Books by Sophus Helle (translator)
“Gilgamesh is a hero in the ancient mould. He’s half-god, enormously strong, a bit randy, a bit dim, and he goes through adventures which embody the human experience writ large. He starts off as the king of a small kingdom, making a nuisance of himself – enforcing droit du seigneur, sleeping with women on their marriage night, pushing other men around, being a bit of an arse. So the gods make a rival to him in strength, a wild man. They fight, realise neither can win, then become best friends and go off on all sorts of adventures. They kill all sorts of ogres and beasts, until the gods think this is getting a bit much and decide Gilgamesh’s friend has to die. It’s then that Gilgamesh realises the truth of mortality. He sees his friend die, and thinks if this heroic human being, the strongest of the strong, can die, that means I’m going to die too. He faces his own mortality, and it’s terrifying. He leaves his kingdom and roams the wilderness, looking desperately for some solution to the problem of mortality.” Read more...
Stephen Cave, Philosopher
Interviews where books by Sophus Helle (translator) were recommended
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1
The Literature of Ancient Sumer
by Jeremy Black et al. -
2
The Epic of Gilgamesh
by Anonymous & Sophus Helle (translator) -
3
The Tale of Sinuhe and other Ancient Egyptian Poems
by Anonymous & translated by Richard Parkinson -
4
The Rigveda
by Anonymous & translated by Stephanie Jamison and Joel Brereton -
5
Book of Songs (Shi-Jing)
by Anonymous & translated by James Trapp
The World’s Oldest Books, recommended by Tuva Kahrs
The World’s Oldest Books, recommended by Tuva Kahrs
Since cuneiform symbols were first used on clay tablets 5,000 years ago, humans have been recording not only information, but also stories. Some of the oldest writings were works of literature that speak to us across the millennia and continue to be published as books today. Five Books contributing editor Tuva Kahrs brings you five of the oldest books that have made it all the way from clay tablet or papyrus scroll to printed edition or e-book, influencing countless generations of readers and writers.
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1
The Odyssey
by Homer and translated by Emily Wilson -
2
The Mahabharata
by Anonymous & translated and abridged by John D. Smith -
3
The Epic of Gilgamesh
by Anonymous & Sophus Helle (translator) -
4
Paradise Lost
by John Milton -
5
The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso
by Dante Alighieri -
6
Pharsalia
by Jane Wilson Joyce (translator) & Marcus Annaeus Lucanus
Epic Poems
Epic Poems
Epic poems are amongst the first works of literature that survive, the earliest poems—like the Epic of Gilgamesh—likely part of oral traditions that were written down only after writing developed from the third millennium BCE. Later writers often took inspiration from earlier works and poems like Homer’s Iliad have had a huge impact on Western literature into the 21st century.
The best books on Immortality, recommended by Stephen Cave
Will it be possible to live forever? Is there such a thing as the soul, or immortality in one’s legacy? Stephen Cave, philosopher and author of Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization, explores the eternal questions, from elixirs of life to modern-day cryonics.
