A01=David Ferry
akkadia
Akkadian poetry
ancient poems
Assyria
Assyrian poetry
Author_David Ferry
Babylon
Babylonian poetry
bilgamesh
Category=DBS
Category=DCF
classic literature
classic poetry
epic of Gilgamesh
epic poems
Epic poetry
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_poetry
forthcoming
izdubar
poetry translations
sumeria
Sumerian kings
Sumerian poetry
translated epic poetry
translated poetry
verse translations
Product details
- ISBN 9781250437594
- Weight: 96g
- Dimensions: 213 x 138mm
- Publication Date: 22 Jun 2026
- Publisher: St Martin's Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Gilgamesh is the story of the godlike ruler of the ancient Mesopotamian city Uruk. The start of the poem finds Gilgamesh as a brutal tyrant, whose potency is unmatched and unchecked. The god Aruru fashions him a match, a wild man called Enkidu, who fights the ruler but soon becomes Gilgamesh’s beloved companion and friend. The story of their shared heroism, the pain of Enkidu’s untimely death, and of Gilgamesh’s quest for immortality was told across a series of cuneiform clay tablets. It is said to be the oldest recorded literary work.
David Ferry’s elegant verse rendering transmutes the ancient epic into the language of our time. Much like Robert Fitzgerald’s Odyssey or Seamus Heaney’s Beowulf, Ferry’s Gilgamesh is a work whose poetic invention and lyrical rendering makes new that which is ancient, and draws forth the antique echoes that persist in our moment.
David Ferry (1924-2023) was a poet and translator. His translation of Gilgamesh was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry, and he was honored with the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, given by the Academy of American Poets; the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, given by the Library of Congress; and an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He translated, among other works, the Epistles of Horace, and both Virgil's Georgics and Eclogues. Ferry was the Sophie Chantal Hart Professor of English Emeritus at Wellesley College.
