3 ms·

What was in the introduction that made you like it so?

watwut 3y ago
She explains historical and cultural context of the poem. What do we know about social expectations placed on characters in the poem, how they used the poem in practice and differences against our culture, etc. She also explains a bit about translation process - the decisions she had to make and reasons why she picked up this or that thing.
karaterobot 3y ago
The other reply basically summarizes it. I'll give an example that stood out: she explains why, instead of calling Agamemnon's side Achaeans, the historically accurate term, she's going to call them Greeks, because even though that's anachronistic, it's more meaningful to the reader. That's the kind of thing some people will absolutely hate, and I think I would hate that kind of thing too, in other circumstances, but she made a good case. She also talks about the difficulty of solving for words that ancient Greek has a lot of synonyms for, and Homer uses a lot of synonyms for, but English only has one wod for: how do you do that and not have it sound repetitive? That part made me appreciate the intense labor that must have gone into every line, because I struggle with the same problem, even on the microscopic scale of an email or a hacker news comment.
- anigbrowl 3y ago
  I found terms like Achaeans very confusing too when I first read the Iliad (E.V. Rieu's translation). But going out of my comfort zone and learning some new context broadened my horizons.
  - watwut 3y ago
    It is one of many decisions like that. The other were the decision to match up original poem length - the translation was supposed to be line for line. And also have each line to have consistent rhythm (iambic pentameter) so that poem sounds. The argument was both of these decisions was that the original poem sounded well too and people were repeated it to each other because it sounded well and they liked it. This has consequences - the translation is shorter then some other translations, because she cant just pile multiple adjectives in a long sentence to describe one word in the original. It also sounds good, because long descriptions of something that was short in original do change how passages come across to the reader. What was originally quick and fun becomes descriptive and slow. Likewise, do you translate it into contemporary English or archaic one? Old texts are sometimes intentionally translated into archaic language, so that you feel like reading something old. But, when they created it originally, they used their own contemporary language and made it sound pleasant to themselves. So, do you pick old words or new words for the same thing? Personally, I found it interesting to read about these dilemmas and about thought process itself. You may agree or disagree with the choices, but the intro made the choices more transparent.
    - DiscourseFan 3y ago
      >Likewise, do you translate it into contemporary English or archaic one? Old texts are sometimes intentionally translated into archaic language, so that you feel like reading something old. But, when they created it originally, they used their own contemporary language and made it sound pleasant to themselves. So, do you pick old words or new words for the same thing? Something to note about Homer is that his language is archaic for the classical Greeks, it is associated with an older, mythical era, and the reason why so many of those words have standard translations is because they literally only appear in Homer one time--ἅπαξ λεγόμενα--and we only know what they mean because the Greeks knew what they meant, and the Romans learned from them, and so on and so forth. Ancient language translation is steeped in tradition, it cannot be extricated from tradition, there is never a new translation since even reading an ancient text requires such extensive textual apparatus, commentarial support, and background knowledge that you are, in effect, translating as you read it by yourself anyway. But the Illiad and the Odyssey are special in this regard, since they are repetitive by nature, many many words and lines are repeated in the text, usually to mark progression to a new part of the story (since they were originally declaimed orally from memory)--they should be repeated, or else you lose the gravity of the original.
      - watwut 3y ago
        Yes it is second oldest poem we have. And it comes from oral tradition, meaning it existed before being written. That does not mean it felt turgid or unnatural to its contemporaries.
        Mlller 3y ago
        On the other hand, the point at issue was not turgidness or unnaturalness but (emphasis mine): “Likewise, do you translate it into contemporary English or archaic one? Old texts are sometimes intentionally translated into archaic language, so that you feel like reading something old. But, when they created it originally, they used their own contemporary language and made it sound pleasant to themselves. So, do you pick old words or new words for the same thing?” and GPʼs point is salient and correct; to be perhaps more clear: the homeric style was already archaic when the Odyssey was composed. Moreover, it was probably intentionally and somewhat artificially made archaic, e.g. using the old inflectional suffix /‑φι(ν)/ also in the singular and not only in the plural, where it was solely used originally. AFAIK, epic poems telling about times far away are often composed in an archaic style, e.g. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildebrandslied https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildebrandslied>, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibelungenlied https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibelungenlied>; I guess Beowulf is similar.

She explains historical and cultural context of the poem. What do we know about social expectations placed on characters in the poem, how they used the poem in practice and differences against our culture, etc. She also explains a bit about translation process - the decisions she had to make and reasons why she picked up this or that thing.

karaterobot 3y ago

The other reply basically summarizes it. I'll give an example that stood out: she explains why, instead of calling Agamemnon's side Achaeans, the historically accurate term, she's going to call them Greeks, because even though that's anachronistic, it's more meaningful to the reader. That's the kind of thing some people will absolutely hate, and I think I would hate that kind of thing too, in other circumstances, but she made a good case. She also talks about the difficulty of solving for words that ancient Greek has a lot of synonyms for, and Homer uses a lot of synonyms for, but English only has one wod for: how do you do that and not have it sound repetitive? That part made me appreciate the intense labor that must have gone into every line, because I struggle with the same problem, even on the microscopic scale of an email or a hacker news comment.

anigbrowl 3y ago
I found terms like Achaeans very confusing too when I first read the Iliad (E.V. Rieu's translation). But going out of my comfort zone and learning some new context broadened my horizons.
- watwut 3y ago
  It is one of many decisions like that. The other were the decision to match up original poem length - the translation was supposed to be line for line. And also have each line to have consistent rhythm (iambic pentameter) so that poem sounds. The argument was both of these decisions was that the original poem sounded well too and people were repeated it to each other because it sounded well and they liked it. This has consequences - the translation is shorter then some other translations, because she cant just pile multiple adjectives in a long sentence to describe one word in the original. It also sounds good, because long descriptions of something that was short in original do change how passages come across to the reader. What was originally quick and fun becomes descriptive and slow. Likewise, do you translate it into contemporary English or archaic one? Old texts are sometimes intentionally translated into archaic language, so that you feel like reading something old. But, when they created it originally, they used their own contemporary language and made it sound pleasant to themselves. So, do you pick old words or new words for the same thing? Personally, I found it interesting to read about these dilemmas and about thought process itself. You may agree or disagree with the choices, but the intro made the choices more transparent.
  - DiscourseFan 3y ago
    >Likewise, do you translate it into contemporary English or archaic one? Old texts are sometimes intentionally translated into archaic language, so that you feel like reading something old. But, when they created it originally, they used their own contemporary language and made it sound pleasant to themselves. So, do you pick old words or new words for the same thing? Something to note about Homer is that his language is archaic for the classical Greeks, it is associated with an older, mythical era, and the reason why so many of those words have standard translations is because they literally only appear in Homer one time--ἅπαξ λεγόμενα--and we only know what they mean because the Greeks knew what they meant, and the Romans learned from them, and so on and so forth. Ancient language translation is steeped in tradition, it cannot be extricated from tradition, there is never a new translation since even reading an ancient text requires such extensive textual apparatus, commentarial support, and background knowledge that you are, in effect, translating as you read it by yourself anyway. But the Illiad and the Odyssey are special in this regard, since they are repetitive by nature, many many words and lines are repeated in the text, usually to mark progression to a new part of the story (since they were originally declaimed orally from memory)--they should be repeated, or else you lose the gravity of the original.
    - watwut 3y ago
      Yes it is second oldest poem we have. And it comes from oral tradition, meaning it existed before being written. That does not mean it felt turgid or unnatural to its contemporaries.
      - Mlller 3y ago
        On the other hand, the point at issue was not turgidness or unnaturalness but (emphasis mine): “Likewise, do you translate it into contemporary English or archaic one? Old texts are sometimes intentionally translated into archaic language, so that you feel like reading something old. But, when they created it originally, they used their own contemporary language and made it sound pleasant to themselves. So, do you pick old words or new words for the same thing?” and GPʼs point is salient and correct; to be perhaps more clear: the homeric style was already archaic when the Odyssey was composed. Moreover, it was probably intentionally and somewhat artificially made archaic, e.g. using the old inflectional suffix /‑φι(ν)/ also in the singular and not only in the plural, where it was solely used originally. AFAIK, epic poems telling about times far away are often composed in an archaic style, e.g. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildebrandslied https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildebrandslied>, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibelungenlied https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibelungenlied>; I guess Beowulf is similar.