>When Alexander Pope's majestic translation of Homer's Odyssey appeared in 1726, his translation of the Iliad had already been acclaimed by Samuel Johnson as "a performance which no age or nation could hope to equal."
The comparison of first lines at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_translations_of_Homer does a good job of giving some sense of the differences in style between various translations.
Each to their own, of course, but I wanted to provide a counterpoint to anyone out there deciding on a translation to read.
An example of the opposite, as hackneyed as it is appropriate, is Moby Dick. Melville was a popular author who created something that was very out of sync with the era (to which previously he had suited his style) and as it turns out very interesting - but only once the zeitgeist had advanced.
Today translators are expected to be reasonable faithful to the source material. Adding rhymes to verses which is not originally rhymed, like Pope does, represent an older tradition where the translator had more free reign. Modern readers would probably expect a more faithful translation.
Yeah Shakespeare is a great example.
The King James Bible might be the ur-example, as I’ve heard it said that it’s so influential it basically shaped the English language.
As another poster said, the phrase “product of its time” in this case is talking about if the language holds up over time or ends up sounding dated and thus loses its luster.
"Luther made the Bible and you have made Homer speak German. This is the greatest gift that can be given to a people; for a people remains barbaric and fails to see the excellence it knows as its own true property as long as it does not come to know it in its own language. If you want to forget these two examples, I still want to say of my own efforts that I will try to teach philosophy to speak German. If it ultimately comes to do that, then it will be infinitely more difficult to give triviality the appearance of profound speech".
- Hegel, ‘Letter to Johann Heinrich Voss’, 1805.
Hah, talk about irony.
(Personally, I find that I always seem to have a special place in my heart for my first translation of something -- for me, nobody beats Richmond Lattimore. But I'm more nostalgic than most.)
This is the literary equivalent of claiming 640K should be enough for anybody.
Bach is no lesser than deadmau5 because deadmau5 composes 300 years later. But technology from 300 years before is by definition less advanced than todays...
What was pleasant to read text 300 years ago is unpleasant hard to read text. What was normal word 300 years ago is unusual rare word now. What is even worst, the same word now can mean something completely different.
It is more like technology then music in this regard.
Agree with the rest of what you say but take issue with “ceases to be good”, since, even with translations, determining what is “good” about a piece of literature is complicated and often more about the process than the outcome.
For example some translation which still has a lot of artistic merit or historical importance, but, as you said, is now dated and difficult to read because the language has changed so much since when the translation was written.
I’d argue it doesn’t make sense to call that translation “bad”. “Bad for an undergraduate”, or “bad as a first translation to read, or “bad at X”, some specific thing, but overall bad? Personally I’d argue now.
Also for what it’s worth even if the science behind music doesn’t change, music itself - how we hear it and our culture for it - kinda does.
For example, lots of sounds / music that used to be considered unbearable noise is now widely accepted and popular. Looking at the changes in western popular music in the 20th century is a great example of this.
But —- I agree with you that language and music (and art) are all sort of their own kinds of technologies!
There are materials and techniques and functions and so on. The technology / art divide is much blurrier than is often appreciated. :)
Often attributed (erroneously) to Kenneth Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC).
Source investigation: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/09/14/home-computer/
The first one I read was Fitzgerald's translation. That was the one my father gave me. He studied classics at Cambridge and claims that none of the translations really capture the original, but Fitzgerald is closest. My Greek is rudimentary, but having looked through most of English translations, I definitely prefer Fitzgerald.
If you're interested in enjoyable translations of Homer, I'd strongly recommend War Music by the British poet Chrisopher Logue. It's The Iliad, but he called it something like "a retelling" rather than "a translation" because it gave him more leeway. Unfortunately he died before he could finish it.
Another British poet Alice Oswald wrote an interesting version of the Iliad that tried to strip out the glamourisation of war and focus on the footsoldiers: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/oct/09/alice-oswald-h...
I think the "cliched, British empire part of our culture" aspect talked about by Alice Oswald is why I love Logue's version so much - it becomes much more vivid in his retelling for me, somehow using a modern idiom to bring an ancient story alive.
I've read both the Iliad and Odyssey translated by Fagles, and although I can't compare it to Wilson's version I think they're reasonably approachable versions without any stuffiness, although not exactly exciting, as you say.
I thinks Wilson makes things a little too clear in her effort to produce a modern story. This erases a lot of purposeful vagueness, allusions to background knowledge, innuendo, and general openness to interpretation that makes classics "feel classic."
For example, the first few lines of Pope's translation says that Odysseus, "Wandering from clime to clime, observant stray’d, Their manners noted, and their states survey’d." In Greek mythology, Odysseus was said to have been an unusually curious man. Even in his far-flung travels, he took note of the natural and human elements he encountered, as if he was Charles Darwin! Unlike Darwin's, though, his surveys were neither methodical nor preserved for posterity. His days were unnumbered, and we can merely glimpse a few portions of his exploits that a muse can snatch up for us. There's plenty of blank space for us to fill with our own imagination and interpretation. Indeed, we fill it with a sense of grandiosity and timelessness, as we do when we read any good epic from Homer to Tolkien.
This introduction to the main character is completely missing in Wilson's translation. Odysseus just becomes a "complicated man" who filmed five Die Hard movies in a row to save his crew and get back home. Wilson's opening feels... hollow. It leaves little room for imagination. It sets us up in popcorn mode, merely waiting for the author to fill us in, punch by punch.
Perhaps, everyday English has co-evolved with modern science for too long to avoid sounding matter-of-factly.
Yeah, and neither am I, although I do have a BA in literature from a third-tier college, which probably doesn't give me much credibility here. Your opinion is pretty close to my own. The only thing I might disagree with you on is that I'm not as attached to the (mildly) archaic language. I think modern English can serve a mythic function; it just doesn't really work for me in Wilson's translation. By the way, if anyone wants to compare, here are three versions of that one line:
Pope
> Wandering from clime to clime, observant stray’d, Their manners noted, and their states survey’d.
Fagles
> Many cities of men he saw and learned their minds
Wilson
> and where he went, and who he met
(On this one, Pope is my favorite too.)
That being said: this is all literature! It's mostly a matter of taste and opinion. And if Wilson's writing helps anyone get something new out of the Odyssey, I'm all for it. I'm genuinely just curious what that is.
But when so much detail is lost, one begins to wonder if it should be called an "abridged edition", even if it preserves the number of lines.
There’s a big difference between that and a translators work for something like The Odyssey.
Fagles is my favorite of the two, because he gave me more of what I wanted: high diction and mythic tone. Wilson's translation was great, and evidently captured the spirit of the Greek much better, but I wasn't really looking for that. I'm not a classicist, I don't read Greek. I want my blood to be stirred by evocative lines that transport me into a non-existent past. I don't think that's what Wilson was trying to accomplish, so it's no surprise she doesn't succeed at it.
But, to answer your question, one advantage of the Wilson Odyssey is that it is a really fast, fun translation to read. Whereas I found Fagles to be more of a study, Wilson was practically a page-turner. I'm not saying it was dumbed-down in any way! It's an amazing achievement to have maintained fidelity to the source text while also writing something approachable and engrossing for popular audiences. When she finishes translating the Iliad, I will buy that too, and probably give both her translations to someone I want to have a good experience with Homer. I wouldn't do that with Fagles.
Fair :). Lol I’ve been constantly re-reading The Lord of the Rings for the same reason :). And I’ve read (Fagles, I think) The Iliad for the same reasons.
You may have already, but if not check out the Seamus Heaney translation of ‘Beowulf.’
He doesn’t do “high diction” or “mythic tone”, but, imho, he’s managed to give the story a quite “epic tone” in a very contemporary and earthy fashion.
It’s also a short / fun / fast read.
A fun postscript is Atwood’s “The Penelopiad.” It’s short and really entertaining.
“Let me add that meat was highly valued among us – the aristocracy ate lots of it, meat, meat, meat, and all they ever did was roast it: ours was not an age of haute cuisine. Oh, I forgot: there was also bread, flatbread that is, bread, bread, bread, and wine, wine, wine. We did have the odd fruit or vegetable, but you’ve probably never heard of these because no one put them into the songs much.”
The Literature and History podcast has great coverage of the Illiad and Odyssey, and reads from Wilson in addition to Fagles, Rieu, and others. The podcast itself is exceptionally good if you are into the history behind the writing.
https://literatureandhistory.com/index.php/episodes/all-epis...
Lattimore, and Willam Cowper are excellent too.
Also there is Chapman too, mentioned in the memorable poem by Keats..
It was joy. My neighbors still look at me funny, though.
Robert Fagles is one of the most famous English translators of the Odyssey, but I find Wilson's to be more fun to read.
I think one reason why I enjoy Wilson's translation more is because she translates each line using iambic pentameter (like how Shakespeare wrote). The original is in six-footed lines (dactylic hexameters). This is an important style choice because dactylic hexameter was a great choice for poets in the ancient Greek language, but a poor choice in English. The translation into English using iambic pentameter gives the poem a natural flow in English.
What's most impressive is that Wilson's translation is the same length as the original, with exactly the same number of lines while changing the meter from dactylic hexameter to iambic pentameter!