/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.23025274]

How do I trust translations?

[Anonymous No.23025340]

>>23025274
You don't. Poetry cannot be translated.
The closest thing are interlinear translations:
https://archive.org/details/odysseyofhomerco01gile
With that being said, there's nothing wrong with reading Chapman, Pope etc. for pleasure, as long as you know it's not Homer.

[Anonymous No.23025349]

>>23025340
This is a sad truth pill that I have recently taken. A translation can never be reliable.

[Anonymous No.23025358]

>>23025340
Do you know ancient greek anon?

[Anonymous No.23025359]

You can never fully trust a translation, and even with a faithful translator, poetry loses much in translation. This is may sound like blackpilled doomposting, but it's not, it's just a fact of life. No one can learn every language there is, and you'll never be able to cover everything. But you can still gain a "sense" of a poem in translation, you can get some familiarity with a language and then read a bilingual translation to get the sound of the poem, and you can even read wildly different translations that stand as remarkable works in their own right while retaining the content (and in some cases, the essence) of a poem. Learning a language isn't as hard as it's made out to be, and if all you want to do with the language is read it, then it's even easier. Learn the languages you want to learn and then just do your best to find good translations for the other stuff you want to read.

[Anonymous No.23025373]

>>23025340
>mfw I enjoy this translation more than Fagles

[Anonymous No.23025412]

Women really need to develop a feminist discourse of never listening to anything a man says, ever. Until they do that, they are going to continue to be coddled by men (including systemically through "acceptance" by male institutions and vetting processes) and continue to embarrass themselves in this fashion. Women should be taught to regard men as porn addicted subhuman goblins who will say and do anything to make them happy, just because they're a woman. Their praise is worth nothing unless it's given to other men (whom they despise by default, thus it can be trusted to be genuine when freely given).

Until this day comes, women will continue to be nepotistic diversity hires, just subpar men with tits. No woman will ever excel because she can always coast on dumb men clapping like seals because "A woman did it! A woman did it!" The first genuine feminist phenomenologist should start from the principle that misogynists are actually a woman's best friends among the male species because at least they tell the truth. Even if it's ugly or mean, an ugly truth or a truth cruelly stated is still infinitely superior to a thousand ass-kissing platitudes from simps, and to the systemically distributed collective unconscious and perpetual ass-kissing of worldwide simpdom as it manifests in all male institutions. The first true feminists should reflect on 4chan misogyny posts like zen koans, until they scour away all the accumulated nonsense of millennia of paternal doters and simping orbiters telling them whatever they want to hear, and create the negative space in which something real might actually emerge.

[Anonymous No.23025415]

>>23025358
Almost nothing, I still have to learn it, but I know a reasonable amount of tongues, perhaps including Latin depending on what you mean by "know" (I'm far from fluent). Poetry cannot be translated.
Nevermind Homer, even a Rimbaud or a Leopardi cannot be translated. But when it comes to the Ancients it's even more difficult because the languages are too different, being highly inflected and such, which generates wholly different ways of expression, as well as different poetic possibilities, not to mention all the changes in the vocabulary, the nuances, which tend to only grow larger with time.

>>23025373
Honestly? Yea, it's better.
If you can make sense of it, which you should if your IQ is higher than 1, then there is no reason to read modern poetic or pseudo-poetic translations, unless they're genuinely very good like Pope's or Chapman's, so good that you can read them as independent poems.
There were many interlinear translations done in the 19th century, when Classics were still a respected discipline. You can find similar ones for Virgil, all of Horace, much of Cicero, Ovid etc. I use them a lot when studying Latin.
The only thing I don't like is that the order of words tends to be changed to facilitate comprehension. For study purposes it's good, but it would be nice to see the actual order. I found one edition of Juvenal that preserves the actual order: https://archive.org/details/satiresofdecimus00juveuoft/page/10/mode/2up
Anyway, nothing that a pdf of the actual text can't solve.
Other than those, Loeb translations sometimes are quite faithful too.

[Anonymous No.23025443]

>>23025412
That can't happen because human nature does not allow it.
The Era of Woman was an aberration of history, besides being fake (women are not in charge, never will be), and is to end soon, possibly in less than two or three centuries.
Birth rates of Western liberals are plummeting. They are going extinct.
Politics is genetics.
Advancements in birth control techniques mean that ideologies that lead women to avoid giving birth will eventually be eliminated from the human gene pool.
Religious people, conservatives, low-impulse child-havers and other such groups will proliferate while reserved, childless liberals will become more and more rare. One day there will be more Amish than atheists in the US.

[Anonymous No.23025468]

>>23025274
It's even worse than that. Emily translated the Odyssey so Odysseus is the villain and the cyclops is the victim. Regardless of what you think about "modernizing" or dumbing down the language, what she did went against authorial intent and is downright subversive.

[Anonymous No.23025486]

>>23025358
>he doesn't know ancient Greek

[Anonymous No.23025888]

>>23025340
Wow, that is distracting to read. The Loebs with the Greek and English on alternate pages is much easier to read.

[Anonymous No.23025901]

>>23025468
1. Odysseus broke into that guys house or cave more specifically and started gobbling his food up

2. He was the Cyclopes’ natural prey anyhow. It’s like getting offended over humans eating hamburgers.

[Anonymous No.23025921]

>>23025468
I mean that's not entirely wrong. The idea that, from an unbiased view point, Odysseus was kind of being a cock in that situation and started that fight himself isn't exactly a new one. People have been fielding that idea since at least before the fall of Rome last I checked, and is probably older, enough so that what the authorial intent is isn't entirely clear, because "Odysseus is a bit of an asshole who made this harder than it had to be because he's-" is kind of a theme in the Odyssey even if it's not clear what the second half of that is supposed to be. Could be "a plaything of fate" could be "a self righteous cock" could be "a poor bastard in over his head", could be anything really.

[Anonymous No.23025927]

>>23025921
Yeah, Odysseus is not intended as a selfless hero of any sort. One need only look at when he almost murdered a poet who was hiding under the table for the crime of being in the same place with the suitors.

[Anonymous No.23025933]

>>23025901
>>23025921
>>23025927
modern education and cinema sins have rot your brain.

[Anonymous No.23025935]

>>23025274
Well was she closer to the original text? If she was then she can be more attuned to the text even though her translation reads more blandly than lawrences

[Anonymous No.23025936]

>>23025933
Okay, I’ll break into your house and eat all your food. See how you like it. Hope your father isn’t god of the ocean.

[Anonymous No.23025953]

>>23025927
Being fair that's him after undergoing character development and he notably doesn't. I honestly took it as Odysseus starts out as someone who puts on airs of being more civil and by the standards of the time "noble", but mainly for the sake of appearances, and to avoid what he sees as undesireable consequences, but is infact kind of a vicious, petty bastard, but as time comes on he becomes more outwardly cruel and harsh, more willing to bloody his hands openly and without pretensions otherwise, but his actual moral character improves and the lines he refuses to cross become more real, less performative, though less in number than before.

[Anonymous No.23025960]

Cyclops aren't human. They should be murdered.

[Anonymous No.23025972]

>>23025274
By being the translator, of course. Better question: How do you trust source text? Answer: you don't.

[Anonymous No.23025991]

>>23025412
You just described /cgl/ and its many spinoffs.

[Anonymous No.23025996]

>>23025936
I'm not a monster and you're not a hero. Nice false equivalency.

[Anonymous No.23026007]

>>23025412
Thats retarded, you don't get away from the lies of those who adore you by getting your opinions from those who despise you.

[Anonymous No.23026020]

I'm only a beginner in French but reading translations of French prose into English surprises me
I've seen people add whole paragraphs into the translation

[Anonymous No.23026056]

>>23025340
that edition looks horrible and completely destroys homer's greek

[Anonymous No.23026069]

>>23025936
You dumb ape, Polyphemus violated the laws of Xenia. Odysseus' crew wanted to rob him and leave but Odysseus made them stay to meet the man, all in accordance with Greek custom. Polyphemus is the one who would not let them leave, who violated the laws of hospitality, who ate them alive.
Reading ancient works with a modern mindset and criticizing them without taking into account their contemporary perspective is PC bullshit. No better than niggers wewuzzing.

[Anonymous No.23026073]

>>23025927
>he almost murdered a poet
>almost

[Anonymous No.23026074]

>>23026069
“The laws of Xenia”

The odyssey isn’t governed by laws of kindness. The phacians return Odysseus to Ithaca and in return they are turned to stone. The goal of the story isn’t “be nice to people.”

[Anonymous No.23026088]

>>23025274
She gets a bad rap here. Nothing wrong with that excerpt. Most idiomatic in its modern English, in fact.

[Anonymous No.23026099]

>>23026088
That's because retards think more prose = better translation

[Anonymous No.23026123]

>>23026074
Xenia is present everywhere in the Odyssey you moron. It isn't 'kindness', it is hospitality.
>phacians
You mean the Phaeacians? Who got turned into stone, the ones who showed hospitality or the ones who gave Odysseus a ride through Poseidon's realm? Funny how the king and his daughter were left alone even though they were the ones responsible for xenia, xenia which they showed in abundance throughout several chapters of the book.
>The goal of the story isn’t “be nice to people.”
Your brain is rotted and there is no fixing it.
Keep reading Wilson, she writes for you specifically, along with >>23026088 and >>23026099

[Anonymous No.23026126]

>>23026088

[Anonymous No.23026128]

>>23026074
that's not what xenia means. why are you even in this thread?

[Anonymous No.23026138]

>>23026123
>>23026128
Giving the stranger a ride was part of the Xenia custom because they explicitly agreed to not help anyone marooned on their shores ever again. That’s not even inferred. It’s outright stated. They disavow any hospitality to stranded people.

[Anonymous No.23026226]

>>23026126
Why not?

[Anonymous No.23026245]

>>23026126
y'know what god bless him but Tyrone's trying. Feels more genuine and poetic that whatever faggotry Emily is pushing.

[Anonymous No.23026275]

>>23025274
holy shit Wilson's version is so bad lmao

[Anonymous No.23026276]

>>23026138
>Giving the stranger a ride was part of the Xenia custom
Wrong, nor is it even implied anywhere in Greek literature. "Oar-loving" Phaeacians were doing what they loved best.
>they explicitly agreed to not help anyone marooned on their shores ever again. That’s not even inferred. It’s outright stated. They disavow any hospitality to stranded people.
Wrong again. Let's look at the actual text
Alkinoos:
>"ὢ πόποι, ἦ μάλα δή με παλαίφατα θέσφαθ' ἱκάνει
πατρὸς ἐμοῦ, ὃς ἔφασκε Ποσειδάων' ἀγάσασθαι
ἡμῖν, οὕνεκα πομποὶ ἀπήμονές εἰμεν ἁπάντων.
φῆ ποτὲ Φαιήκων ἀνδρῶν περικαλλέα, νῆα,
ἐκ πομπῆς ἀνιοῦσαν, ἐν ἠεροειδέϊ πόντῳ
ῥαισέμεναι, μέγα δ' ἧμιν ὄρος πόλει ἀμφικαλύψειν.
ὣς ἀγόρευ' ὁ γέρων: τὰ δὲ δὴ νῦν πάντα τελεῖται.
ἀλλ' ἄγεθ', ὡς ἂν ἐγὼ εἴπω, πειθώμεθα πάντες:
πομπῆς μὲν παύσασθε βροτῶν, ὅτε κέν τις ἵκηται
ἡμέτερον προτὶ ἄστυ: Ποσειδάωνι δὲ ταύρους
δώδεκα κεκριμένους ἱερεύσομεν, αἴ κ' ἐλεήσῃ,
μηδ' ἡμῖν περίμηκες ὄρος πόλει ἀμφικαλύψῃ."
I know you can't read Greek, but nowhere above does it say they will not help anyone marooned. That would violate the laws of Xenia. It specifically says they will not escort or conduct anyone AWAY who lands on their shores. That is outright stated, not whatever BS you got from a poor translation. The key word is πομπή, used thrice in the above and directly stemming from πέμπω, to send. Look it up instead of replying with nonsense.
Maybe instead of babbling about shit you don't understand you should read more.

[Anonymous No.23026281]

>>23026276
lmao he quoted the original greek what can you even do at that point

[Anonymous No.23026300]

>>23026276
status of pseud fag: obliterated

[Anonymous No.23026308]

>>23025274
Fun fact- the Icelandic translation of Dracula was actually horny fanfiction and nobody noticed for 100 years.

[Anonymous No.23026314]

>>23026276
umm wilsonsisters, our response?

[Anonymous No.23026317]

>>23026308
From what I read, it wasn't fan fiction but based on an earlier draft by Stoker.

[Anonymous No.23026350]

I always liked Hollander's translation of Dante's Inferno, not because it's "the best" translation but because:
>it's a parallel text, so you can check for accuracy yourself
>after each verse they break down why they translated it the way they did
It's completely open and honest about everything they translated and it's really well formatted.

[Anonymous No.23026357]

>>23026308
>>23026317
>Powers of Darkness is an incredible literary discovery: In 1900, Icelandic publisher and writer Valdimar Ásmundsson set out to translate Bram Stoker’s world-famous 1897 novel Dracula. Called Makt Myrkranna (literally, “Powers of Darkness”), this Icelandic edition included an original preface written by Stoker himself. Makt Myrkranna was published in Iceland in 1901 but remained undiscovered outside of the country until 1986, when Dracula scholarship was astonished by the discovery of Stoker’s preface to the book. However, no one looked beyond the preface and deeper into Ásmundsson’s story.
>In 2014, literary researcher Hans de Roos dove into the full text of Makt Myrkranna, only to discover that Ásmundsson hadn’t merely translated Dracula but had penned an entirely new version of the story, with all new characters and a totally re-worked plot. The resulting narrative is one that is shorter, punchier, more erotic, and perhaps even more suspenseful than Stoker’s Dracula. Incredibly, Makt Myrkranna has never been translated or even read outside of Iceland until now.Powers of Darkness presents the first ever translation into English of Stoker and Ásmundsson’s Makt Myrkranna.
wow, that's really interesting. I'm going to have to add that to my to read list.

[Anonymous No.23026406]

>>23026276
i kneel