The Epic of Gilgamesh. The great man who refused to die.
Gallimard| N° d'inventaire | 670 |
| Format | 14 x 22.5 |
| Détails | 300 p., paperback. |
| Publication | Paris, 1992 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9782070725830 |
Some thirty-five centuries old and far predating the Iliad and the Mahabharata, the Epic of Gilgamesh is the first known literary work whose breadth, strength, inspiration, height of vision and tone, the eminent and universal nature of its subject matter have earned, throughout the ancient Near East, a millennial celebrity and, in our judgment, the title of "epic." It tells the story of a great friendship, the source of superhuman successes, but which, tragically cut short by death, throws the survivor, the great king Gilgamesh, into a desperate but vain search for a means of escaping death. On its clay tablets, since the first fragments were found in the very cradle of Assyriology, less than one hundred and fifty years ago, the text of this fascinating composition has continued, year after year, to be supplemented by new discoveries, and to be better understood, replanted in its dense and deep native cultural humus.
Some thirty-five centuries old and far predating the Iliad and the Mahabharata, the Epic of Gilgamesh is the first known literary work whose breadth, strength, inspiration, height of vision and tone, the eminent and universal nature of its subject matter have earned, throughout the ancient Near East, a millennial celebrity and, in our judgment, the title of "epic." It tells the story of a great friendship, the source of superhuman successes, but which, tragically cut short by death, throws the survivor, the great king Gilgamesh, into a desperate but vain search for a means of escaping death. On its clay tablets, since the first fragments were found in the very cradle of Assyriology, less than one hundred and fifty years ago, the text of this fascinating composition has continued, year after year, to be supplemented by new discoveries, and to be better understood, replanted in its dense and deep native cultural humus.