/lit/ - Literature

Yeah.

>>20211890
>Yeah
why? like i'm genuinely curious since I was going to order fagle's

>>20211888
The fact it doesn't obscure the slavery and stuff seems interesting

>>20211892
It's not. It's an infamously badly done translation that's only known for being done by a woman and 'updating' the text to modern standards. If you want a good english translation read Pope's, and if you want one that's most accurate to the Greek and also readable english do Fagles or Lattimore.

I've never read The Odyssey and I bought this in a local bookshop because it looked really cool. Had no idea it was translated by a woman.
Should I avoid it if its my first time reading it?
It looks nice on my shelf though.

>>20211900
>>20211893
Interesting.

Fagles is still standard as far as I know.

>>20211909
Might as well read it then, since you've already bought it. You can reread in another translation letter on. Honestly, the translation is fine, if a bit simplifying at times. /lit really only hates it because it is done by a SJW female.

>>20211982
>/lit really only hates it because it is done by a SJW
The identitarian group that's attempting to artificially recontextualize Western history according to their ideological "understanding." That's a pretty good reason to avoid a given translation of an ancient text foundational to the canon, anon.

>>20212036
Just publish your own contextually correct translation senpai

>>20211982
>fine
The opening line alone is enough to toss the entire fucking thing out.
>Tell me about a complicated man.
She also openly bragged about intentionally changing the obvious meaning of certain passages, like descriptions of Polyphemus, because she thought they were "colonialist" and problematic. She hates Odysseus, and from what she produced one can only assume she hates the Odyssey itself.

>>20211888
HAHAHAHAHAHAH
You were lied to, brother. This is actually the worst modern translation there is. Even when compared to something like Fagles, it comes off as retarded tier.

>>20211982
>/lit really only hates it because it is done by a SJW female.
Yes, because they dont translate with any intention of adhering to the language and/or contextual background in which it was written. They translate and "understand" it according to what, measured by modern standards, "feels right". That is terribly stupid and it deserves to be trashed and shit on by everyone who cares about literature and history.

>>20212078
Didn't the earlier English translations implant onto the text their own worldview? ie Christianity.

>>20211888
I wouldn't need your here and ask since it's by a woman

>>20212066

>>20211888
>Tell me about a complicated man
>Mr Foreginer
>scallywag
>Odysseus and Cyclops is actually le colonianism
>Immigrants are le good

What you guys think about Samuel Butler's translation?

>>20212122
holy fuck this can't be real

>>20212122
>'Playtime is over'
>pozzed anglos think this is the peak of translation
holy kek embarrassing

>>20211888
>I was told in a lecture today that this is the best translation to use today.
Nice bait. This translation's target audience is 15 year old girls.

>>20212088
Yes. Every translator carries his or her own biases that are bound to come across in their text, but since the one in OP is done by a leftist woman, it's automatically shit by /lit standards, including people only judging it by literally the first verse, like >>20212061.

>>20212230
>>20212122
ive never read the odyssey, how does the translation change things? whats a good point of reference

>>20212230
She's not biased, she's willfully distorting the text to fit her agenda. And there's a whole list of these bizarre translation choices, like calling Polyphemus a "maverick", just to name another one off the top of my head.

Do these celebrity translators actually work from the original text or do they just revise the existing translations?

>>20212054
Why would I do that? There are multiple translations out there already and I'm educated enough to contextualize and/or avoid politically motivated output should I refuse to have such be my focus while reading the canon. I understand there's a demonstration of talent in translation but I don't admire Timothy McVeigh for being able to construct a bomb.

>>20212122
>>20211888
>>20212276
It'll only get worse. I'm looking forward to it.

The Norton Critical Edition of Ovid is so much worse than this.

>>20212276
Or "Playtime is over" lmao

>>20211909
It's okay.
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/homer/the-odyssey-wilson/

https://kirkcenter.org/reviews/a-coat-of-varnish/

>>20212303
Why?

>>20212286
I don't know anything about the greeks and their translations but that's needlessly archaizing for something written in 1967.
>herpaderp it's le old book so I must use le olde english

I can't wait for her Plato translation to come out so she can make all incels of /lit seethe.

Anything ever that remakes something and claims to "modernize" it or remake it with "modern sensibilities" is automatically and unavoidably useless trash. This applies to every product ever made, not just books.

>>20212390
How should the language scan, anon? I hope you're not actually suggesting that Wilson produced a superior sanitized translation because the language is "modern." Because that would be really stupid. Nothing about the 1967 suggests archaism, it's more descriptive which can lead to line repetition.

>>20211888
I'll check it, but I doubt it beats Pope's.

>>20212371

>>20212458
>Martin's Ovid translation won the 2004 Harold Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets.
>"Martin gets both the humor and the pathos." — Emily Wilson, professor of Classical Studies, University of Pennsylvania
>"This translation of the Metamorphoses is all that one could wish." — Richard Wilbur
>"Among the accomplished translations of Ovid in our day, this version of Metamorphoses by Charles Martin—elegant, witty and exuberant by turns, and epic in its span from the creation of the world to the apotheosis of Julius Caesar—should now lay claim to its own distinguished ground." — Robert Fagles

>>20212458
I can kind of understand if the Latin is extremely stylized the desire to find an uncommon equivalent in English but some part of me instinctively doesn't like this 1990s rap music video

Translating to the heart is the spirit of the task. "Accuracy" loses all meaning since no translation can ever be accurate. There is always an "agenda", so choose according to your own convictions. Poetry is a song that has been on the lips of men and women for all time. The author is no more significant or special than a tape recorder. There are an infinite number of Odysseys, as many as there are readers or listeners. To read a translation is to hear just one of those. The drudgery of authority and professionalism kills poetry. None of you pseuds ever took Ulysses to heart. You're a bunch of meme loving newfag tourists from 2016. Peace out niggaz.

>>20212498
Of course translations can be accurate, retard.

>>20212481
It's more like a 90s rap video about history made by a local education board in a clumsy attempt to appeal to the kids. It's so obviously the product of an elderly white man.

>>20212398
ywnbaw

>>20212481
>some part of me instinctively doesn't like this 1990s rap

That's called racism, anon.

>>20212514
Explain how retard

>>20212398
A base woman like Emily Wilson translating Plato should be some kind of internationally recognized crime. Hell, women should have to pass a test before they're even allowed to read Plato.

>>20212303
I still can't believe this is real

>>20212575
>Hell, women should have to pass a test before they're even allowed to read Plato.
God, can you out yourself more as a virgin?

>>20212581
What does sex have to do with this? Calm down and reply like an adult.

>>20212036
western history doesn't exist, greeks were a mediterranean people.

>>20212605
"med identity" people are, without exception, Latin Americans or NAFRIs.
t. Italian

>>20212608
What is NAFRI?

Tell me more about Latin American subhumanity

>>20212428
I'm not talking about Wilson, I was referring to the Lattimore segment.

>>20212581

>>20212616
NAFRI = North African

>>20212608
IDC about latin americans or nafris, I'm Greek. Give me one good reason why my history has to be the history of all of western/northern/eastern europe just because some german or anglo or russian decided he liked it and lacks his own ancient history. For that matter, the same applies to Taleb tier lebanese kangers who want to appropriate Greek and Roman history.

>>20212637
How is it appropriating modern Greek culture to acknowledge that ancient Greek thought and culture influenced the entire occident

It even completely transformed near eastern civilization under the Diadochi, every single area from Spain to India had a "Hellenistic" period lasting hundreds of years where their native culture was replaced by Greek models and Greek forms

Just read it in greek you fucking idiots

https://youtu.be/MaTAbfp-yrE

>>20211888
>>20212276
Support for it is symptomatic of a deeper problem. Academics and Western culture in general are increasingly no longer capable of intellectual honesty and discipline, and instead seem to be more emotional in it than in their daily lives, with friends and family, etc.

>>20212236
There's a couple of ways her translation changes things; in some cases, like with the slave girls, she's more literal than most translations. But more often than not, she either translates mendaciously (such as the aforementioned use of "maverick" for the cyclops, which elsewhere translates accurately, in order to make a polemical argument in favor of the cyclops against Odysseus), or she translates with her poetic schema so much in mind that the tone is simplified and childish, like an academic Rupi Kauer (the above "Mr. Foreigner"; translating arete as "tough" when it's "virtue"; the above "playtime is over").

Mind, Caroline Alexander, another liberal woman translator, did a very good job with her Iliad; by way of comparison, there's not any good excuse for Wilson.

>>20212282
Wilson does work from the Greek, she just has a perverse translation theory.

>>20212617
He was addressing that and comparing with Wilson. I don't get how Lattimore is archaizing in his translation, it's straightforward English.

>>20212617
...I know. I said that Lattimore was more descriptive which causes repetition (which causes fatigue). Are you sure you should be reading, anon?

>>20212637
Ideas spread and influence other societies who expand upon them. Therefore it's as much a part of anglo history as it is greek history, being that our society is built on top of those foundations.

>>20211888
From Wilson, in a review of three recent translations of the Oreteia:

>It was with a sinking feeling that I learned that at least three new translations of theOresteiahad recently appeared. I plunged into an even deeper gloom when I realised that two of them are by elderly white men, both emeritus professors, and the other is by a younger white man, not an academic.

Just read John Green's translation and commentary.

>>20212984
Oh she's a straight up racist.

>>20212286
Shouldn't the lines be an exact number of syllables? Why is hers so much shorter?

>>20212458
>fuggedabout apollo
The asteroid can't come soon enough.

>>20212984
>If we are going to have endless retranslations of the same old texts – which is not self-evidently a good thing – we might hope that at least some of them would be done by classicists who are younger, or less white, or less male.

>Conversely, it is quite possible, in theory, for elderly white men to offer original ideas and fresh perspectives.

>Bernstein, for instance, assures the reader that The Eumenides ‘ends with the triumph of democracy’, without providing any discussion of the characters in the play – the women and the Furies – who are excluded from the new politics, on the stage as in real-life Athens.

>Where Bernstein is simply an innocent amateur,
>I wish an editor or friend had explained the problem before the volume went into print.

Lol she really loves throwing that clout around. Fucking disgusting cunt. Who says something like that? Repeatedly? Bernstein has more chops than you do, you old fucking diversity hire hag. He got a translation of a classic work published despite not having an entire industry willing to bend over backwards for him like you did with your sophomoric attempt.

Hacks like her are what killed this field. Ugly, dead inside, miserable so they think life is miserable and try to make everybody else miserable too. Shrill wine-sucking whores who exist to putter between conferences and workshops. Horrid cunt, talking about exclusion and power structures and all that kitsch and then gatekeeping like a good old class traitor Brit, right in the Brit tradition. As long as you get in, slam the gate shut behind you to keep membership a scarce resource. Fucking cunt. Talentless retard couldn't find any actual contributions to make so she filled the role of the "won't someone think of the poor subaltern?" harpy, a role even climbers don't want because it's embarrassingly kitsch. Annoyed that I know her.

>In 2020, thinking about gender inequality, tyranny, grief, liberation, rage, action and reaction, generational change, and the proper function of norms and the rule of law has a new urgency. The #MeToo movement has helped us see how women can be silenced in our culture, and alerted us both to the causes and to the potential power of female anger. The Black Lives Matter movement has enabled a new global awareness of the terrible gap between systems of law enforcement and actual justice. In a time when we’re thinking about the voices marginalised in modern democracies, and about whose histories we want to tell,
Wow, this is hot stuff in 1986, Emily! I bet it's so hot it still won't be kitsch for another 10, maybe even 20 years! You're really setting yourself up to be the voice of a generation here! Sad, bitter old diversity hire with a glorified twitter account, talking to no one but herself. Fuck you.

>>20213088
Shrieking about the dead world that all our great men created through insisting on professionalism, standardization and institutionalism. The product of the patriarchy is the disease of feminism.

>>20211888
emily wilson went to Oxford and Yale. anybody who goes to an elite university and tries to speak for the poor, oppressed masses should be ridiculed

>>20213088
you need to calm down. these people will all be dead someday, just as you will.

>>20212061
Can you post the opening lines? I've read Fagles and I'm curious to see how it compares.

>>20211900
>Fagles
Yeah you have no idea what youre talking about.
Yes Wilsons is a superficial translation influenced by modern politics. It’s what most students want. Fagles is just as superficial but is wonkier to read, but not political at all.
The variety in critical and aesthetic quality among translations is immense. In english there is none that can be decided as the most authorative other than the lattimore one, but it’s not the easiest read unfortunately.

>>20212581
You will never be a woman

>>20213447
Never intended to be one, I just like fucking them.

>>20212984
why does it matter who translated them?

>>20213811
She's not especially clear on that. Usually she just repeats cliches about "diverse voices" and "creative readings" and "translations that speak to a newer generation's interests", but none of it adds up to anything more than repeating what her ingroup already says.

Out of one side of her mouth, "we need to stop hashing out the thoughts and ideas of old dead white men," out of the other, "why don't more women and minorities translate these texts?"

>>20213088
>kitsch
I agree with your sentiment but try using that word less often.

>>20212390
Lattimore does not use archaic English. His translation is the clearest available today. You don't seem to know anything about Greek or translations of Homer.
t. student in a Greek class on Homer taught by the editor and friend of a famous Greek translator

>>20212605
>western history doesn't exist, greeks were a mediterranean people.
>now that I've monopolized the rules of this semantic game, accept my argument or else I'll slide into ideology and you'll feel like you're talking to a wall
Fuck off pseud.

>>20211900
>>20212453
Based Pope enjoyers

>>20212458
I think it's pretty fun

>>20212390
It isn't archaic whatsoever. It is clear and learned modern English, are you aware old English is basically an unrecognizable language? Cringe

>>20212390
the iliad itself has archaisms so if a translation had some archaic language it would be faithful to the original. that said, lattimore isn't archaic and you're just dumb

>>20211888
Just read Peter Green's translation.

>All others are virgins theorizing sex

>>20211888
for zoomers who use literally and though in every other sentence, it literally is though.
very down to earth and simplistic translation compared to the more ornate diction and syntax of the prior white male translators upon whom she bashed so bravely on twitter

>>20211888
Still better than Stephen Mitchell's translation by miles, despite the politicized bullshit.

I read Peter Green. It was easy to read and enjoyable but there was a lack of notes on the text.

>>20211888
It's a great translation. Though it's especially hard to translate poetry, I like that Wilson doesn't hide from words like "slave" as certain other translations have.

>>20212572
The words, sentences, and story itself all have intended meanings, and translating it in a way so as to make the meaning for the English reader as similar to the meaning taken in Greek would be more accurate than one that completely rewrites the meaning. If translations can't be more or less accurate, than literally anything could be said to be an equally valid translation of the story. If there is no such thing as accuracy, then the sentence
>I eat your mom's shit it makes me hard!
is as valid a translation of The Odyssey as any one that took the time to try to convey meaning from the actual Greek. This left wing obsession with abolishing the concept of relative worth is not just morally wrong, it is incredibly silly and made either by people who are dangerously retarded or dangerously malicious.

>>20215100
>It's a great translation.
It's not. Stop baiting people.

I’m a based Fitzgerald enjoyer, this cunt can’t ruin my party.

>>20212390
>needlessly archaizing
Lattimore wrote a borderline esl translation
are you retarded, anon?

How is the Caroline Alexander translation of The Iliad?

>>20211888
You’ll probably be better off learning some other language, like Spanish or Italian, and reading it in that language.

>>20213024
Some translators have kept the meter of the original, some haven't. Just a stylistic choice; not being constrained by meter can help you accomplish other goals--accuracy, mood, etc.

>>20215426
It's a lot more sophisticated than Emily's. Check it out on libgen

>>20212481
this lowbrow/colloquial language would make sense for some of Catullus' shitpost poems, e.g. calling Caesar a faggot, but for Ovid who was an ultra-refined literari, unholy burger moment

>>20215467
Wait which translations are actually in dactylic hexameter? To my understanding that's nearly impossible in English but I'd like to read them if they exist.

>>20215523
>To my understanding that's nearly impossible in English
it kind of is. instead of basing the feet on long + short vowels as in Greek or Latin, English has to use stress vs unstressed

>>20212398
I want to have a turbulent and ultimately loveless affair with her

>>20215523
First of all, English doesn't have phonemic vowel length or pitch accent like Ancient Greek, so modern translations evoke the sound using stress. Translators have retained it to greater or lesser extents: Lattimore for example keeps the hexameter, drops the dactylic. Likewise with Albert Cook. In German, Johann Heinrich Voss accomplishes a full dactylic hexameter translation. But the consensus seems to be that if you're going to go for strict meter, iambic is to English as dactylic is to Ancient Greek, and likewise pentameter for hexameter.

>>20215560
>Lattimore for example keeps the hexameter, drops the dactylic
Very interesting, thank you.
>But the consensus seems to be that if you're going to go for strict meter, iambic is to English as dactylic is to Ancient Greek, and likewise pentameter for hexameter.
Yes, I know most of the older translations are in iambic pentameter, which always felt somewhat forced to me.

>>20215583
Looked into it a little more, and there may be something for you: In 2002, Rodney Merrill did an Odyssey translation (in english) in strict dactylic hexameter. However, reviews are kind of mixed. Here's a sample (18. 79-88)

>So having spoken to them, he drew his keen sword from the scabbard,
>bronze, well whetted on both of its edges, and leapt at the other
>yelling a terrible yell; at the same time, noble Odysseus
>shot off an arrow and struck him square in the chest by the nipple,
>driving the shaft into the liver; and out of his hand he
>cast his sword to the ground, as he sprawled out over the table,
>doubled up falling in death, on the ground thus spilling the victuals,
>also the two-handled goblets; the earth he beat with his forehead,
>racked by the pain in his breast; then, kicking with both of his feet, he
>set the chair shaking, and over his eyes death-mist came pouring.

>>20211888
As already pointed out by other anons, her translation is notorious among serious scholars for being pretty awful. But you already knew that, didn't you? You noticed that the notoriously bad translation also happens to be the only one done by a woman and you posted it here, to entertain yourself with a woman hating thread. Well here (you) go anon:
Women are stupid ugly sluts and they honestly should be enslaved and let me rape them all the time desu.

>>20215601
>As already pointed out by other anons, her translation is notorious among serious scholars for being pretty awful.
lmao no it isn't. it's being used in ivy league unis

>>20215593
Wow, that's very impressive just based on how difficult it is to write dactylic hexameter in English. At the same time, it does sound a bit awkward in places, even just in that short fragment. I may have to check it out just for the sheer novelty, though.

>>20215610
Only goes to show the decay and rot within the elite American education system.

>>20215610
Something something globohomo jewish black sjw tranny democrat pedophile newspeak. I'm not gonna waste the energy to tell you how you're retarded

>>20215626
you just did tho
take the L and keep it moving

>>20215610
>imagine paying Ivy League tuition to study literature or philology, or whatever it’s called in America, and reading this
>>20212286

>>20215610
Pleb tier bait. Surely you can be more creative than that.

>>20215610
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKTUIesfMh0
Kek I remember when it was published and all the ivy leagues invited her to give a talk and thanking her for making a translation that would be easy for their 21st ce students.
Bloom was right about ivy league students. After the 90s, the majority became too dumb to read anything that required more than 10 brain cells.
Bonus points: during the Q/A, a Greek chad dissed her thick anglo pronunciation of Ancient Greek.

>>20211888
wilsonsisters we got too cocky!

I'm divided between the Chapman, E.V. Rieu, and Lattimore translations. Can anyone help me?

>>20215805
Get Lattimore. It's both quite readable (modern English but not Rupi Kaur tier like Wilson) and accurate. Read Chapman later on for pleasure. Forget about Rieu.

>>20215813
Thanks. I was actually thinking about reading Chapman first then Lattimore, but it reading Lattimore first might give more of a feeling for the text. Why is Rieu bad?

>>20215813
Yes why is rieu bad

>>20215725
Is it worth watching anon?

>>20211888
whichever translation has the moon on the cover is what my greek mythology teacher recommended for a good mix of accuracy and lyricism. lombardo i think? something like that

>>20216077
Yea, that'd be Stanley Lombardo.

>>20215725
>My gender and identity inform my experience and I bring that up whenever I'm talking about my translation
>but I'm also forced to talk about it when I bring it up
>why weren't Lattimore or Fagals or Fitzgerald asked?
It's literally delusional at this point.

I like samuel butlers translation

>>20216093
I don't even understand what she's trying to say. Caroline Alexander also translated a Homeric work (The Iliad) and people weren't falling head over heels, which makes me think Wilson is being shilled for a reason.

>>20216108
I think I'm actually going to read the Alexander Iliad now. It didn't have any bullshit about feminism in the foreward/intro from my memory. Just something about how she made translating the work a lifegoal when she was a kid and how she was sad she couldn't share it with her mother who died. No feminist identitarian marketting. I'm going to give her a shot now--maybe it's just influenced by a thoughtful and enriching feminity like Virginia Woolf.

>>20211888
Read Chapman. Every other translation I’ve seen is fucking gay in comparison. You can read samples of different translations at a website called Bibliothekai. Compare Chapman with Wilson, Fagles, literally anyone else from the 20th or 21st century, the difference will be like night and day. Some fag might argue that Chapman is too liberal in his translation. I would argue he is the only one who captures the bombast and grandeur that was almost certainly part of the original experience in Ancient Greece. Do you really think the bards were fucking laying it out the way Wilson does? “Tell me muse of a complicated man” Homer would deck that tooty bitch.
As a bonus, you can get an admittedly pretty cheap looking edition of the Chapman translation of the Odyssey that includes the Iliad in a single volume on Amazon for like $7.99 if you’re on a budget.

>>20216093
Kek she unironically looks like a tranny

>>20216108
>all the translators are elderly white men
>except for the ones that aren't but other languages
>my publisher is great because they aren't part of the systemic conspiracy
>against women like me who are rare but not

>>20216191
Good god. That video is hard to watch. What am insufferable bitch.

>>20216161
As with all things chad, Wordsworth classics has us covered. Both Chapman translations.

>>20216108
Wilson used Classics twitter as she was translating to advertise her work, state her political activism goals with it, and reproach the problematic nature of past translations. On top of this, she had W. W. Norton, which holds the monopoly in almost every English department, backing her.
Alexander, however, doesn't really have a social media presence, had a less powerful publisher in the Academia world, and none of the political activism. Furthermore, her translation isn't accessible to people with a YA reading level.

>>20216203
I'm skipping around trying to find the guy mentioning her pronunciation. So far the highlight is her getting startled by someone shutting something and describing it as "terrifying." (Pic related)

>>20212458
Why does this remind me of the Space Jam theme?

>>20216224
It happens at 1:29:29
https://youtu.be/TKTUIesfMh0?t=5369

>>20216244
Thanks fren.

>>20215100
Who hides from slaves?

>>20216108
>Caroline Alexander also translated a Homeric work (The Iliad) and people weren't falling head over heels
It's guaranteed that almost every time a woman does something well that they'll be ignored by other women because there's no possibility of controversy or punching down at men

I have to say I'm immensely glad that whites are walking dinosaurs who will soon die out. Curse you for bringing feminism into this word. You reap what you sow, you imbecilic simpletons.

I have to say I'm immensely glad that whites are walking dinosaurs who will soon die out. Curse you for bringing feminism into this world. You reap what you sow, you imbecilic simpletons.

I bet none of these feminist cunts would have the text translated to represent Greek history from the position of current Greek men and women.

>>20216244
Kek. Typical diversity hired woman… if someone says anything vaguely critical her glass ego shatters

>>20216283
By whites you mean Rabbis and Christ

>>20216244
Her father writes for the Daily Mail and wrote a biography on Hitler and a book of the decline of faith in Western civilization. Interesting.

>>20212498
>since no translation can ever be accurate
You swallowed the structuralist literary theory hook, line and sinker like a good goy

>>20212122
>that highlighted line
really makes you think

>>20212398
peak mommy

I recently ordered Peter greens, for my first read. Excited to get it!

>>20212061
why are women like this?

>>20215725
>I avoided archaisms as much as possible
It's an archaic poem lol, cunt

>>20216244
That's right stupid bitch, you added the voyel, get on your knees

where the fuck are my Rouse chads at

>>20211888
>First major translation by a woman
>It's fucking terrible

Sometimes I feel like today's society is the result of God spiting us for allowing women to vote

>>20215222
based fellow Fitz-bro

>>20216147
There was a little bit of femist spergery in favor of Alexander's translation when it came out; she herself offered the thought that the Iliad could teach us about "toxic masculinity". That said, her spergery doesn't interfere with the translation itself, which is closer to the spirit of Lattimore than most recent translations.

>>20217275
how lost do you have to be to say this

>>20216205
Good morning my fellow Chapman enjoyer, stay based king.

>>20212137
Its a classic--though it may be because it is public domain so every publisher likes to print a copy of it. It may not be the best translation, but it adopts a prose form to give it a more poetic feel. That said, and the older style of english, it is a bit difficult for first time readers. Its not impossible, but you may spend more time trying to understand that if you went with Fagles or Lattimore.

>>20216283
Go fuck a goat mussie

>>20217367
>you may spend more time trying to understand that if you went with Fagles or Lattimore.
Completely wrong. FAGles sucks just as much as wilsons and is stilted and anachronistic. Lattimore's is harder to understand than Butlers. Youd have to be a brainlet to not understand the butler translation.

>>20212390
Wtf is archaic about it?

>>20212398
wonder what her pussy smells like...

>>20212286
boomer humour literally

>>20215848
>>20215815
Rieu is awesome. Almost everyone trying to give you advice on translations is a pseud repeating pseud advice. I did a deep dive on translations and Rieu is about the best you can do in english translations.

All in all, the only omissions made in these translations are there to smooth the aesthetic of the sentence out. For example Paris' helmet is flung to the crowd of greek soldiers. This happens in every translation, but in some the greeks "meet it with glee", in some they "Capture it and guard it proudly" in some they "Trophy the helmet thrown" etc etc. You will be reading the same scenario, only the the text slightly altered and it doesnt matter at all as none of them take away what makes homer great, its more a matter of what you think is the most legible one. The "beautiful language" of homer is not his prose, it's his analogies and descriptions of things. In all texts, Paris fright of Menelaos is compared to when someone wandering in the woods suddenly spot a snake next to their foot, and startled they instinctively jump back and tremble. The greeks march out of their camps in multitudes like bees. etc. etc. It's just as vivid in whatever text you read.
Here are my own tiers of the most popular translations:

GOOD AND NOT JANKY
Rieu
Butler
Pope
Fitzgerald

GOOD BUT JANKY/DIFFICULT TO READ
Lattimore
Chapman

OUTRIGHT BAD
Fagles
Wilson

FUN
Robert Graves

Rieu and Butler are in clear prose. They're great. I have read up until book 3 of both, it's how i autistically tried the translations.

Pope's is in rhymed iambic pantimeter. It's both lucid and aestheticc. Very fun if you like that sort of thing and the best choice imo if you want the iliad to be a rhymed poem.

Fitzgeralds translation is a poem without a meter, it's rather stacked prose if anything. Also very lucid, though i would say not as much fun as the other ones. It is not overrated however.

Lattimore's is technically the best translation. He somehow fits the homeric meter very well and the language is good, but trying to fit the meter into english will be wonky no matter what and can Lattimore a bit grating to read after a while.

Chapman's homer is another rhymed poem from the 1600s. It is very good but it can be difficult to understand what he's talking about as he will switch characters and not make it clear when it happens, using the same pronoun for two characters. "He said and he grabbed him by the plumes of his helmet and he screamed to jove". Great read though if you have the patience for it.

Wilsons is quite readable but i cant escape the feeling that it pushes a political agenda throughout. We all know about Wilsons translation. If you feel that way too then there's no point in reading it, imo. It's political trash. However, i would actually say that it's better than fagles garbage, but that's every translation ever.
Fagles is absolute trash. Anachronistic and stilted and tries to sound cool. Very awkward and very overrated.

Graves is fun.

DMe girl, talk to me about that crazy dude who went on and on after he got that city of troy fucked up.

Lattimore will eternally cause brainlets to seethe and thats a good thing

>>20217547
>Rieu is about the best you can do in english translations.
>A prose translation of a work written in verse
>Calling other posters pseuds
Rieu is a good read, but he's definitely not adhering (or even attempting) to stay close to Homer. If you want entertainment he isnt a bad choice. If you want good attempts at Homer in english Lattimore, Fagles, and Green are much better choices.

>>20212122
>>20212155
>>20212286
What is even the point of translating it in verse? Seriously.

A prose version I have by George Herbert Palmer:
>Speak to me, Muse, of the adventurous man who wandered long after he sacked the sacred citadel of Troy. Many the men whose towns he saw, whose ways he proved; and many a pang he bore in his own breast at sea while struggling for his life and his men's safe return. Yet even so, by all his zeal, he did not save his men; for through their own perversity they perished -- fools! who devoured the kine of the exalted Sun. Wherefore he took away the day of their return. Of this, O goddess, daughter of Zeus, beginning where thou wilt, speak to us also.

>>20215601
I was just curious. I don't know much about translations or older pieces of literature so I wanted to ask.

>>20217515
like an English rose out in Kent garden on a sunny summer day

>>20217923
>Fagles
lmao. Fagles is fuckinig stacked prose and doesnt adhere even close to homers meter. You dont know what you're talking about, pseud hack. Homer is still homer but the form is impossible to align with in english. It's about what you find the most legible.

>>20211888
>released in 2017
>author is a female
>"I was told in a lecture today that this is the best translation to use today."
Yeah, I guess why.

>>20217990
>. Fagles is fuckinig stacked prose and doesnt adhere even close to homers meter
Who cares

>>20217996
I'm sorry you're retarded. You did by saying fagles would be a better choice to read homer than rieu.

>>20217990
The other problem I've seen with Fagles, from initially using him in a class before switching to Lattimore, is that his lines eventually don't matchup with any other translations, so using him gets practically tedious if you need to compare lines in another translation or even the Greek.

>>20218013
He is better

>>20218024
>>20218026
He sucks balls

Been reading some of the translations to English you are posting and I am not convinced of what was chosen for πολύτροπον, is there no better word or a better way in English to translate it?

>>20212286
Lattimore's I like the most, the "many ways", which can be interpreted with different meanings

honestly, if I did a translation I'd make up a bunch of Greek loan words and include an addendum with their meaning.

>>20218048
So which is the coolest?
>tha man of many ways (Lattimore)
>that man skilled in all ways of contending (Fitzgerald)
>the man of twists and turns (Fagles)
>that resourceful man (Rieu)
>the man of many wiles (Mandelbaum)
>The man for wisdom’s various arts renown’d (Pope)

>>20218072
>>The man for wisdom’s various arts renown’d (Pope)
K I N O
I
N
O

>>20218072
I think Lattimore gets the two meanings across easier, Odysseus is cunning and wily, and travelled many paths to get home.
The word has a sort of double meaning, since πολύτροπος does mean craftiness, resourcefulless, prudence, all of that. But you can also take it as πολύς (many) + πρόπος (direction, way; but also manner or way of being)

But Pope's has more poetry to it. Out of those, if the style is consistent it might be the nicer read, I like English literature like that.

>>20218072
>>20218089
>>20218100
I thought Pope didn't actually do the Odyssey?

>>20217923
homer ought to be entertainment. the iliad was written ('written') with a dominant entertainment motive

>>20218108
He didnt, /lit/ is completely braindead. Literally ten seconds of research will tell you he let others do it for him and tried to say it was he who did it, since he had made a huge living from writing the iliad. The little bastard got lazy and became a fraud.

>>20211888
Learn Italian and read Vincenzo Monti's translation of the Iliad.
I won't elaborate further.

>>20216244
So much autism

>>20218319
Tbf everyone in Augustan London was a fraud except for maybe Swift. People claim that Pope's books can't really be distinguished from his assistants', idk if true or not, seems to reflect badly on him if anything because they were not first-rate poets, but it's still a fun translation if you want that particular flavor.

>>20211888
>Beginning, "Tell me about a complicated man", Wilson writes in "plain, contemporary language". She has argued that the more typical "heroic" style implicitly endorses the hierarchical, male-dominated value system of the society depicted, and discourages deeper engagement with the text. In one noteworthy choice, enslaved characters are often referred to as "slaves" instead of "maids" or "servants", with Wilson saying "it sort of stuns me when I look at other translations how much work seems to go into making slavery invisible."

She openly says she is trying to alter the text based on her personal politics.

If you are looking for an accurate translation, this is not it.

>>20216093
>Wilson "comes from a long line of academics",[2] including both her parents, A. N. Wilson[3] and Katherine Duncan-Jones,[4] her uncle, and her maternal grandparents, including Elsie Duncan-Jones
>A graduate of Balliol College, Oxford, in 1994 (B.A. in literae humaniores, classical literature, and philosophy), she undertook her master's degree in English literature 1500–1660 at Corpus Christi College, Oxford (1996), and her Ph.D. (2001) in classical and comparative literature at Yale University.
As a white woman living in the 1st world from an upper middle class family, she is so brave.

>>20218427
KEK her sister writes for the Wall Street Journal too.

>>20218427
rattled

Misandrist anti-white revisionist claptrap propped up because "progress"
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n19/emily-wilson/ah-how-miserable
First reading recommendations:
Iliad - Fagles translation
Odyssey - Fitzgerald translation

>>20218451
Fagles sucks, fitzgerald is much better for either book

>>20218414
Yeah i agree, the meter is the same. Not like every single line in his illiad is pure genius, its just a fun meter and works well with the english used

>>20218470
I jumped between the two and found Fagles did a better job with the battle scenes and since they take up most of the narrative, I think he's a better first read. That being said, the exchange between Hector, Andromache and his son (book VI) by Fitzgerald is probably my favorite bit from either translation.

>>20218523
You know if you think that way good for you. It’s all about whichever you find the most readable. Personally i cant stand fagles and though im not a fan of fitzgerald i’d take him any day

>>20218545
So what translation do you recommend?

>>20218247
Entertainment is a big factor in Homer, sure, but it was also treated akin to Bible and quoted much the same way as examples of what to aspire to in public speaking, the practice of virtue, and how to govern.

>>20211888
I can assure you no one in this thread has read Emily Wilson's Odyssey

>>20218417
She is accurate when it comes to translating the word for "slave" straightforwardly though. She just can't be trusted with much else.

>>20218577
see >>20215741

>>20215741
emily knows that

>>20218427
Lol

>>20218561
Whichever you find the most readable since everything in homer will be the same no matter which translation you pick. Getting the formulations of words right is not what makes homer great, it’s the scenes, analogies and timeless human factors that are reflected on in ALL translations.
The one i read is in swedish. In english i would read a prose transltion or pope.

>>20218594
The Greek for "slave" isn't xenos, and she doesn't translate slave as "foreigner". Jesus don't make me defend her trash just because she's right with one word.

Why is there so much hate for fagles itt? To me his translation is contemporary without being vulgar, smooth, very readable. What's the issue?

>>20211892
Get Fagles for a first-time read

>>20217972
>Speedy Comer
huh huh huh

>>20211909
BEHOLD A COMPLICATED MAN

Trash, don't read it

Dumb question but, honestly, are you supposed to read the Iliad or the Odyssey first?

>>20218777
The Iliad happens before, but there's no problem starting with the Odyssey since everything that happened before is pretty much common knowledge by now. (And there's a gap between the two poems so it doesn't start immediately after)

>>20215610
>it's being used in ivy league unis
Nope. Lattimore and Fagles are right now because they're the cheapest to get.

>>20218777
I liked the Illiad more desu desu.

>>20218761
where are you getting behold from

>>20218728
>Why is there so much hate for fagles itt?
It's one anon. He stirs shit whenever Fagles is brought up in Homer threads. It's because Fagles became the mainstream option due to easy access via Penguin, so the anon lashes out if anyone says something positive about it.

>>20218826
Nowhere, it's just that 'a complicated man' seems so far removed from the original intended meaning of 'the man of many ways' that it just proves to me that Wilson's work is shit and shouldn't be read any further than those first lines.

for me, it's E. V. Rieu

>>20218849
lattimore didn't write the odyssey, you know.

>>20218848
It’s me. I dont dislike fagles for being popular, it’s got weird anachronisms and 90s slang. /lit/ recommends it because /lit hasnt read it.
That first line in the odyssey is not the ultimate test to how good a translation is, you bunch of fuckwits.

>>20218928
it's the most important line though, tells you what it's all about

>>20218849
But that’s what complicated means, it means multi-facetted.

>>20218928
Yes it is
>Anger – sing, goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that accursed anger, which brought the Greeks endless sufferings and sent the mighty souls of many warriors to Hades, leaving their bodies as carrion for the dogs and a feast for the birds; and Zeus’ purpose was fulfilled. It all began when Agamemnon lord of men and godlike Achilles quarrelled and parted.
Rieu is based

>>20218932
Lol

>>20218937
>Rieu is based
Is what ive been saying this whole time.
The opening of the iliad and the odyssey arent even close to the top 1000 most vivid and effective lines in the books.

>>20214545
pope was a literal dwarf. Manlet deluxe. I cant respect him

>>20218928
...I've read it, and I can't recall odysseus saying how 'totally tubular' his escape from troy was.

>>20218976
Really wish i had highlighted the lines i mean, but i dont even have the book anymore.

>>20211888
>woman
Dropped.

Also as much as i disliked fagles i still love homer and if you like the translation then go with your gut. Its not life or death which translation you pick, atleast not in my experience. Perhaps only with wilson and graves.

>>20219110
graves is super

>>20219114
Thats a stretch

>>20219127
i adore the boy

>>20213088
Lmao based rant thanks for writing

>>20213315
But she has a vagina so her perspective is inherently valid

The only thing I dislike about Fagles is, as has been brought up, his line numbers don't match the Greek, thus making comparison and "study" very difficult if not impossible. Sure, you've got the original Greek numbering in the page corner, but no real indication of where Fagles' breaks away. In a way, I compare it to Bible translation philosophies: formal (word-for-word), dynamic (meaning-for-meaning), and paraphrase (dynamic to the extreme without even trying to map words to the original); Lattimore falls closer to formal, Fagles and Fitzgerald to dynamic, and something like a children's adaptation as a paraphrase.

>>20216161
I wonder why that site doesn't have Pope's

>>20213315
>emily wilson went to Oxford and Yale. anybody who goes to an elite university and tries to speak for the poor, oppressed masses should be ridiculed
what about FDR?

>>20216161
Chapman’s is incredible, the only one that feels authoritarian and actually like homer. Modern translations of homer read like modernised shakespeare.

>>20211982
>t. illiterate tranny who has no understanding of literature

>>20219310
think that's very unintuitive

>>20211888
It's probably far too late for, but can OP post their syllabus where this is in the reading list?

>>20216161
>>20216205
>Lord describes the allegorical interpretation
of Homer in Renaissance England as part of an "unbroken tradition extending
2,000 years back to classical times," (p. 35) and emphasizes Chapman's "'almost
religious attitude'" (p. 39—the words are Donald Smalley's) toward Homer and
his belief that "his highest duty as a translator [was] the revelation of Homer's
concealed mysteries" (p. 40)
From Homer the Theologian