The Life of a Poem “Gilgamesh” by Michael Schmidt

For starters, if you are not familiar with the poem of Gilgamesh, then its well worth finding out at least the general plotline - multiple formats exist, since this is the oldest written poem in the world.

Wiki - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilgamesh

What Michael Schmidt does a good job in this book is pointing out and repeatedly so - that the poem, in its origins itself is incomplete and mysterious. It is gleaned from 12 clay tablets which are fragmented and incomplete. The languages used are dead and lost - so a lot of context is lost as well. Assyriologists have made a lot of progress trying to recover these from antiquity using archaeological, linguistic and other historical sources, but a lot of it still remains shrouded by the shadow cast by the vagaries of father Time. 

In addition to that, a lot of scholars have put out translations and discourses of Gilgamesh - and that almost all of these seem to have the author / historians own interpretation / lens / biases streaming in. Schmidt keeps the reader honest with what is in the original tablets (with current limitations regarding the language) compared to the embellishments provided by translations, even rigorous academic ones. 

And that was the illumination provided by Schmidt in this book - when you are reading something as unique as Gilgamesh, you are not just absorbing it as a work of literature. It is possibly a religio-cultural text, a historical anthology condensed from oral into written form, and because of the missing pieces - provides enough space for the reader to step into the poem and start filling out the blanks as they please. 

This is exciting and a little risky at the same time - as Schmidt points out. Because we are trying to learn more about Assyrian and Babylonian history, we use any available text as some flashlight in the dark. At the same time, Gilgamesh is inviting, in fact begging the reader and the audience as it were, to immerse themselves into the poetry and make themselves part of the narrative - since no poet or scribe is mentioned in any of the 12 tablets and the poem is not written from a poets perspective. 

So where does that leave me at the end of it? I am energised to read the poem of Gilgamesh myself, in its many different versions and translations - and decide for myself. There is the added spice of its connection to the Indian subcontinent vis-a-vis the Mahabharata and Ramayana - some of it very apparent, when you read the story.

There seems to be enough space in the original, due to the missing pieces, for me to imagine and sketch out the lives of other characters like Shamhat and Humbaba - what would their lives have been like? Who do they represent and who represents them? 

Thank you Michael Schmidt. Picking this book was a happy accident. One which I wouldn’t mind having more of in the future. 

I first heard of the poem of Gilgamesh listening to Dan Carlin on his outstanding podcast - https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-56-kings-kings/. I cannot urge you strongly enough to listen to Dan Carlin’s work. 

Which somehow led me to borrowing this book from the Cary Memorial Library in Lexington MA, part of the Minuteman Library Network. 

Caveats : I am not well versed in classical poetry or academic appreciation/criticism of poetry. The language in such texts is, to me, irritating at the very least and abhorrent at its worst. That’s obviously not to say that it has no value - as this current book renders very well. Also, academics argue with each other constantly or in other words “peer review” each other publicly and this leads to not less confusion for any layperson.