Warning: This post is basically me waxing lyrically (not really) about literature and specifically Gilgamesh.
So.
I've been like revisiting my roots as a scholar or whatever, going back to the literature and texts I adored when I was like 16-21 years old. So now I have this overwhelming urge to read The Epic of Gilgamesh.
I was first introduced to Gilgamesh in my first semester in community college. I was able to take advanced literature courses due to my AP scores, so I landed in courses like Myth and Literature and World Literature. While not the best experiences due to outside factors, I adored the material and fell in love with “world” literature1. I read stuff like The Mahabharata, The Tale of Genji, The Songs of the Aztec Nobility, among others. I never got to build much on that knowledge due to it not really being my field plus I had limited resources at the time.
(As I type this, the first two volumes of The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1,001 Nights stare at me mournfully from my bookshelf. One day, I swear!)
Nevertheless, Gilgamesh always spoke to me, particularly because I had to read it twice that semester. One of the translations, by Maureen Gallery Kovacs, was available in my World Lit anthology, and I used it for both classes. I was supposed to use the Stephen Mitchell translation that had come out only like five years before, but I couldn’t be bothered, so I just used Kovacs for both classes. lol
So, as I return to texts that I hadn’t paid attention to in several years, I learn new stuff, which should always be the case. Apparently, new discoveries have been made on this ancient text, which involves finding new tablets that expand on and/or add to one of the current versions of the text Gilgamesh texts we have. One tablet was found that expands on the original Tablet V, describing the Cedar Forest and expands on the aftermath of Gilgamesh and Enkidu’s fight with Humbaba; another tablet was also found that expands on the old Babylonian version of Tablet II. And one tablet that was apparently sold to Hobby Lobby and later confiscated from the Museum of the Bible. These are, of course, the only ones I know about, too.
Anyway, a new version of the story of Gilgamesh keeps dropping every so often like it was the most recent iPhone update and I am here for it! It’s honestly kind of wild. Like, it’s almost like when you’re keeping up with a social media feud and you keep getting new information. And some of the stories of how these professors and scholars got the tablets are kind of wild?? Apparently, one was bought from a smuggler for like 800 bucks. So yeah, since my first time reading it, new info keeps popping up so I have to update myself2.
I guess now it’s more of an choice on what translation to read. I’m not exactly sure how much these new discoveries are impacting translations; obviously, the new information will allow for more text, but (according to my understanding, which may be very limited) there are at least two versions of the Gilgamesh text, so I doubt that all discoveries impact the translation of both versions. (I think that there’s at least the two: the incomplete Akkadian version and an older, more incomplete, Babylonian version, as I may have mentioned? But feel free to correct me!) That is, unless they’re doing the King Lear thing, where they jam all the versions together3. But then again, I know so little about this that I can’t even pretend to know wtf is happening. C’est la vie, etc.
As of right now, I’m considering going with the Sophus Helle translation, Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic, since it came out earlier this year. Plus, it seems like it might engage with some of my favored themes that pop up in the epic a little more thoroughly, when compared with other translations. I also considered the Norton Critical Edition, translated by Benjamin R. Foster, but there’s a lot of contextual information there and it might not be the best for me to actually read and not spend an abnormal amount of time on it. I still have a bunch of reading to do for my masters thesis that I need to get to4. #cry
So yeah, that’s where most of my time went today. Hopefully, the first week of the new year will find me engaging with some of my favored literature of my youth or whatever. It’s like, going back to my personal roots, almost.
Like a pallet cleanser.
A grand revival.
A homecoming!
This will be fun. :D
(Also, Happy New Year, everyone!!)
Basically, lit that wasn’t originally written in some form of English. Technically, I didn’t want to use the term Comparative Lit as it does not fit appropriately, since that is a field of study? But also like what else? Ugh. Whatever.
The translation by Kovacs I read originally is from 1989, apparently. It’s older than meeee.
Some versions of Shakespeare’s King Lear are products of scholars “creating” a new text by combining the Folio and the two Quarto versions of the play. If you’ve read the play, there’s a high chance that the version you’ve read is this conflated text.
I’m starting Jennifer Givhan’s River Woman, River Demon tonight, and delving into John Rechy’s Pablo! after that. No rest for a Raul this winter break. :(
Happy homecoming! Lol
You think you gonna dabble in translating works one day? 😮