Note: this topic is from . Thanks nickcarraway.
Posted on 11/17/2017 7:49:01 PM PST by nickcarraway
Attempting a new translation of “The Odyssey” is like directing “Hamlet.” Much of your audience knows the work well, and they take their seats with entrenched expectations and the intonations of favorite performances reverberating in their heads. At the same time, though, you will have audience members who have never seen the play, for whom you provide the introduction to a giant of Western literature. And let us not forget those who are there under duress, dreading the upcoming hours of boredom. You must find a way to speak to all these disparate groups, sneaking past the defenses of the devotees while drawing in those less familiar. It’s an ambitious task, one which calls for skill, cleverness and strong nerves, qualities that define “The Odyssey’s” wily protagonist himself.
The poem of Odysseus’s epic journey was composed in about the 8th century B.C., and its tale of a brilliant, exhausted veteran beset by dangers and yearning for home has been collecting admirers ever since. It is tradition, when reviewing a translation, to set a passage alongside its predecessors in translations by Fagles, Lattimore, Pope, etc. The reviewer then lays out the ways that the new translation either falls short or excels, quibbling over word choice and linguistic effects. This is a fun exercise and not without merit, but in the end, such a piecemeal approach is like judging productions of “Hamlet” on their “To Be or Not To Be.” It does not answer essential questions about the work as a whole: Does the translator have a thoughtful, comprehensive vision? Does she have the skill to sustain it? Does she chart a coherent course between often mutually exclusive virtues like literalism, musicality, clarity, beauty and readability? And most importantly, does she tell the story well?
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Seems appropriate, I read that some translators thought the Odyssey itself was written by a woman, perhaps by Homer’s daughter..
I’ll hold off for the transgender translation.
When I was 9, I tried to read a Nineteenth Century translation of the Odyssey. 19th Century literary language is very dense and wordy; I managed to get through the first chapter.
When I was in High School, we read (parts of) the Aeneid in Latin. (Wish I could remember enough Latin to quote from it, now.)
Arma virumque cano ...
"I sing of arms and a man..."
So there you have it. A supposedly feminist translator spends her time on an epic poem about a male warrior. Not that its a bad piece of scholarship, but kind of ironic that the media is blowing it up (as usual) for being something its not.
Perhaps the reference to a translator’s gender should be viewed with a look at Constance Garnett’s translations of the Russian classics - she single-handedly slaughtered those books in pose, style, and meanings, rendering them nearly unreadable.
So there might be something to the gender thing.
If you want to read a very good historical fiction version of the events at Troy, look into David Gemmells Troy series.
His version of Odysseus, Helen, Hector and the events at troy was one of the best historical fiction I have read in a long time.
Translation or interpretation?
Is Medusa a dude?
OMG!!! OF COURSE a great translation of some great historical piece of literature is possible for a great translator to do, no matter their gender.
Why wasn’t, and why can’t the event be celebrated without it being a “gender-specific” event? Because then it wouldn’t be part of an agenda outside the field of good literature.
‘Circle of Life’ and all that rot? ;)
Most likely not!
Note: this topic is from . Thanks nickcarraway.
Yes, and today we gave such a spectrum of sexual flavors to select from.
Idiotic concept
If ANYTHING, the world of Mycenaean, “Dark Age” and Classical Greece was DOMINATED by males.
I’m currently reading the Lattimore translation for the
third time and understand there is a new translation out
also.
One of the things that I noticed is that Old Big Ears actually loved his wife as opposed to most Greeks of that ERA who thought that most women were Bat Sh&t Crazy.
Remember most wives in Hellenic times lived on the second floor while men slept on the first.
The men stayed up late, drinking mingled wine and water, and staring at the wall (because TV hadn’t been invented). Drove their wives crazy.
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