/lit/ - Literature

>>23097113
>Where the hell are you from? It is not /lit/ thats for sure.
I could say the same to you, unless things have changed over the years. It is (or was) a given that you'd get at least a couple people quoting Richard Bentley's letter to Pope and using it to posture. Pope was a laughing-stock here, and unfortunately enough people bought into the meme and wrote him off completely without ever reading his translations, let alone his original poetry.
>>23097143
They were beautiful, and beauty is what matters most. They weren't reading dry, overly academic garbage or glorified "Iliad for Dummies" translations. They were reading translations that fully intended to communicate the themes of their stories in English. None of those authors would've been inspired by Lattimore, and of course John Keats would never have written a poem dedicated to Fagles like he did for Chapman.
>Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
>And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
>Round many western islands have I been
>Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
>Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
>That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;
>Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
>Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
>Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
>When a new planet swims into his ken;
>Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
>He star'd at the Pacific—and all his men
>Look'd at each other with a wild surmise—
>Silent, upon a peak in Darien.