Gilgamesh among us : modern encounters with the ancient epic
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Gilgamesh among us : modern encounters with the ancient epic
Cornell University Press, 2011
Available at 2 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p.[207]-220) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
The world's oldest work of literature, the Epic of Gilgamesh recounts the adventures of the semimythical Sumerian king of Uruk and his ultimately futile quest for immortality after the death of his friend and companion, Enkidu, a wildman sent by the gods. Gilgamesh was deified by the Sumerians around 2500 BCE, and his tale as we know it today was codified in cuneiform tablets around 1750 BCE and continued to influence ancient cultures-whether in specific incidents like a world-consuming flood or in its quest structure-into Roman times. The epic was, however, largely forgotten, until the cuneiform tablets were rediscovered in 1872 in the British Museum's collection of recently unearthed Mesopotamian artifacts. In the decades that followed its translation into modern languages, the Epic of Gilgamesh has become a point of reference throughout Western culture.
In Gilgamesh among Us, Theodore Ziolkowski explores the surprising legacy of the poem and its hero, as well as the epic's continuing influence in modern letters and arts. This influence extends from Carl Gustav Jung and Rainer Maria Rilke's early embrace of the epic's significance-"Gilgamesh is tremendous!" Rilke wrote to his publisher's wife after reading it-to its appropriation since World War II in contexts as disparate as operas and paintings, the poetry of Charles Olson and Louis Zukofsky, novels by John Gardner and Philip Roth, and episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Xena: Warrior Princess.
Ziolkowski sees fascination with Gilgamesh as a reflection of eternal spiritual values-love, friendship, courage, and the fear and acceptance of death. Noted writers, musicians, and artists from Sweden to Spain, from the United States to Australia, have adapted the story in ways that meet the social and artistic trends of the times. The spirit of this capacious hero has absorbed the losses felt in the immediate postwar period and been infused with the excitement and optimism of movements for gay rights, feminism, and environmental consciousness. Gilgamesh is at once a seismograph of shifts in Western history and culture and a testament to the verities and values of the ancient epic.
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Story * The Text * The Rediscovery * The Early Translations1. The Initial Reception (1884-1935)
The First Literarization * Babel and Bible * The German Connection * The Spread of the Epic2. Representative Beginnings (1941-1958)
Modes of Modernization * Four Poets in English * Four German Initiatives * A Major German Thematization * The First Musical Settings3. The Popularization of Gilgamesh (1959-1978)
Poetic Adaptations * The First Fictionalization * The Gay Gilgamesh * Gilgamesh and the Philosophers * A Comic Interlude * Three American Fictional Exuberances * The Operatic Gilgamesh4. The Contemporization of Gilgamesh (1979-1999)
New Contexts * Gilgamesh Psychoanalyzed * Gilgamesh Deconstructed * Gilgamesh Historicized * Gilgamesh Drums for the Greens * Gilgamesh Postfigured * Gilgamesh Personalized * Gilgamesh Hispanicized * Gilgameshiana * Gilgamesh at Millennium's End5. Gilgamesh in the Twenty-First Century (2000-2009)
Poetic Versions in English and French * A New Focus * Gilgamesh as Ritual Drama * Two Fictional Re-Visions * The Politicization of GilgameshConclusionChronology
Notes
Index
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