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Ugh I have had nothing but poor experiences with Loebs, at least for Roman authors. It is quite a feat to make Tacitus sound like some flowery and long-winded 1
by voldacar 6y ago
Ugh I have had nothing but poor experiences with Loebs, at least for Roman authors. It is quite a feat to make Tacitus sound like some flowery and long-winded 19th century academic, but they pulled it off somehow. Reading it in the original Latin several years later, I was pleasantly surprised by his unadorned clarity and conciseness
- svat 6y agoCorrect me if I'm wrong, but isn't the whole point of the Loeb books that the original is right there on the facing page, so that both the original Greek/Latin and the English translation can be read together? I guess in principle the translation could be read independently, ignoring the original (and that's what it seems you're saying you did), but just from the format of the Loeb books I've always thought of the translation as some sort of helper/guide best consumed along with the source text.
- voldacar 6y agoYeah at the time I read the English translation, I was just starting to learn Latin and had only the most basic proficiency.