/lit/ - Literature

>>15493860
Ezra Pound stated there is no good translation of Homer into English, but if you can’t learn Greek there are good translations into French and Latin

>>15493869
What French translations are there?

>>15493860
I tried rereading the Iliad last month, after reading a biography of Alexander the Great (who modeled a part of his persona after Achilles), and almost had a mental breakdown after chapter 2 was basically a 15-page long description of all the fleets and leaders involved in a battle. For the night, I genuinely considered quitting "serious" literature, and discounting it as intellectually dishonest and a linguistic autism, and I genuinely planned to read nothing but pulpy escapist fantasy for the rest of my life, as I could perceive no meaningful distinction between Homer and the crap which self-published zoomers churn out, as all the usual praises seemed meaningless (muh rhythm! muh language! why would I care about such stupidity as a phrase sounding satisfying? I have never read anything purely verbal which would approach the divine instinctive satisfaction which Bach or Handel provide me. But what about muh perfect framing and dramatic plot a la Aristotle and Horace. So what, why would I care about the frame to which a painting is put, if the contents of the photo are themselves repetitive and unappealing, contrary to the worldview of any reasonable human being?). And I put the book down and picked up a Greek drama anthology and a novel by Mark Twain the next day, and my faith in literature as a medium of art for the soul was healed.

>>15493860
Personally I really enjoy dabbling in different English translations of Homer throughout history. I feel no need to settle on one translation above all others. I read the big ones like Chapman, Butler, Lattimore, and the oddities like Hobbes, Lombard, and Fitzgerald. It’s fun, each translation is like a riff off the original that brings into stark relief a facet of the poem I hadn’t been able to see in the other iterations.

>>15494020
>chapter 2 was basically a 15-page long description of all the fleets and leaders involved in a battle
That's the best part for those with an interest in history.

>>15494186
Shut up pseud.

>>15494219
History? Homer's not a very reliable source on that front desu

>>15493860
Ancient Greek takes ages to learn though, and there's like 10 languages I would learn before it.

>>15493860
It's true. I'm new in my studies of Greek literature so I haven't started a full reading of Homer yet but the extracts I read are absolutely God-tier and English translations are completely dull in comparison.

>>15494395
He's the best we have on a lot of topics.

Chapman is amazing stop being a pseud

>>15494551
He's pretty much the only one on many topics, but we need archaeology to sort out the different periods he meshes together; not saying it's of no historical value of course, just that it's no easy matter to discriminate what can be trusted, and regarding what period (actual Mycenean, Dark Ages or just archaic e.g.)

>>15494531
>>15493869
Can you post examples of the original Greek and a breakdown of why it's superior to Fagles/Lattimore

>>15494219
Anyone with serious interest in history would need additional data, sources and context for those super duper interesting 15 pages of lists. To a reader whose goal is aesthetic enjoyment they remain nearly empty.

>>15493860
read the pope translation like any sane person would, you retard

>>15494668
It's interesting how random anons drop in a proclaim the absolute superiority of the original Greek compared to English translations without elaborating on their comments in any way.
In case you needed any more of a reminder about the 'muh translations' trope. It's literally a meme.

>>15494668
(they won't, because they probably can't read Greek)

>>15494702
>a reader whose goal is aesthetic enjoyment
... shouldn't be reading Homer in translation in the first place.

>>15494725
>literally reads poetry in translation
Yikes.

>>15494725
>>15494769
I feel like this is the case, since I've literally never seen anyone here post in Attic Greek substantially.

>>15494186
Just (in the sense of justice) enough post. The 'pseud' was and forever remains Pound, not that his dilettantism wasn't appreciated when I was child, e.g. ABC of Reading, etc.
t. reads Greek

>>15494945
Homer must be kinda shitty if the sound of his verses is the only aesthetically worthwhile thing in his text.

>>15494950
Plenty of writers, philosophers and theoreticians far greater than any /lit/izen have read poetry in translation. Go "yikes" at Bloom, Melville, Pushkin, Goethe, etc.

>>15494725
They’re just regurgitating what others have told them, most likely. I sincerely doubt that anyone inveighing against English translations of Homer in this thread can read Homeric Greek. They just think it’s the more intellectual angle to take, so they take it.
I will not deny that there is a large difference between reading the original and reading a translation, but to assume a priori that the translations are always worse, even if you don’t know the language to be able to compare, is to act absurdly. Translators are often talented writers themselves, and so I wouldn’t be surprised if having the original material go through a 2nd artist can even improve the material in some cases. I know many writers — Marquez, for instance — preferred the translations of their own works to the originals. But the judgement should not be made by anyone who cannot read the language of the work they’re discussing, otherwise it’s no different to making judgements and comparisons on a book you’ve never read.

>>15493869
I'm a native Spanish speaker, and I find English translations of Homer's works to be much more tolerable than the ones in my native language

>>15494668
(I'm the top anon)
I'd be glad, but I'm not sure exactly what you are asking of me here. What/how do you want me to break down? I'll give it a try either way, but I don't want to do some word-for-word break-down that ends up being useless(as I've done before, and actually I just started doing before realizing it might be useless time wasten again) and gets no replies. So please just provide more detailed instructions.

(I suppose I will begin by pre-noting how very different the English language is to the Greek. (this applies to other languages as well)
As the OP mentions, every passage is enthralling in the original.)

Also I assure you I do know Greek, even if I am still learning. Some people here seem really insistent thst knowing Greek is impossible and everyone's some kind of fraud. Καίτοι ἐγγυῶμαί σοι μὲ γιγνώσκειν, κατὰ τρόπον γοῦν, ὡς ἔτι μανθάνοντα, Ἑλληνικὴν. Εννιοι δεῦρο, δοκεῖ μοι, οἴονται Ἑλληνικὴν ἀδύνατον μανθάνειν τε καὶ πάντα ψεῦδόν τινα κενὸν εἶναι. (ούδαμῶς ἀλήθεια)
(I am going to sleep now, I will respond next morning) νῦν εὔδω, πρωΐ ἔσσεται ἡ ἀντιγραφὴ μου

>>15494020
I agree the translation is horrible, but you must be functionally retarded if you literally couldn't get anything out of the Iliad.

>>15496745
Not everyone, faggot, but 99% is reasonable considering it's a dead language, and that frauds will flee once simple crit is requested.

>>15497997
Nah I don't care. Even if some might be frauds they're right. The whole "not reading translations is actually a meme! it's an epic meemee am I right guys??? memes!" is extremely misdirected/misinformed.
It's being taught and learned by many.

>>15494020
hahaha you got fleet filtered. Just skip it.

>>15494020
>actually getting filtered by the Catalogue of Ships
lmao I thought that was just a meme

Bump

>>15493860
there is literally no good way to learn Greek though

Latin has lots of fantastic material, while Greek seems to attract people who have no clue about teaching a language

>>15500027
Learning greek properly without a good teacher is practically impossible imo

>>15500027
Cope-out excuse

>>15493869
Ezra Pound was a crazy person.

I wish a nigga would give some real advice on learning greek

>>15501698
Just pick up a textbook and keep at it bro.

>NO! NO! NO! TRANSLATIONS ARE BAD!!!!!!!!!!
>why?
> ):<

most anti-translation types are parrots or retards trying to justify their language dabbling

38 replies and not a single post giving even the slightest example of what is lost in Homeric Greek as opposed to its translation.

>>15502637
If you have to ask you're a pleb. Everyone on /lit/ says translations are bad

>>15502637
there are probably like 5 people in total that browse /lit/ who can read Homeric Greek fluently and they probably barely come here

>>15502676
This is the most probable case. I've been no-lifing Latin and every time I try to start a Roman lit thread I get 10 meme responses, then buried to page 10. Serious readers are rare on this board.

>>15502665
And everyone on /mu/ says Kanye West is a genius. You truly have to be a retard to take opinions/memes of a 4chan board seriously.

>>15494725
i read attic for 5 years in high school, mostly the odyssey and plato. i finished at a proficient enough level where i could read most works in attic with the occasional dictionary assist.

TRANSLATIONS can be good, but it really depends on the execution and the type of source material. you necessarily lose some (if not most) of the original aesthetic quality of the poetry and rhyme when you translate an original.

additionally, when you start understand a language better you also understand what is being left unsaid. you learn to read between the lines. you learn the double meanings of certain words that can lend itself to a double entendre.

all of that is to say: some things just don't translate well. as in plato's cave, you are not getting the TRUE FORM (the original work), but a reflection or imitation of that work (the translation).

now that in itself is neither good nor bad. some translations are really quite good at capturing the feel of the original text. it also depends on the language. Homer might translate better to italian or spanish than english, which in turn is probably a better translation than chinese.

really though, if you don't actually have the COMPARISON of reading the original, then it suppose it matters less. I don't read medieval italian, but I have a great Dutch translation of La Divina Commedia which I absolutely love for its poetic quality and extensive footnotes. so if you don't know what you're missing, that's fine i suppose. but i'll believe in a heartbeat anyone who tells me the poetry of the original is incomparably greater than any translation.

>>15503320
fuck the "true form"
A translation can easily mog the virgin original text

>>15496745
ὣς ὁ μὲν ἔνθα καθεῦδε πολύτλας δῖος Ανονμους ὕπνῳ καὶ καμάτῳ ἀρημένος

>>15501698
>be 12
>go to a school where they do classics

>>15503336

not even wrong desu. from a story perspective a translation could probably improve upon many old works.

not likely from a poetic/aesthetic perspective though, especially for literature written in poetic meter.

>>15496745
No offense, dude, but reading modern greek is no reading homer. I've tried to learn some XII century-ish texts in my mother tongue and the language differs radically, to the point you need a modernized "translation" of it. so i would only imagine how different should some 8th bc century poems to modern gyro-speak.

>>15503336
yeah but that's not really a good argument when you think about it.
nta and I can't read Greek but I think the problem here is that people on this board don't understand that learning a new language is an exceedingly interesting and pleasurable act in itself. it's really not that different from reading a classic writer. if i had more energy i'd write more about that. for now i'll just post an early post I made about what I think gets lost in translation

>>15503387
to add: translators generally choose one of two approaches.

either they go for a literal translation, which by default ruins the poetic meter.

or they go for a non-literal translations that captures the fell of the original meter, which makes the translation far less accurate (as you're forced to choose words that fit the meter).

i have yet to read any (poetic) work using the latter form of translation that is as effective as the original. the former can be really good, but sometimes a bit dry. also, you're missing half the story because of the lack of poetry. like listening to a band with only half the instruments playing.

>>15503429
In my opinion there are three important things that are essentially untranslatable in literature:
1. The structure of the writing. The actual form the sentence takes. This has to do with the irreconcilable differences of language itself but of these three things it's also the most possible to preserve, if you find a good translator. The thing is that the way a sentence works is just not the same for, say, French as it is English, or German as it is English. French pronouns go before the verb which acts on them, Germans put most verbs at the end of their sentences. This means that the original balance of the sentence can simply not be rendered into English properly, and if it can be it takes someone who has to know how to walk the line between preserving the original structure of clauses while rendering in English in a way that seems sensible, current, unstuffy. Not easy business. Even someone like CK Moncrieff has caught flak for clinging to much to the original.
2. Sound. The words we use to designate things simply sound different from one tongue to the next. No way around it. This is one reason why people talk about poetry as untranslatable, because even free verse tends to rely so much on the sounds of the words. It's easy enough to render "soleil" into English as "sun" but there is no way your can render the sonic role "soleil" might've played in the original, into English. The best you can do is 'perform' an analogy, something that does in English what was done in x, in the same way that one band will cover another band's song, and in doing so will entirely change the music.
3. The ambiguity. A lot of people on here will say that reading in translation means you aren't getting at the author's original meaning but that idea's misinformed. Unless you find an absolutely atrocious translation you will get what the writer originally wrote... just a version of it, that is an interpretation of it. You're not losing the meaning of what the author said, you're losing the ambiguity of what they said. A translator has to decide for himself what they meant so he can make judgments about what it most important to get across in English. So they're giving you the author's meaning, yes, but selectively, how they see it, interpret it. Faithful translation is by definition a polishing of the text, because the core of translation itself if interpretation.
So you can see maybe that what you get in English just isn't the same as what you would be getting in French, German, Italian, especially 'distant' languages like Latin or Greek. But that said it's only worth spending the time if you're ready to accept the language lovingly and on its own terms, not as a challenge. View it the same way you would reading a very long and very challenging book, almost. And it's really not *necessary* for here (especially for here) or for anybody whose not a specialist who dedicates their life to reading books.

>>15503450

like i said, i don't mind translations. I've accepted that I'm never going to read La Divina Commedia in medieval Italian, because I don't have the hundreds - thousands of hours needed to immerse myself in that language (or rather, I don't want to).

however, as someone who reads / has read books in several language, it is my experience that there is indeed something 'lost in translation'. and that's even when translation 'mere' prose.

while i agree that a good translation can often stand on its own, this does imply that there is a difference between the original work and the translation. while that doesn't disqualify the translation, it also doesn't disqualify the argument that to really understand the original work you need to read it in its original language.

i do agree with your last statement though. it is not necessary for anybody. preferable, perhaps. but realistically not worth the time to learn a new language from scratch (for all but the most dedicated autists).

>The original is unfaithful to the translation.

>>15496745
>>15493860
How much does Ancient Greek differ from contemporary? I'm not interested in the latter, but as someone who prefers simple sources like Duolingo, I'm sad to say the ancient languages aren't available, including Latin. What do you anons suggest for me?

It's also all the more profitable if I want to read The New Testament in its original.