02965cam a2200493 i 4500 429706986 TxAuBib 20200716120000.0 060320s2006||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 2004050072 9780743261692 paperback 0743261690 paperback TxAuBib rda Gilgamesh English. Gilgamesh [PBK] : a new English version / Stephen Mitchell. First Free Press trade paperback edition. New York : Free Press, 2006. 290 pages ; 22 cm. txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier Includes bibliographical references (pages 284-285). Acclaimed translator Stephen Mitchell's superlative translation of this masterpiece of world literature allows us to see how startlingly beautiful, intelligent, and alive it is. His insightful introduction provides a historical, spiritual, and cultural context for this ancient epic, showing that Gilgamesh is more potent and fascinating than ever. Gilgamesh dates from as early as 1700 BCE -- a thousand years before the Iliad. Lost for almost two millennia, the eleven clay tablets on which the epic was inscribed were discovered in 1853 in the ruins of Nineveh, and the text was not deciphered and fully translated until the end of the century. The epic is the story of literature's first hero -- the king of Uruk in what is present-day Iraq -- and his journey of self-discovery. Along the way, Gilgamesh discovers that friendship can bring peace to a whole city, that a preemptive attack on a monster can have dire consequences, and that wisdom can be found only when the quest for it is abandoned. In giving voice to grief and the fear of death -- perhaps more powerfully than any book written after it -- in portraying love and vulnerability and the ego's hopeless striving for immortality, the epic has become a personal testimony for millions of readers in dozens of languages. 20200716. Gilgamesh (Legendary character) Legends. Epic poetry, Assyro-Babylonian Translations into English. Folklore Iraq. Giants Fiction. Fellowship Fiction. Male friendship fiction. Immortality Fiction. Grief in men Fiction. Adventure stories. Fear of death Fiction. Iraq History To 634 Fiction. Fiction. History. Legends. Translations. Kings and rulers fiction. Mitchell, Stephen, 1943- https://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/description/simon051/2004050072.html https://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0641/2004050072-s.html