The Literature of Ancient Sumer compiled and translated by Jeramy Black, Graham Cunningham, Eleanor Robson, and Gábor Zólyomi is the book that officially starts my Literature of the World Project. What follows are my thoughts on the introduction to this book. It alone makes up 51 pages. Though I have briefly outlined my intentions with the project in the past, I will continue to share further details as to why I have wanted to do this as this project unfolds. I begin reading at 10:08 PM, Wednesday, November 18. Unless I feel some need to I will not typically post these entries to Facebook beyond this first post.
Phase 1, Section 1: The Literature of Ancient Sumer
This book was published in 2004 and its compilers have stated that it contains 70 literary works from ancient Sumer. That makes up about a fifth of the known corpus. They chose these seventy works based on their evaluations of what were the most extent works and also what they deemed the most interesting. The way it is written I am under the impression that the remaining corpus in its entirety can be found at <http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk>. That would be The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature.
Before I go any further I want to make it a point that I am simply writing my thoughts as I read. There is no other structure to this than that.
The first thing I want to point out, aside from their explanations of what literature actually is and comparing Sumerian literature with modern day poetry, is a word that I found a few pages in that I was unfamiliar with. This word is "scansion" and this is the definition from dictionary.reference.com
noun, Prosody.
1.
the metrical analysis of verse. The usual marks for scansion are ˘ for a short or unaccented syllable, ¯ or · for a long or accented syllable, ^ for a rest, | for a foot division, and ‖ for a caesura or pause.
I will have to see this word used more often to really get a handle on how to use it properly. Also, I, because I simply cannot help myself, am going to continually note words that I am unfamiliar with throughout this project, as I have just done.
Speaking of unfamiliar words, "levigate" means to reduce (a substance) to a fine powder or smooth paste. This is what was done to river mud before making the tablets to be written on.
It was about at this point(page 13 of the 51 page introduction) that I decided to move on to the first section titled Heroes and Kings. I justified it because I had already read the introduction about a year ago and in all honesty was quite bored with it.
These works that I am about to delve into are not based in chronological order or from where they were found, but rather by theme, as you can tell by the first section title.
Essentially the whole of the introduction went into depth on how Sumerian writing, being even four or so thousand years old is still considered literature even though it is so far removed from our modern understanding of literary works. It went into detail of how poems were in ancient Sumer and contrasted one, The Axe with a modern poem London Airport. It was all very interesting to be sure, but I am not that interested in re-reading fifty or so pages of it.
Some days I won't be able to read much, but I do intend to post everyday to my Literature Blog, starting this very night, everyday, that is, until section 1 is finished. That would be Sumerian, Egyptian, Akkadian, and Hittite literature.
And to be sure, this isn't strictly chronologically focused. I want there to be a very loose feel to what I write. Essentially, I want to write anything that I feel like writing at the time. There is just the general rule that this follows a chronological literary path but it really is governed by my mind, a mind that has found little favor in the realms of academia, yet at the same time one that feels at ease relaxing on the sparsely populated top floor of the library at UVU as I read.
I don't intend to spend an inordinate amount of time editing or reviewing these posts. I just assume that I'll get better writing quickly as time goes by.
Well, here is to another very loosely planned project that I hope will be beneficial to me somehow in the long run. Who am I kidding? I'm so excited to be underway with this. I could care less or couldn't care less(whichever one you know is the one that I mean) about the criticism pertaining to my chosen path less traveled. Would it be lying if I told those who asked about my academic endeavors that I was studying Ancient Literature at UVU? I find myself there quite often, as I said, on the top floor of the library.
Goodnight.