/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.1378987]

Soooo. How exactly does one attempt to read The Epic of Gilgamesh? Like, what's the best translation, should I get a annotated edition, do I need to read up on the history of Mesopotamia before reading?

I only want to read it for my own enjoyment, so I won't need to analyze it or study it in depth. I'm basically just interested in the story.

[McAwesome No.1379007]

>I only want to read it for my own enjoyment, so I won't need to analyze it or study it in depth. I'm basically just interested in the story.

Then there's not much point. It's not.. a riveting tale. Nor is it complete. They've only been able to recover bits and pieces.

When we covered it at my college, we just went with the Penguin edition. But seriously, Gilgamesh is really about how to treat your bros and a little bit of origin story for the world, why it rains, that kind of thing. I'm not going to tell you to read it, but I'm telling you not to expect an epic tale. Or a complete tale.

[Anonymous No.1379037]

With no previous knowledge of the story or its history, I read Stephen Mitchell's translation. It was a great translation in that I found it very understandable and straight-forward. I imagine that from a translator or scholarly point of view, the adaption butchers a lot of the subtle phrases, but since I was interested in reading the story, not studying it, it was perfect.

>>1379007
I read it out of curiosity, and ended up enjoying it. The thing I found most interesting was seeing how little stories similar to the ones in Gilgamesh have changed over time.