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Tangentially, I'd like to just plug the translations Robert Fitzgerald made of the Iliad and the Odyssey in the 1960s and 70s. Your experience of these books wi

Tangentially, I'd like to just plug the translations Robert Fitzgerald made of the Iliad and the Odyssey in the 1960s and 70s. Your experience of these books will very much come down to the translation you choose. In America at least, his are not the most commonly found in the classics section of a bookstore. I'm told he plays a bit loose with Homer's word choice (I don't read Ancient Greek), but personally I don't mind. Pasternak, when reproached for his loose translation Shakespeare, responded: "Who cares? We're both geniuses."

tiahura 3y ago
I’ll second Fitzgerald. It seems to be an under-appreciated middle way in terms of translations.
- bobbytuck 3y ago
  Not at all "under-appreciated" If you were in grad school (or maybe even undergrad) 30+ years ago, you read Fitzgerald. Period. It's the fundamental translation. Everything new is judged by Fitzgerald's version. That said, I just finished the Lombardo translation for the Iliad -- and, yeah, it's good. Modern, quick, sweeping. But Fitzgerald's echoes are hard to silence.
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pallas_athena 3y ago
Borges: The Homeric Versions (pdf) https://gwern.net/doc/borges/1932-borges-thehomericversions.pdf https://gwern.net/doc/borges/1932-borges-thehomericversions....
- blueyes 3y ago
  Very relevant, thank you! I've always liked the quote from Borges, which I hope is not apocryphal, that 'The original is unfaithful to the translation.' I'm not sure I buy his analogy that multiple drafts of a single work are like translating the initial version into subsequent ones, only in the same language. But I appreciate it as a marvelous idea!
  - pallas_athena 3y ago
    It is not apocryphal: here, top of the last page https://gwern.net/doc/borges/1943-borges-onwilliambeckfordsvathek.pdf https://gwern.net/doc/borges/1943-borges-onwilliambeckfordsv... BTW, I don't know why Gwern has so many Borges texts on their website, but for sure I am grateful!

tiahura 3y ago

I’ll second Fitzgerald. It seems to be an under-appreciated middle way in terms of translations.

bobbytuck 3y ago
Not at all "under-appreciated" If you were in grad school (or maybe even undergrad) 30+ years ago, you read Fitzgerald. Period. It's the fundamental translation. Everything new is judged by Fitzgerald's version. That said, I just finished the Lombardo translation for the Iliad -- and, yeah, it's good. Modern, quick, sweeping. But Fitzgerald's echoes are hard to silence.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

pallas_athena 3y ago

Borges: The Homeric Versions (pdf) https://gwern.net/doc/borges/1932-borges-thehomericversions.pdf https://gwern.net/doc/borges/1932-borges-thehomericversions....

blueyes 3y ago
Very relevant, thank you! I've always liked the quote from Borges, which I hope is not apocryphal, that 'The original is unfaithful to the translation.' I'm not sure I buy his analogy that multiple drafts of a single work are like translating the initial version into subsequent ones, only in the same language. But I appreciate it as a marvelous idea!
- pallas_athena 3y ago
  It is not apocryphal: here, top of the last page https://gwern.net/doc/borges/1943-borges-onwilliambeckfordsvathek.pdf https://gwern.net/doc/borges/1943-borges-onwilliambeckfordsv... BTW, I don't know why Gwern has so many Borges texts on their website, but for sure I am grateful!