/lit/ - Literature

>>20545130
if you really care about a good translation, get the Victor and Jean Bérard edition or the Johann Heinrich Voß one.
I'm afraid English is simply an inadequate language for this task.

>>20545154
>not Hикoлaй Гнeдич's Iliad and Bacилий Жyкoвcкий's Odyssey
ngmi

>>20545130
I have the Alexander Pope translation of Iliad and Odyssey, couldn’t recommend them enough.
I think they’re on the lit charts too.

For the Iliad I'd say Lombardo is actually really good. In his intro I believe he goes into detail about how the structure of ancient greek won't work, poetically/musically, in English. He does commend Lattimore and the rest for attempting it but he's not a fan (and I agree). His version keeps an English-friendly structure while keeping the OG Greek line structure the same.

For the Odyssey I'd say Emily Moore. It's hands-down the best translation that's been released. It's already become a classic amongst the university circuit and has become the go-to copy in classes.

You'll get the best enjoyment of these stories through these translations. Accurate, uses the proper Greek (not Latin) names for everyone and uses a structure in English that allows you to understand the poetic complexity of the original Greek.

>>20545130
Lattimore for both.

>>20545405
>Iliad translated by a wop (trojan descendant)
>Odyssey translated by a female
ngmi

>>20545359
>>20545154
If you aren't experiencing it via the medium of Incan quipu, you haven't read the Odyssey

>>20545476
If you aren’t experiencing Homer by the man himself whooping and chanting in his native tongue to the beat of a stick, you’re ngmi

>>20545376
This, might not be the closest in terms of word for word but I think they capture the essence well.

>>20545494
>be me
>sitting around the kings hall in Ithaca listening to the poet tell the story
>qt waitress brings round a fresh flagon of sea-dark wine
>poet checks out her cleavage as she bends over
Fucker was only pretending to be blind. Can't have been the real Homer, just another itinerant poet making a living reciting the same story. I'm resigned to being a pleb

>>20545494
>>20545501
In the introduction to the Lattimore Iliad, it says that it was impossible the whole of the Iliad with all its conversions were produced by a single person, and it was developed over centuries of time. So Homer-as-Homer is forever lost in time.

>>20545587
I think that might have been the joke

>>20545376
>>20545496
>Pope
>Same essence as Homer
The fuck is wrong with you semiliterate larpers

Anyway, Lattimore, Fagles and Fitzgerald are fine, when you start getting down and comparing translations it stops mattering, because most of them fail to get across Homer musically and tonally. French translations can get the story across fine, but English just isn't as suited for Greek, and it's down to personal preference. I like Chapman and Fitzgerald for just fun readability, but Lattimore if I need to write a paper because it's--generally--more accurate.

If you're going to a good uni, they'll have a classics department and you could try doing Greek classes, I've done the intro classes and it's been great, highly recommend.

I just got the Rieu Penguin translations for cheap, can anyone comment on those?

>>20545700
It's prose. Arguably more accurate because it doesn't fuck with lines and trying to replicate the Greek, and it's fine.

My version which I've almost finished translating.

>>20545587
>>20545629
Homer is a mythological character. The fixed form of the poem that we know of today was developed in the Panathenaia festival in Athens, but the Homeric tradition of oral poetry and a lot of the formulas that are found on the text is much older. Read Gregory Nagy's Homeric questions, it's actually too complex of a subject to be explained simply, which is why most people do not know this.

>>20545130
Fitzgerald or bust for both. /lit/ used to be pretty unanimous on this

Fitzgerald is praised by the poets and more aesthetically minded critics. Lattimore is praised by the literalists and purists. I've heard that Lattimore is best for the Iliad, Fitzgerald for the Odyssey. I thought Lattimore's Iliad was wonderful, and the bit I read of Fitzgerald was beautiful. I read Fagle's Odyssey and thought it was perfectly adequate, and very easy reading. Any of those three will serve you well.

>>20545989
This basically.

>>20545501
kek

>>20545700
Rieu is good. I'm not really a fan of making prose out of verse though.

What's /lit/'s opinion of Alexander Pope's translations?

>>20546511
see
>>20545650

>>20546523
shit, sorry

>>20545130
For beginners, any of the big three (Fagles, Fitzgerald Lattimore). As English poetry that captures the essence of Homer, Chapman. As a work of art in it's own right, Pope's Iliad (His Odyssey is worst than Chapman's and he had portions of it ghostwritten)

>>20545587
Cope, Homer is real and is the greatest poet to have ever lived.

>>20545461
Lattimore is sophomoric trash, there's a reason he's the default in most college courses. I dislike his book the most of the 'popular 3'.

>>20545405
Lombardo is also very 'accessible' but neither good nor particularly faithful and full of what I'd call modern weirdness where they simplify phrases for the readership in a way that is jarring.

Every translator thinks they've an argument for why their version is best or most appropriate. In the end it comes down to taste and above all, reading multiple translations. I've read The Iliad maybe a dozen times in my life and each time tried to use a new translation. I've read pretty much every version I see posted here regularly, except that meme one by some trans author whose name I don't care to remember and who speaks of "a complicated man" or something similarly absurd in the opening invocation.

I recommend Fitzgerald, I believe his version achieves the best balance between feel, poetry, and fidelity. Next best I would say is the translation by Robert Graves, but he takes liberties which some might find undue but could easily be argued as contributory or effective for the sake of English.

>>20545130
Lattimore for both.

>>20545130
The ancient Greek one is the only real version..

>>20547639
Puerile.

>>20547639
Based and correct. Ignore the trannies they don't know what they're saying.

>>20547692
>Robert Graves
Didn't he marry a jew and write some revisionist crap about the white goddess myth lel I'm not touching that shit

"Pequeno Teatro da Ilíada e Odisseia", livrinho de 100 páginas para teatro escolar. São três atos, um capítulo para a origem da guerra de Troia (PROÊMIO), outro para a guerra em si (ILÍADA) e o terceiro, da volta de Odisseu para casa (ODISSEIA): https://livrariabrunatorlay.com.br/pequeno-teatro-da-iliada-e-odisseia

i did lattimore iliad (just cos there's a massive edition with charcoal illustrations by baskin)

then did fitzgerald for odyssey and its so much better, if i can compare them like that. i compared so many passages from lattimore iliad to others and lattimore is clunky as fuck i dont care how accurate it is