Items15The creator’s order
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The Epic of Gilgamesh (2006)★ 7.3/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2006Begin with Gilgamesh and Enkidu’s expedition to the Cedar Forest in Andrew George’s Penguin Classics translation. It makes the pair’s appetite for adventure easy to grasp. Later, when Gilgamesh goes looking for Uta-napishti, keep that earlier expedition in mind. The same king now travels because…0 - 2
The Conference of the BirdsStart with the birds’ excuses for staying home. Each has a reason to avoid the search for the Simorgh, and the hoopoe replies with stories of its own. Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis’s Penguin edition uses rhyming couplets, which lend themselves to reading one bird’s exchange at a time before…0 - 3
Sunjata: A West African Epic of the Mande PeoplesDavid C. Conrad’s Hackett edition follows a performance by the Mande storyteller Djanka Tassey Condé. Look for the episode in which a party goes to find the exiled Sunjata and bring him back to Manden. The publisher also has a recording of Condé’s opening, so you can hear how an answering voice…0 - 4
Omeros (1990)★ 4.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 1990Start with the fishermen in Saint Lucia, then follow Achille’s visionary passage to Africa in Book Three. His conversation with Afolabe about his name gives a personal scale to a voyage across centuries. The Farrar, Straus and Giroux edition presents Walcott’s original English poem, whose…0 - 5
The Ramayana (1829)Published Jan 1, 1829Begin with Rama’s exile and follow how it turns into the search for Sita after Ravana takes her. The Macmillan Collector’s Library edition uses Romesh C. Dutt’s abridged verse translation, with an introduction by Arshia Sattar. Try Book Eight, where Hanuman crosses to Lanka and finds Sita, for a…0 - 6
The Popol VuhMichael Bazzett’s verse translation for Milkweed Editions is a way into the K’iche’ Maya creation epic. Start with the Hero Twins and their journey to Xibalba. The ball games and night trials give you a series of contests to follow, while the repeated challenges show how much of the twins’ strength…0 - 7
The Kalevala (1990)★ 9.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 1990Keith Bosley’s Oxford World’s Classics translation gives you numbered songs to follow through the Finnish epic Lönnrot assembled from oral poetry. Try the forging of the Sampo in Song 10, then the attempt to take it from the North in Songs 39 and 42–43. You can follow this one object from invention…0 - 8
the aeneid (1958)Published Jan 1, 1958Begin in Book Two, where Aeneas tells how he escaped the fall of Troy. In Book Six he meets his father again among the dead, and his arrival in Italy begins to look like the start of a future beyond his own life. Robert Fagles’s Penguin Classics verse translation makes those two books a good route…0 - 9
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1992)★ 6.8/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 1992Simon Armitage’s Norton verse translation sets a simple deadline. Gawain takes a swing at the Green Knight and has to seek him out for a return blow a year and a day later. Follow the road from Camelot to the winter castle and then to the Green Chapel, keeping an eye on the promises Gawain picks up…0 - 10
The divine comedy (1910)Published Jan 1, 1910Allen Mandelbaum’s Everyman’s Library volume takes you through all three parts of Dante’s journey. Read the opening canto of each part as a threshold, from the dark wood to the shore of Purgatory and on to the ascent with Beatrice. Then go back to the beginning and see how much the traveler has to…0
