/lit/ - Literature

How new are you

>Homer
Pope for poetics Fitzgerald or Lattimore otherwise
>Virgil or Ovid
Dryden for poetics Mandelbaum otherwise
>Bible
KJV

>>10261541
I'd prefer modern English translations. I have a KJV aND it's hard to read. I'd assume that since it was written centuries after the time it was originally written, that even the KJV was written for the way people spoke in the 1600s, and that its essentially ad accurate as a modern English translation would be. Who's to say how accurate it really is? Are there any transations of the original text that are in modern English?

>>10261555
We don't even have the original text

>>10261528
no, you should keep reading john green instead

>>10261555
So all future translations would use the kjv as a source?

>>10261555
Isn't the NSRV the new standard?

>>10261585
So all future translations would use the kjv as a source? What did the kjv translate from?

>>10261680
we have thousands of manuscripts in koine greek from the first few centuries AD. the new testament is by far the most well-attested work from antiquity

>>10261555
>I'd prefer modern English translations
That just means you're a pleb

>>10262415
okay then I guess I am a pleb now. Great.

>>10261537
to /lit/? Pretty new. I don't come here often.

>>10262415
excuse me if I don't want to read something written in the 1600s with their style. It's just very difficult to read.

>>10262531
It's supposed to be arcane and inscrutable, that's the whole point.

>>10261729
To add to this: probably none of them is "the original copy". Certainly not the gospels.

>>10262552
Not at all, unless you're the pleb.

>reading the pile of trash that is the KJV
fucking protestant dogs

>>10261528
>The Epic of Gilgamesh
Andrew George. Bear with the repetitions gaps and patchwork nature of some of the passages, it's worth it in the end.
>The Odyssey, the Illiad,
You may not be able to stomach Pope or Lattimore on your first go. Try Fagles or Lombardo for starters, and if that doesn't work, Butler or Rieu. Too many names? Doesn't matter, push on through. See above.
> Bible
Good translations in readable contemporary English are the NRSV, NASB and ESV. If the former rubs your sensibilities the wrong way with its "gender-inclusive language", go for the RSV.

>>10262713
Oh, and about the Bible: don't try to read it all from page 1 to 2300 or so. Read the most important books first. There are various reading plans. Look up the matter in previous thread on warosu

>>10262531
You don't know this yet because you're an idiot, but English literature from the 1600s is almost always better, and foundational for the language as a whole. The perfect pleb litmus is KJV or Shakespeare. You are a pleb, but it's okay. Just know you are enjoying lesser writing, and lack the ability to discern great works

>>10262727
or you're just wowed by patina on your antiques

>>10261528
>he didn't start with the Greeks

Go back

>>10262801
I just ordered a copy of Plato's The Republic...

>>10263450
>starting with The Republic

dude..

>>10263450
start with last days of socrates & try get some quick background first

i started with the Republic & it was a waste besides noting a few profound statements. i had to go back and reread it later

>>10261555
>>10262777

How a book is written is almost (in some cases, more) important than what is written in it. Don't read any of those books yet, you clearly don't know why or how you ought to read them.

First read 'How to Read a Book' by Adler. Then you'll be able to discern for yourself what to read, why you are reading what you are reading, and how you're going to read what you are reading.

>>10262713
>Gilgamesh
I’ve read the Mitchell translation and by his own admission, he omits lots of the repetition. Does Mitchell’s more streamlined version fail to capture something essential that George’s translation captures?

Iliad and Odyssey are

>>10261528
Yes. They most certainly are. Just buy Fagles and Oxford Classics, you'll be fine.

Bumpity