translations of the Old Testament (or anything else) that use now-archaic English, except maybe for passages which are themselves written, in the original, in a kind of archaic or very formal mode, relative to the rest. It can be accurate enough (for whatever purpose—poetic, literal accuracy, et c.) without being stuffy or outdated. Another factor in my naming it the probably…

I remember Michael Wood's TV series about the Iliad and he mentioned the repetition in it. He then showed a modern day Armenian troubadour (for lack of a better word) singing a story with instrumental accompaniment to a rapt audience [1].

Is the repetition a clue that maybe these poems were meant to be sung, and not read?

[1] https://youtu.be/64QPz2t5T3A?t=1027

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