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I can warmly recommend the new Iliad translation by Caroline Alexander as audiobook. Suberb! I understand the new translation by Emily Wilson (whose Odyssey was

by fsloth 3y ago

I can warmly recommend the new Iliad translation by Caroline Alexander as audiobook. Suberb! I understand the new translation by Emily Wilson (whose Odyssey was excellent) should be good as well. The new translations really bring these old poems to life, and listening to them is at least for me the best way to consume them.

qohen 3y ago
Thanks for the recommendations, fsloth. For anyone interested in this, I found a couple of excerpts of Caroline Alexander's Iliad translation[0] that were published in The Guardian as well as an article by Emily Wilson (the Odyssey translator also mentioned above) about the engagement of female scholars and translators with the classics[1]. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/09/new-translation-of-the-iliad-by-caroline-alexander-extract https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/09/new-translatio... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jul/07/women-classics-translation-female-scholars-translators https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jul/07/women-classics...
deleted 3y ago
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jsmith99 3y ago
These are good, but to really bring them to life I recommend Christopher Logue, whose version doesn't even pretend to be a translation. There are some nice excerpts in his obituary in The Economist https://archive.ph/eaCKf https://archive.ph/eaCKf
- jaycharliebee 3y ago
  I heartily recommend Logue's adaptation too! I'm not a regular poetry reader, nor a reader of the classics but his version really opened my mind to those worlds. I enjoy writers like Samuel Beckett and the weirder, darker end of sci-fi/fantasy (e.g. B. Catling's The Voorh), and Logue's War Music really just seemed to fit right into my taste.
- fsloth 3y ago
  Oh, brilliant, I definetly need to get a hold of Logues translation. Thanks!
- anavette 3y ago
  Came here to recommend this. You can find a longer excerpt here: https://www.uvm.edu/~jbailly/courses/HomerTranslation/LogueWarMusicIliad16.pdf https://www.uvm.edu/~jbailly/courses/HomerTranslation/LogueW...
Red_Tarsius 3y ago
I disagree about Emily Wilson's Odissey. She translated the first line of the poem as "Tell me about a complicated man". She almost went with "Tell me about a straying husband". Neither complicated nor straying husband appear in the original text. Pope's description (The man for wisdom’s various arts renown’d...) is closer to the epithets we are taught at school (ricco d'astuzie or dal multiforme ingegno). πολύτροπος means resourceful, of many skills, well-travelled. That's the first line and complicated tells us nothing about the protagonist. Everyone can be complicated, but only Odysseus is πολύτροπον. It's a quality of character few people possess. Original comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25525457#25531307 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25525457#25531307
- neaden 3y ago
  This complaint seems odd. First complicated is obviously not in the original text, it's in Greek. I guess what you mean is "No words I would translate as complicated are in the text" but then your complaint just becomes a tautology. Saying Pope's version from the 1700s is more like what you were taught in school is similar, it's probably the version you or your teachers read so it shaped what you were taught. Essentially this comes down to saying it's different, but that doesn't make it bad.
  - Red_Tarsius 3y ago
    It's not really a matter of opinion when everything is lost in translation. I know it can be hard to understand without a basic intro to ancient Greek, but it's like translating a reference to the "Titanic" with "some boat, I dunno".
  - brmgb 3y ago
    The complaint - which I definetely share by the way - is that for all the critical acclaim it got, Emily Wilson's translation strays so far from the actual text, it is not really a translation anymore and is actually closer to being a new text inspired by the Odyssey. That's fine if that's what you are looking for but it doesn't make for a great translation. The πολύτροπος thing is a complete red herring by the way. Her translation is questionnable but remains within the bound of what I would expect from a modern translator. I am more annoyed by everything she drops in the rest of the poem. Remarkably and annoyingly, the coverage when her translation was released spend far more time dwelling on her gender than on her actual work.

by fsloth 3y ago

qohen 3y ago

Thanks for the recommendations, fsloth. For anyone interested in this, I found a couple of excerpts of Caroline Alexander's Iliad translation[0] that were published in The Guardian as well as an article by Emily Wilson (the Odyssey translator also mentioned above) about the engagement of female scholars and translators with the classics[1]. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/09/new-translation-of-the-iliad-by-caroline-alexander-extract https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/09/new-translatio... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jul/07/women-classics-translation-female-scholars-translators https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jul/07/women-classics...

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

jsmith99 3y ago

These are good, but to really bring them to life I recommend Christopher Logue, whose version doesn't even pretend to be a translation. There are some nice excerpts in his obituary in The Economist https://archive.ph/eaCKf https://archive.ph/eaCKf

jaycharliebee 3y ago
I heartily recommend Logue's adaptation too! I'm not a regular poetry reader, nor a reader of the classics but his version really opened my mind to those worlds. I enjoy writers like Samuel Beckett and the weirder, darker end of sci-fi/fantasy (e.g. B. Catling's The Voorh), and Logue's War Music really just seemed to fit right into my taste.
fsloth 3y ago
Oh, brilliant, I definetly need to get a hold of Logues translation. Thanks!
anavette 3y ago
Came here to recommend this. You can find a longer excerpt here: https://www.uvm.edu/~jbailly/courses/HomerTranslation/LogueWarMusicIliad16.pdf https://www.uvm.edu/~jbailly/courses/HomerTranslation/LogueW...

Red_Tarsius 3y ago

I disagree about Emily Wilson's Odissey. She translated the first line of the poem as "Tell me about a complicated man". She almost went with "Tell me about a straying husband". Neither complicated nor straying husband appear in the original text. Pope's description (The man for wisdom’s various arts renown’d...) is closer to the epithets we are taught at school (ricco d'astuzie or dal multiforme ingegno). πολύτροπος means resourceful, of many skills, well-travelled. That's the first line and complicated tells us nothing about the protagonist. Everyone can be complicated, but only Odysseus is πολύτροπον. It's a quality of character few people possess. Original comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25525457#25531307 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25525457#25531307

neaden 3y ago
This complaint seems odd. First complicated is obviously not in the original text, it's in Greek. I guess what you mean is "No words I would translate as complicated are in the text" but then your complaint just becomes a tautology. Saying Pope's version from the 1700s is more like what you were taught in school is similar, it's probably the version you or your teachers read so it shaped what you were taught. Essentially this comes down to saying it's different, but that doesn't make it bad.
- Red_Tarsius 3y ago
  It's not really a matter of opinion when everything is lost in translation. I know it can be hard to understand without a basic intro to ancient Greek, but it's like translating a reference to the "Titanic" with "some boat, I dunno".
- brmgb 3y ago
  The complaint - which I definetely share by the way - is that for all the critical acclaim it got, Emily Wilson's translation strays so far from the actual text, it is not really a translation anymore and is actually closer to being a new text inspired by the Odyssey. That's fine if that's what you are looking for but it doesn't make for a great translation. The πολύτροπος thing is a complete red herring by the way. Her translation is questionnable but remains within the bound of what I would expect from a modern translator. I am more annoyed by everything she drops in the rest of the poem. Remarkably and annoyingly, the coverage when her translation was released spend far more time dwelling on her gender than on her actual work.