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/lit/ - Literature

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5585170 No.5585170 [Reply] [Original]

Thinking of getting into reading The Iliad and Odyssey. I have it boiled down to two translations: Fagles and Fitzgerald. Which did you prefer?
>inb4 reading translations

>> No.5585205

>reading translations

>> No.5585208

>inb4
I didn't make it.

>> No.5585223

>>5585170
>implying that snail isnt doing the slaying

>> No.5585224

Read Chapman or Pope.

>> No.5585231

>>5585223
We've had a pretty in depth discussion of this before.

>> No.5585249

>>5585224
Yep, Pope is phenomenal.

>> No.5585288

>>5585170
>Reading translations.

>> No.5585426

For a long time the common wisdom was Lattimore for the Iliad, Fitzgerald for the Odyssey.

For the Iliad, I recommend Anthony Verity's recent translation, put out by Oxford.

>> No.5585446

>>5585224
>>5585249

are you serious

i can (hardly) understand when you read prose/blank verse translation of a rhymed poem even when you can take one which kept the original rhyme ('divine comedy' is one of the best examples there), but when you want to read a non-rhymed poem translated into rhymed couplets...

>> No.5585463

>>5585446
Can't unimpressive prose serve individual zealots elitism?

>> No.5585501

>>5585463
i dunno what you mean but iliad wasn't written in prose

>Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus’ son Achilleus
>and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achians,
>hurled in their multitudes to the house of Hades...

>> No.5585581

Fagles' is like an action movie Homer, something which Christopher Logue's 'War Music' does much better IMO. Go with Fitzgerald or Lattimore.

>>5585446
It's not the best way to begin with Homer but Chapman's and Pope's are great poems in their own right.

>> No.5585600

What about Samuel Butler?

I read his Iliad in high school. How's his stack up?

>> No.5585602

I prefer Cochrane for the Iliad, Alford for the Odyssey.