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I always liked Samuel Butler's idea in The Authoress of the Odyssey that the Odyssey was written by a woman. I'm looking forward to Wilson's translation. https

I always liked Samuel Butler's idea in The Authoress of the Odyssey that the Odyssey was written by a woman. I'm looking forward to Wilson's translation. https://www.kenyonreview.org/2013/09/authoress-odyssey/ https://www.kenyonreview.org/2013/09/authoress-odyssey/ My favorite Iliad is Lattimore. I've tried others (Fagles, Green, Lombardo) and always come back to Lattimore. I remember when I first read it, my prof said we didn't have to read the Catalog of the Ships. I actually love that section now. It's like the opening credits. My favorite Odyssey is Fitzgerald. Fagles is good too. Now if you want a deeply bad translation, a fraud really, Mitchell is the worst. He leaves out chapters. Edward Luttwak ripped it apart. https://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n04/edward-luttwak/homer-inc https://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n04/edward-luttwak/homer-inc

slowmovintarget 9y ago
+1 for Lattimore's Iliad I tried to read Fagles' and kept going back to Lattimore's. For the Odyssey though, Fagles' translation was very good.
thinkingemote 9y ago
I'm going to speak up for Stephen Mitchell's work. I spent a good hour in the bookshop comparing translations and his rang truest, read easiest and sounded more lyical in a way. It wasnt dry and accurate or academic that's for sure but it was in the common tongue. Also his missing chapters were included at the end as appendices and his reasons were given for that inclusion.
justin66 9y ago
You might find this interview with Fagles (who was acquainted with Fitzgerald, it turns out) as interesting as I did: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/930/robert-fagles-the-art-of-translation-no-2-robert-fagles https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/930/robert-fagles-...
jrumbut 9y ago
Lattimore's Illiad is incredible, it leaves some of those confusing words and phrases in (famously, the numerous characters who speak "winged words") and it reminds you this is the product of a civilization that isn't yours, who had very different values yet remain very human.
- dEnigma 9y ago
  Interesting, "geflügelte Worte"(winged words) is a quite common expression in German (meaning, and I have to repeat myself here, "a commonly used expression of literary or historical origin"), but I never realized it originally came from the Illiad. https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geflügeltes_Wort https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geflügeltes_Wort
madhadron 9y ago
My father read classics at Cambridge, and claims that Fitzgerald's Odyssey is the one he knew of that most captured the Greek.

slowmovintarget 9y ago

+1 for Lattimore's Iliad I tried to read Fagles' and kept going back to Lattimore's. For the Odyssey though, Fagles' translation was very good.

thinkingemote 9y ago

I'm going to speak up for Stephen Mitchell's work. I spent a good hour in the bookshop comparing translations and his rang truest, read easiest and sounded more lyical in a way. It wasnt dry and accurate or academic that's for sure but it was in the common tongue. Also his missing chapters were included at the end as appendices and his reasons were given for that inclusion.

justin66 9y ago

You might find this interview with Fagles (who was acquainted with Fitzgerald, it turns out) as interesting as I did: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/930/robert-fagles-the-art-of-translation-no-2-robert-fagles https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/930/robert-fagles-...

jrumbut 9y ago

Lattimore's Illiad is incredible, it leaves some of those confusing words and phrases in (famously, the numerous characters who speak "winged words") and it reminds you this is the product of a civilization that isn't yours, who had very different values yet remain very human.

dEnigma 9y ago
Interesting, "geflügelte Worte"(winged words) is a quite common expression in German (meaning, and I have to repeat myself here, "a commonly used expression of literary or historical origin"), but I never realized it originally came from the Illiad. https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geflügeltes_Wort https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geflügeltes_Wort

madhadron 9y ago

My father read classics at Cambridge, and claims that Fitzgerald's Odyssey is the one he knew of that most captured the Greek.