In September 2022, an odd series of events, unrelated by reference but closely situated in time, brought the ancient story of Gilgamesh into my field of vision for the very first time. How interesting, I thought, that as a lover of stories and an avid baby academic, I had never thought to ask the question, “what was the very first story?” I suppose the universe got tired of waiting for me to ask and sent the answer anyway.
I am not ashamed to admit that I had never heard of this work before that day – or at least I don’t remember ever hearing of it before. As I considered its place in my already basket exploding, laundry list of projects, it occurred to me that it may make a better subject for my thesis than A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man. It also occurred to me that this could be much more interesting with a group.
I set out to create such a group; a few close friends, others who I only know loosely, and a few of my children agreed to begin the journey with me. That day is tomorrow and I could not be more excited.
This page will serve as my bucket to drop all the things I find along the way. I make no promises of organization or coherency, of course, I hope it will either be that or become that. If you would like to join us, we would love to have you. If the time has past but you want to talk about it, I am always around.
This is the translation we are using by Stephen Mitchell. I didn’t do a whole lot of research into which translation to use, so discussion on versions and their differences would be interesting. However, one of the readers is an academic I respect and she insists this translation is lovely. What do I know? So, I went with it.
Additionally (and not so academically) I found this cover particularly pleasing. I know it shouldn’t matter, but there it is.
I am using a Shmoop syllabus as a general guide
12/21/22 Update: My life does what it does, and again I have over-committed. This project is not going as planned. Initially, there was to be a discussion forum and weekly meetups. Making that work across all possible platforms never seemed to work itself out. I am regrouping and trying to figure it out. Stay tuned!
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