Gilgamesh: A Reader - Softcover

Maier, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0865163391 ISBN 13: 9780865163393

Publisher: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, 1998

Synopsis

Gilgamesh is the best-known story of the Sumerian hero that has survived from antiquity. Dating from the mid-2nd millenium BC it tells stories of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, adventurer and searcher for the meaning of life, friend of the man from the wilderness, Enkidu. This book adds to current debates on the influence of the epic on western literature.

About this title

About the Author

John Maier received his Ph.D. in English from Duquesne University. His other books include: The Bible in its Literary Milieu (1980), Gilgamesh with John Gardner and Richard A. Henshaw (1984), Myths of Enki, The Crafty God with Samual Noah Kramer (1989), Mappings of the Biblical Terrain: The Bible as Text with Vincent L. Tollers (1990), and Desert Songs: Western Images of Morocco and Moroccan Images of the West (1996). In addition, Maier has published 35 articles and 58 papers and is listed in International Men of Achievement, Dictionary of International Biography, Who's Who in Biblical Studies and Archaeology, and Who's Who in American Education. He has completed postdoctoral studies in ancient Sumerian and Akkadian literature in cuneiform, the concept of 'other' in literature and the social sciences, intensive Modern Standard Arabic, and Moroccan Arabic.

From the Back Cover

Gilgamesh, sometimes called The Epic of Gilgamesh, is the best-known story of the Sumerian hero that has survived from antiquity. It has been known since 1872, when a large part of the narrative, written in cuneiform Akkadian, was discovered in the Assyrian city of Nineveh (near Mosul in what is now Iraq). It dates from the mid-second millennium B.C.E. The text created a sensation because it contains a version of the flood, better known from the Bible. Since its discovery,Gilgamesh has been the subject of many hundreds of studies and commentaries.

Gilgamesh: A Reader brings together a selection of twenty-five essays in English that have appeared since the publication of Jeffrey H. Tigay's The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic in 1982. Tigay's work synthesized a century of scholarly debate about the various Gilgamesh stories and it very quickly changed the direction of literary studies of Gilgamesh. The bibliography, like the essays themselves, includes the work of specialists in Assyriology and of nonspecialists as well - from Freudian and Jungian analysts, classicists and biblical scholars, creative writers and composers to students of gender and culture, myth and literature, even travel literature.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0865163391
• ISBN 13: 9780865163393
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 491