Pope's translation, using rhyming couplets, is very much a product of its time and is, in many ways, more a re-performance of Homer than a translation. I've not yet read Wilson's translation. Richmond Lattimore's translation is a great translation although also a product of its time (it strives to produce a line-for-line literal translation) which I feel is better than his former friend Robert Fitzgerald's translation. Originally the two friends were to translate the Iliad (Lattimore) and the Odyssey (Fitzgerald). The story goes that Lattimore found Fitzgerald's translation so wanting that he then proceeded to produce his own translation of the Odyssey and Fitzgerald in turn produced his own translation of the Iliad and the two men stopped speaking to each other.

Translations are a bit like Helen vs #nofilter Penelope: they may be either very beautiful or very faithful, but unless one has been blessed by the gods, that or is exclusive.

Fitzgerald, imho, is neither beautiful nor faithful. We compared some passages side by side between Fitzgerald and Lattimore in my Epic and Scripture class and Fitzgerald was just ugly in his attempts to modernize the language rather than let Homer's word choices stand on their own (pretty much anywhere Lattimore used the more literal "winged words" Fitzgerald chose something clunky and pedestrian trying to interpret the metaphor.

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.

I love Fitzgerald's translations! I find Lattimore utterly dull and lacking in poetry; Fitzgerald is readable and fun, in my view.

Each to their own, of course, but I wanted to provide a counterpoint to anyone out there deciding on a translation to read.

or Scylla and Charybdis?

Not trying to be snarky, but isn't everything a product of its time? Is there some work that has been timeless? Shakespeare maybe?

I think in this case, Pope's style was exemplary of the state of English-language poetry. He excelled in the form rather than challenging it. (I love his translation but it's certainly far from "accurate." A "re-performance" is a great way of putting it.)

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.

Shakespeare is certainly also product of his time. What is meant is probably "dated" or "did not age gracefully" which is not exactly the same.

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.

Good question :).

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.

And Hegel likewise has high praise for the translation of Homer into German by J.H. Voss:

"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.

> If it ultimately comes to do that, then it will be infinitely more difficult to give triviality the appearance of profound speech".

Hah, talk about irony.

My impression is that every new translation of one of the canonical works produces a similar reaction. Emily Wilson is just the latest that everyone is fawning over. I guess the value is in making the old thing new again.

(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.)

> his translation of the Iliad had already been acclaimed by Samuel Johnson as "a performance which no age or nation could hope to equal."

This is the literary equivalent of claiming 640K should be enough for anybody.

The difference being in art this is possible, as art doesn't get better, just gets different.

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...

The english language changes over time too.

Yes, but not for the "better" either. It's more like art than technology.

The translation cease to be good over time, because the meaning of words changes and the way people construct sentences changes. The way people speak and understand text changes.

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.

> The translation cease to be good over time, because the meaning of words changes and the way people construct sentences changes.

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. :)

>There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.

Often attributed (erroneously) to Kenneth Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC).

Source investigation: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/09/14/home-computer/

We had strayed from this prophesy for a while, but we've since repented. Now we're trying to push as much computing as possible to the cloud, leaving ourselves with only dumb terminals.

>In the long run we are all dead.—John Maynard Keynes

He didn't say the iliad is the only book you need. This is more the literary equivalent of saying the best tetris is gameboy tetris.