S and D: Translations of Homer

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I'm going to read the Iliad and Odyssey. But which ones? I figured the Pope translations would be definitive and great, but it turns out they're quite hard to find. Does this mean it's not the best translation?

― Maxwell von Bismarck (maxwell von bismarck), Saturday, 24 July 2004 18:27 (twenty-one years ago)

i like robert fitzgerald's, if you're into verse translations

― s1ocki (slutsky), Saturday, 24 July 2004 19:10 (twenty-one years ago)

If you want an easy to read prose one, try the E.V. Rieu.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 24 July 2004 19:15 (twenty-one years ago)

The E. V. Rieu translation is good, yes. Penguin also do a newer translation which claims to be closer to the original Greek in its phrasing.

― caitlin (caitlin), Saturday, 24 July 2004 19:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Mine is Robert Fagles, I think? Seems good but I haven't read any others

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Saturday, 24 July 2004 19:22 (twenty-one years ago)

I have the Fagles translations as well, and I enjoy them.

― Ian c=====8 (orion), Saturday, 24 July 2004 19:24 (twenty-one years ago)

The most informed, musical, and accurate modern translation (especially for the Illiad) is by R. Lattimore. Along with either a good classics professor or the critical companion volume(s), this is the next best thing to singing it in Greek. Passages like the catalogue of ships, and the repetition of certain phrases/names are much more interesting/amusing when you know why they are included.

Fitzgerald's translation doesn't retain the hexameter of the original greek, but it is also a good translation, and you may find it more engrossing than Lattimore. Compare passages and read the introductions/notes in both before you decide which you prefer.

Fagles relies heavily on contemporary colloquial speech, and too often sacrifices the beauty and simplicity of language in the Greek in an effort to have the dialogue and narrative "make sense" to modern readers.

Pope's translation is beautiful, but has been criticized for excessively dressing up Homeric language, though many people consider this the best translation.

If you are reading a prose translation, you are not reading the Illiad but about the Illiad, as prose is a vehicle as far removed from ancient Greek oratory as film.

― Ryan McKay (Ryan McKay), Saturday, 24 July 2004 22:23 (twenty-one years ago)

That was most helpful, Ryan. Thanks!

― Maxwell von Bismarck (maxwell von bismarck), Sunday, 25 July 2004 00:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Can't I just read the Cliff Notes or see the movie?

What?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 25 July 2004 00:18 (twenty-one years ago)

I can't wait until high school sophmores are writing papers based on the movie Troy.

― Ian c=====8 (orion), Sunday, 25 July 2004 00:33 (twenty-one years ago)

It came out before finals this year, it's probably already happened!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 25 July 2004 00:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Reaaallllyy? You don't think their professors warned them about it? I wish there were proof, damnit.

― Ian c=====8 (orion), Sunday, 25 July 2004 00:37 (twenty-one years ago)

If I were an instructor, I would say nothing about the film per se but I would include a trick question or two they had to answer somehow.

"Describe in detail the activities of Zeus and Hera in Book IV."

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 25 July 2004 00:39 (twenty-one years ago)

i read lattimore's, it was good.

― Miss Lonelyhearts (Jaromil), Sunday, 25 July 2004 00:56 (twenty-one years ago)

The three I consistently hear about are Fagles, Fitzgerald, and Lattimore.

I looked at some chapters from them side by side, and I ended up choosing Fagles for my first go-around with Homer. (I'm actually just about to start Iliad next week.)

Lattimore seems too stilted to me, and Fitzgerald is decent but eh. I thought Fitzgerald's Aeneid was a bit mediocre too, so not surprising. But I guess maybe this is one of those works that really needs to be re-read in several translations to really get a feel for the original lying somewhere in between all the translations.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Sunday, 25 July 2004 01:47 (twenty-one years ago)

ten years pass...

Chapman? Which I have a copy of.

An example is when I moved to New York after getting my MFA in Iowa City. I’d lived here not that long—maybe a month. And one day I walked into this coffee shop wearing these bright green pants. The guy behind the counter said, “Nice pants! Where did you get those?”
I told him I got them in Iowa City. He was like, “Where’s that?”
And I said, “Um, it’s in eastern Iowa.”
“Oh,” he said, “I thought it was a store.”
That was the oar moment.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/05/by-heart-writing-means-wandering-into-the-unknown/393602/

― xyzzzz__, Friday, 5 June 2015 20:43 (ten years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsG_yPKAor4

― he quipped with heat (amateurist), Friday, 5 June 2015 21:12 (ten years ago)

i went crazy for lattimore's iliad last year. the stiltedness people talk about was just alien enough; the repetition was incantatory. not much to compare it to tho as i'd previously only read a prose translation (dunno which one; it was an old penguin).

― difficult listening hour, Friday, 5 June 2015 21:20 (ten years ago)

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