/lit/ - Literature

>>21772219
I get the impetus to do the Emily Wilson translation though
A lot of these translations from the early to mid part of the 21st century were well done, but of course they suffer from the geist of their day, either modernism or post modernism
in EITHER case they fundamentally considered these older works to be in earnest nothing more than really interesting curiosities
and the individuals who didn't think this way (who often produced the translations) were not affirming the source material in some vital way but rather doing apologetics for them (aka "Look how this ancient work STILL holds up!" basically)
So you get a lot of stilted and high-sounding language from the modern day, no contractions lol

Of course now such translations suffer from a retarded new morality of millenials/boomers/gen xers which seeks explicitly to bring the high down to the low

I'm very interested to know how these things actually sounded/were worded/flowed; obviously in their day they were literally sung and rhymed so it was different

Shakespeare also got this treatment; even though it's played in all sorts of ways today it's really done in one of two ways:
>high and dry
that is, extremely sophisticated, the actors excruciating over every word like it means something and you and your millennial friends pretending like you understand it because you are very smart
>or gay and to-day
WHAT if ROMEO and JULIET was set in MIAMI and romeo was LEO omg I loved him in titanic <3
or
WHAT IF WE PRETENDED LIKE ALL THE FUNNY LANGUAGE WAS JUST NORMAL like in the Much Ado About Nothing movie


the true alternative to this is telling it like Jonathan Bowden like when he tells a punch and judy story, how it was meant to be told

>>12147248
>1980s: NYT defends itself in court saying the 'best selling list' does not actually mean books which sell best but rather is actually editorial picks and therefore protected speech

>2010s: NYT defends itself from not including actual bestselling conservative superstar Jorden B Peterson's book on the list because he is canadian, and should not be counted in american sales

w e w. handrub.gif

What's your favorite kind of plot in your SF&F?