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the first poet!
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Beliefnet welcomes you to this crossroads of Pagan and Heathen writing and sharing. We invite members to join in the word crafting here as well as in the virtual play. This is a protected forum for Pagans and Heathens. Others may participate as respectful guests. Attempts, no matter how courteous, to convert anyone to a different religious belief are not appropriate here. For more poetry visit Spiritual Poetry. Neighborhood Watch: Click to report a problem
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Messages: 1 - 3 (3 total)
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darkangel2
8/26/2005 6:10 PM
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1 out of 3 |
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I present to you the first poet and first writer by name within known history: Enheduanna!
Perhaps more a title than a name, "Enheduanna" means something like "High Priestess, Ornament of the Sky."
Enheduanna was born around 2300 BCE, though some scholars place her a little later, at circa 2285-2250 BCE.
Sumer and Akkad (Mesopotamian kingdoms) were united and ruled by Enheduanna's father. Enheduanna was Akkadian, but lived in the Sumerian city or Ur. This is in the part of the world that we now know as southern Iraq.
Enheduanna is the first writer known to have signed her name at the end of her writing. While archaeologists and historians have found plenty of examples of earlier writing, none have authors associated with them until Enheduanna's hymns.
In addition to signing her name, Enheduanna also identified herself as "I" in her writings. This is the first known identification of the "I" in a text with a specific person, thus -- as Alberto Manguel says in A History of Reading -- "creating a pseudo-fictional character, 'the author', for the reader to engage with." This is a technique still used by writers today.
Enheduanna was both a princess and a priestess. Her father was Sargon of Akkad, known as "Sargon the Great," a king who created a Mesopotamian empire uniting Sumer and Akkad around 2300 BC. Sargon made his daughter the high priestess of Sin, Sumerian god of the moon.
Most of Enheduanna's surviving works are hymns to the goddess Ishtar (daughter of the Moon), suggesting that her personal affiliation was to this goddess, even though she was officially a priestess of the moon god.
The best-known of Enheduanna's poems is "The Exhaltation of Ishtar," in which, for part of the poem, the goddess Ishtar is depicted in first person--as if the writer was, for a moment, speaking in the voice of the goddess.
In this hymn, Enheduanna gives the goddess a rank equal to that of Anu, the senior Sumerian god, and unites her goddess of love aspects with those of a stormy warrior goddess.
Another hymn, "In-nin-sa-gur-ra": A Hymn to the Goddess Ishtar by Enheduanna," is concerned with the role of the goddess in human life.
Below is a site that shows her most famous poem:
http://www.angelfire.com/mi/enheduanna/Ninmesara.html
It is a bit too large to write it all down here.
Enheduanna, is our first personal writer and poet, both a woman and a high priestess of Sumer. I think for all that she's brought us we pagans should be truelly greatful and proud to have her as our poetic beginning. She is very talented and emotional in her poetry, just see for yourself her powerful imagination and you'll be captivated by the intensity she reveals to her readers :)
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Adastra
8/26/2005 8:27 PM
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2 out of 3 |
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Ninmesara
Direct link for you to read
Patricia
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