Gilgamesh: A Verse Narrative
by Herbert Mason
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Book Summary Information
Author: Herbert MasonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003-07-08
ISBN: 0618275649
Number of pages: 128
Publisher: Mariner Books
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780618275649
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Gilgamesh: A Verse Narrative
Book Review: My First Introduction To Gilgamesh and Postmodern Poetics (from Ahadada Books)
Summary: 5 Stars
I picked up this book back in the early 1970's from a little card shop in 140 Village Shopping Center, Westminster, Maryland. The owner and his daughters were almost my family because I came back again and again to the small "classics" rack they had on the back wall of the shop, and I sometimes fantasize that they stocked the racks with me in mind. There I found cheap paperback editions of Shelley and Milton and Pope among others, and one day I noticed this wonderful book and bought it with my spare change for something like 50 cents. Not only did the story of Gilgamesh as retold by Mr. Mason grip me, but I was enthralled by the "easy" free verse of the lines. The simple prose narrative was made to look and "sound" somewhat like a poem by the way it was set up on the page. I recognized this same kind of sensibility at work much later when I read Charles Reznikoff's Testimony and his long poem on the Holocaust, and encountered Dennis Tedlock's exercises in ethnopoetic translation. In a sense, then, this was my introduction to a new kind of postmodern poetics, and for that this "verse narrative"--now appearing in its latest version from Mariner Books, and augmented by an autobiographical postscript by the author--holds an important place in my development.
On the other hand, it was not until I began reading Armand Schwerner's "Tablets" that I went back and began to investigate the more scholarly versions of Gilgamesh, and I discovered the extent to which Mr. Mason's narrative diverges from the original both in form and content. To get a real feeling for the true Gilgamesh I recommend the Andrew George translation (published by Penguin)of all the available versions and fragments. However, for a good introduction to Gilgamesh's quest to recover Enkidu from the dead suitable for high school classes or ESL college classes, I would suggest this one. Indeed, I plan to use this book in future in my comparative literature classes in Japan. Mason's description of Gilgamesh's grief retold in such plain language is very understandable to students at all levels, and very moving.
Summary of Gilgamesh: A Verse Narrative
Herbert Mason's best-selling Gilgamesh is the most widely read and enduring interpretation of this ancient Babylonian epic. One of the oldest and most universal stories known in literature, the epic of Gilgamesh presents the grand, timeless themes of love and death, loss and reparations within the stirring tale of a hero-king and his doomed friend. A finalist for the National Book Award, Mason's retelling is at once a triumph of scholarship, a masterpiece of style, and a labor of love that grew out of the poet's long affinity with the original.
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