/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.10961300]

>And she doesn't seem to like the hero very much: The Odyssey "articulates some important questions about the moral qualities of this liar, pirate, colonizer, deceiver, and thief, who is so often in disguise, absent, or napping, while other people—those he owns, those he leads—suffer and die, and who directly kills so many people."

http://www.weeklystandard.com/speak-goddess/article/2012207

Tumbling tumbling down

[Anonymous No.10961355]

Why would you translate a book about a guy you don't like?

[Anonymous No.10961405]

>>10961355
$$$

This entire translation is a stunt.

[Anonymous No.10961419]

She isn't wrong, though. Odysseus's main virtue is his ability to convince anyone of anything.

[Anonymous No.10961436]

>>10961355
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=hitler
Why would you write a book about a guy you don't like?
inb4 all these authors are secretly nazis

[Anonymous No.10961444]

>>10961419
Odysseus' main virtue is that he was lucky enough to have Athena do everything for him

[Anonymous No.10961456]

>>10961444

What the fuck was her problem?

[Anonymous No.10961463]

Dude wtf why were ancienct figures not feminists?

[Anonymous No.10961465]

>>10961300
I understand what she is trying to do but jesus...
>"I have avoided describing the Cyclops with words such as 'savage,' which carry with them the legacy of early modern and modern forms of colonialism."

[Anonymous No.10961471]

What can she fundamentally change? Unless she totally rewrites things its just a variation grammar and punctuation and sentence structure.

[Anonymous No.10961482]

>complicated man

[Anonymous No.10961487]

>>10961471
see this >>10961465 proves my point, she changes that word to describe them
what does that do to the text

[Anonymous No.10961494]

>>10961465
I dont think thats a PC thing though. Words definitions change over time

[Anonymous No.10961498]

>>10961471
(you)

[Anonymous No.10961500]

>>10961471

Words connote.
Word choice alters connotations.

Every written work is accompanied by a rich tapestry of implicit and implied meanings.

Homer's is richer than most.

Not to mention the powers of word structure.

[Anonymous No.10961501]

>>10961494
I didn't say anything about "PC" whatever that means. What she is doing is applying post-colonialist methodology anachronistically to a classical, foundational text.

[Anonymous No.10961510]

>>10961494
>you’re not allowed to use certain words any more because it might offend niggers but no that’s not PC haha

[Anonymous No.10961515]

>I use the word "faithful" about Green's translation with some trepidation, in light of this comment by Wilson: "The gendered metaphor of the 'faithful' translation, whose worth is always secondary to that of a male-authored original, acquires a particular edge in the context of a translation by a woman of The Odyssey, a poem that is deeply invested in female fidelity and male dominance." Wilson here creates a kind of Catch-22 in which anyone who would disagree with her translation's accuracy could be accused of patriarchal insensitivity. One shudders to think what she would say if one called her translation "loose." And yet, in some respects, that would be a good way to describe her version of the epic.

BTFO

[Anonymous No.10961522]

>>10961501
>post-colonialist methodology anachronistically to a classical, foundational text

Do you think she is aware?
Does she realize just how much she's transforming the thing?

[Anonymous No.10961538]

Why should I give a fuck about this sanctimonious bitch? Why are you wasting my time by sharing this here?

[Anonymous No.10961552]

>>10961522
Yes, probably more than you (or I, even though I actually studied Ancient Greek and had to translate parts of the fucking thing) do.
I don't like what she's doing, at least from the article and the direct quotes from her translations, but come the fuck on. She translated the sodding tale for years, probably, before its publication, endlessly consulting earlier editions and reference material. Doubt she would even be considered in comparison to Green otherwise. Criticize her, by all means, but at least do so without off-handedly discounting the work she must (necessarily) have put into the translation.

[Anonymous No.10961554]

>>10961538

This review is noteworthy for being only the second to be somewhat critical.

Are the tables turning?

[Anonymous No.10961560]

>>10961522
>Do you think she is aware?
Of course she is.

[Anonymous No.10961562]

>>10961515
nice

[Anonymous No.10961563]

>>10961444
That too, yeah.

[Anonymous No.10961577]

>>10961552

I don't doubt that she's poured tremendous efforts into the thing. I even like some of what she's done.

She sometimes speaks as though she is uncovering a pure homer though. On Twitter, and elsewhere, she suggests that her translation shaves off centuries of accretions and deviations that depart from or conceal the original unalloyed text. I get a protestant vibe from her to put it crudely.

At time she speaks of a new work for a new world, but at other times she speaks of a return to roots of the Odyssey. I'm not sure what to make of it.

[Anonymous No.10961581]

>>10961444
athena is literally /ourgal/

[Anonymous No.10961633]

>>10961300
>>10961355
>And then xer Oddsissy*ious began to beat his wife, oh the muses wept, how now must you, they being of convolutedness, face the shame of the sacred sect of sisters. Then how Oddy did weep as he was carried back to his home on the back of a strong warrior woman of bronzened feature, it was surely, an the ody*sey.

Oh comeon really.., at least in a translation you can fix the cringe that the dead white male author* (who was not actually the author, he appropriated his story from the female muses) errerd to make

[Anonymous No.10961640]

>>10961300
>And she doesn't seem to like the hero very much: The Odyssey "articulates some important questions about the moral qualities of this liar, pirate, colonizer, deceiver, and thief, who is so often in disguise, absent, or napping, while other people—those he owns, those he leads—suffer and die, and who directly kills so many people."
So Homer was pretty much satirizing Nietzches ubermensch?

[Anonymous No.10961664]

More like the OdysSOY, amirite?

[Anonymous No.10961673]

>>10961436
>not hating Hitler makes you a nazi
i didn't know we were on reddit

[Anonymous No.10961674]

>>10961581
>athena is literally /ourgal/

Imagine having Athena watching over you all day and every day. Shielding you from those who mean you ill. Gently encouraging you to do the right thing. Making helpful suggestions. Sleeping atop you to protect your body.

Diomedes is a lucky guy.

[Anonymous No.10961746]

>>10961673
>not liking = hating
do people often strawman like that in this subreddit?

[Anonymous No.10961768]

>>10961674
>Sleeping atop you to protect your body.

The gray-eyed goddess is truly the greatest waifu of all.

[Anonymous No.10961801]

>>10961768
Athena basically is this board's waifu.

>goddess of wisdom
>friend of philosophy
>patroness of Athens

[Anonymous No.10961811]

>>10961300
Is it this bad in Latin America? I don't want to live in the West anymore

[Anonymous No.10961828]

>>10961674
>>10961768
>>10961801
she is the greatest power in the Olympic hierarchy and very likely predates the other Greek deities brought by the Dorians, is most likely a mutation of the older goddess cults of the Mediterranean set up by the Pelasgian natives.

[Jeff Mangum Died For Your Sins !rAl8Mz2mp2 No.10961870]

>>10961515
>"...a poem that is deeply invested in female fidelity and male dominance."
It's almost like legitimacy was a valid concern back when women depended on men because domestic duties were a full time job and military/agrarian work required male strength. In those material conditions any other system would require a man to give women free money for nothing, which isn't a deal that most of them would've been willing to take. These cunts need to read Marx.

[Anonymous No.10961896]

>>10961300
So basically the man's translation is more or less faithful, while the woman's translation has problems because she's trying to treat translating the Odyssey as if she were writing a novel, as well as because she specifically wants to downplay the role of masculine culture in ancient Greece. Also, she's popular because she posts SJW stuff.

[Anonymous No.10961914]

Anyone want to help me here, a bit related
>>10959458

[Anonymous No.10961936]

Didnt the Romans hate him as well?

[Anonymous No.10961944]

>>10961936
The Romans hated Odysseus because they thought they were descended from the Trojans, and Odysseus with his horse scheme was chiefly responsible for the fall of the city.

[Anonymous No.10961973]

>>10961552
>dude she put effort in so it can’t be that bad haha
fuck off commie

[Anonymous No.10961977]

>>10961936
>>10961944
That's not why. Even the Athenians disliked Odysseus and favored the other heroes. Look at how he was portrayed by some of the tragedians, such as Sophocles in Ajax.

[Anonymous No.10961993]

So why aren't you learning the language to read the original /lit/? Maybe you could even translate it yourself

[Anonymous No.10962020]

>>10961515
I laughed.

[Anonymous No.10962032]

>>10961801
>tumblr nose

[Anonymous No.10962070]

>>10961801

Don't forget

>Mother of books

[Anonymous No.10962117]

>>10961300
Seems kind of bland. They could have at least went for a transgender reading.
Although transage and transgender would be the minimal avant-translation.

[Anonymous No.10962137]

>>10961500
Perhaps, but did he understand the pronouns of those around him? Did he understand or even question his (xyrs?) own?
What of the Sirens were really a moment of gender dysphoria seeping into the text?

[Anonymous No.10962181]

>>10961515
When you create seventh-order patriarchy but then realise all the others are just the sixth head of Scylla.

[Anonymous No.10962201]

>>10961494
"Savage" means "wild". Compare Spanish "salvaje" and French "sauvage". Nothing political about it at all.

[Anonymous No.10962214]

>>10962201
He's talking about the descriptions of indigenous people as 'savages'. It's an extremely politicized word.
Although this is almost lost to language at this point.

[Anonymous No.10962224]

>>10962214
Europeans called niggers "savages" because they viewed them as wild and untamed. Whoop dee doo. Can we please move on.

[Anonymous No.10962233]

>>10961300
>colonizer

[Anonymous No.10962245]

>>10961300
I wanted to like it, but it's just fucking terrible.

[Anonymous No.10963822]

>>10962233
Wilson also lapses into bizarre circumlocutions around the story of the Cyclops. Homer describes Polyphemus, who eats six of Odysseus’s men raw, as “athemistos”—literally something like “without a sense of divine right or wrong,” but “lawless” usually does the job in English. Lack of respect for themis, true right and wrong, is posited by Homer’s contemporary Hesiod as the cause of all human evil. Wilson, however, decides in her introduction that the story of the Cyclops is really a story about colonialism (“the Polyphemus episode seems to meditate uneasily on the processes of colonization”), and hence it is her duty to resist any tendency to dehumanize the sixty-foot-tall, one-eyed, flesh-eating son of the sea-god. She translates athemistos as “maverick,” an offense not only against sensibility, but also against the aesthetics of her poem—the word leaps off the page, wildly inappropriate to Wilson’s typical register. Needless to say I just about fell over laughing. And huperphialos, which she is happy to render “insolent” and “arrogant” when it comes to the suitors, she changes to “highminded” for Polyphemus. The sight of drunk Polyphemus vomiting up wine and chunks of human flesh in his cave was not enough to get Wilson to shy away from calling him “highminded.” I suppose ideology is not dead. She also uses the odd circumlocution “the Cyclopic people” for the Greek plural Cyclopes, which also jars. The shame of all this is that it subverts her own thesis: she claims the passage has some relevance to colonization. It’s much easier for a student to see the resonance between this episode and Kipling’s “lesser breeds without the Law” if athemistos is translated “lawless.” But as I have said, it is very hard to do any kind of close reading of Homer using Wilson’s translation alone. It simply is not faithful enough.
>the cyclopic people

[Anonymous No.10964354]

>>10961828
t. Robert Graves

[Anonymous No.10964524]

Was thinking of buying a copy. What is the best translation?

[Anonymous No.10964616]

>>10961482
xaxa how could she make such an error while claiming to be a proffesional translator lol she should stick to being a scanlator perhaps

[Anonymous No.10964621]

>>10961674
>>10961801
Ok /lit/, so how would you spill your spaghetti to the godess Athena? Because admit it, your pathetic asses would propose to her the second time she manifests herself in front of you.

[Anonymous No.10964785]

>>10964621
Wrong.
I would never betray my waifu for her.

[Anonymous No.10964858]

>>10961482

[Anonymous No.10965033]

>>10961300
Those are the words of a woman who wants to be forcefully raped by a man like Odysseus. The initial sexual tension masked as loathing finally gives way to a good and willing rape.

[Anonymous No.10965126]

Why do people bother translating this anyway? Isn't the English language like 20% Greek? Just fill in the gaps in vocabulary and grammar and bam you can now read the Odyssey in its original lamguage. You don't even need to learn pronunciation or speaking (which would require overcoming your autism anyway). Easy as.

[Anonymous No.10965314]

>>10965126

2/10 made me reply.

[Anonymous No.10966979]

>>10961577
That is completely not true. This isn't a pure Homer. She simplifies the descriptions of anything cultural which would be alien to a non-education reader. She chooses at every possible turn to translate a word which multiple meanings into a simple one with only one. This is always done to treat Odysseus as bad as possible and she does it to make every single female in the novel better.

Of all the translations of the Odyssey the only one I can think of that is less faithful to the original text is Pope's. But Pope is writing something so different from the original I hesitate to even call it a translation. It's more like a new work that is heavily based on the original. The important thing is everyone knows that and Pope doesn't argue otherwise. She on the other hand has created a translation which is 1/3 shorter than the original and that intentionally changes the meaning of Homer to something new.

[Anonymous No.10966996]

>>10965126
>Isn't the English language like 20% Greek
no it's 100% English

[Anonymous No.10967006]

what is the best translation then?

[Anonymous No.10967007]

>>10962224
>Europeans called niggers "savages" this politicizing the word
You two were agreeing the whole time.

[Anonymous No.10967036]

>>10967006
Lattimore and Fitzgerald. I heard Lombardo is good too, but I haven't read it. Fagles is for faggots.

[Anonymous No.10967113]

>>10961552
I've translated consequent parts of the Iliad and the Odyssey and looked at the works of translators. A lot can be botched. From looking at her translation, she fails to grasp many aspects of the Greek even when their omission does not advance her ideology in any way. Dumb motherfucker.

[Anonymous No.10967125]

>>10961977
They disliked him because there was too much life in him. Couldn't twist their minds around him, couldn't figure him out. The Athenian spirit didn't like to have a Falstaff walking around outside of the theater.

[Anonymous No.10967129]

>>10967006
Pope is the only one that actually gets it.

[Anonymous No.10967333]

>>10961801
Yes, and the second best is Artemis.

[Anonymous No.10967808]

>>10961300
she's quite right.

[Anonymous No.10968114]

>>10963822
christ

[Anonymous No.10968122]

>>10967129
Pope is exaggerated neoclassical wankery and has nothing to do with Homer. Please find a cliff and jump off.

[Anonymous No.10968145]

>>10967006
there are no GOOD translations, but samuel butler is probably the best

[Anonymous No.10968152]

>>10963822
>decides in her introduction that the story of the Cyclops is really a story about colonialism (“the Polyphemus episode seems to meditate uneasily on the processes of colonization”),

[Anonymous No.10968202]

>>10968145
>truncated prose translations of poetry

[Anonymous No.10968256]

>>10968202
translated poetry is bound to take more liberties than prose. and homer often failed to express a complex idea adequately in hexameters; he also omitted many vital pieces of information, or inserted them too late. butler is one of the few translators who saves homer’s face by remedying these defects.

[Anonymous No.10968305]

I read T. E. Lawrence's prose translation of Odyssey before I knew the original was considered poetry

[Anonymous No.10968513]

>>10968256
>Why yes of course it is right that some random Anglo "scholar" should correct HOMER

[Anonymous No.10968526]

>>10968513
have you never heard the latin tag 'even homer sometimes nods'

[Anonymous No.10968565]

>>10968526
Das Wort sie sollen lassen stahn, desu

[Anonymous No.10968614]

>>10963822
>highminded

[Anonymous No.10968622]

ITT: /pol/tards who don't speak ancient Greek complain about a translation they have no way of judging

[Anonymous No.10968642]

>>10961300
Colonizer? Tf is that bat on about?

[Anonymous No.10968654]

>>10968622
This >>10963822 isn't enough reason to write off a translation?

[Anonymous No.10968693]

Women were a mistake.

[Anonymous No.10968713]

>>10968654
in the greek the cyclops is a pitiful character

[Anonymous No.10968721]

>>10968693
not according to homer

[Anonymous No.10969431]

>>10968654
no

[Anonymous No.10969564]

>>10968721
yes according to hesiod

[Anonymous No.10969613]

>>10968513
>>Why yes of course it is right that some random Anglo "scholar" should correct HOMER
This is the funniest part: her attempt as an Anglo scholar to correct what she perceives as being culturally inconsiderate aspects in the text is within itself an act of colonialist tyranny. She has now become equally indicted by her own hysteria.

If you take all of these cultural osmosis considerations to such an alarmist degree then you're always going to be indicted in some way as well no matter how hard you try to avoid it.

[Anonymous No.10970320]

>>10969613
He was talking about Samuel Butler

[Anonymous No.10970372]

>Giving women voice and vote was a mistake.

[Anonymous No.10970407]

>The Greeks are the bad guys here
OwO

[Anonymous No.10970416]

>>10970407
Have you read the Odyssey? The Greeks weren't the good guys

[Anonymous No.10970426]

>>10970416

They were good in my mind

[Anonymous No.10970439]

>>10969613
>>10970320
Still a good point desu.

[Anonymous No.10970441]

>>10961633
Slit your throat.

[Anonymous No.10970461]

>>10970426
nobody cares about your headcanon. to the greeks the whole point of the nostos stories was that the heroes were being punished for what they did at troy.

[Anonymous No.10970483]

>>10970416
>Have you read the Odyssey? The Greeks weren't the good guys
>the Odyssey

[Anonymous No.10970540]

>>10961355
subversion. look at why the jews translate the new testimate

[Anonymous No.10970559]

>>10961633
>at least in a translation you can fix the cringe that the dead white male author* (who was not actually the author, he appropriated his story from the female muses)
He wasn't white either. Greeks at the time were more brown than anything else.

[Anonymous No.10970584]

>>10970559
Many characters are frequently described as blue eyed and blonde. Fuck off with your turk revisionism

[Anonymous No.10971040]

>>10970584
characters being described with fantastical traits that dont conform to their actual life?!?! in a FANTASY STORY?!?!?!

STOP THE PRESSES

[Anonymous No.10971790]

>>10971040
>fantastical traits that don't conform to their actual life

[Anonymous No.10971813]

>>10961515
>One shudders to think what she would say if one called her translation "loose."

[Anonymous No.10971846]

>>10961515
O U C H

[Anonymous No.10971857]

>>10970584
Not true. For example, Jesus looked much closer to Rick James than that dude on "The Walking Dead".