I was looking on Amazon to buy The Iliad and The Odyssey. I noticed there are a lot of different versions of these two books. Which version is the best or are they all pretty much the same?
Filmmaker
11-15-05, 10:04 PM
Just make sure to avoid the one where Greedo shoots first...
Amator
11-17-05, 08:21 PM
When I last read them about eight years ago, I believe the Robert Fitzgerald translations were considered best for clarity and precise translation. Of course, I could be remembering this incorrectly...read the reviews for that version at Amazon, they usually talk about the translation as much as the books themselves.
GreenMonkey
11-23-05, 06:13 AM
This is the version my Ancient Near East History professor assigned us to read.
The version of Iliad translated by Stanley Lombardo is a brave departure from previous translations; Lombardo attempts to adapt the text to the needs of readers rather than the listeners for whom the work was originally intended. To this end, he has streamlined the poem, removing many of the stock repetitions such as the infamous "rosy-fingered dawn," or rewriting them in ways dependent on their context. What emerges is a vivid, lively rendition of one of the world's great stories of men and war.
But classicists, beware: This Iliad has something of a '90s sensibility, from the cover art (a photograph of the D-Day Normandy landing) to Achilles' Rambo-like diction. It might well outrage the purists, but for those who remember their musty high-school reading of Homer's great epic with a barely suppressed yawn, Lombardo's energetic translation is just the version to change their minds.
Apparently the translation is good enough for my crazy, fanatic history professor...
It's pretty readable. I got up to book 8 but I am distracted with other homework right now...
exharrison
11-23-05, 08:07 AM
^That translation sounds like it would completely change the style of the writing. Wouldn't quite be the the same.
look4sheep
11-24-05, 01:08 PM
Cliffnotes, if you really wanna know what happens. Or just read whichever's gonna be the least delibrately paced. =) I perfer the cliffnotes, I tried reading the version in Norton anthology for class, and sometimes things took alot of time to happen. Probably didn't help with all the other stuff that needed to be read.
They used to offer a box that includes both volumes. I have it and really love it. But I don't see it on there now.
Amazing translations, anyway!
Ron G
11-28-05, 11:15 PM
Vote #2 for the Fagles.
lamphorn
11-29-05, 10:12 PM
I haven't slogged through these books yet, but before I bought them, I made it a point to closely compare the translations by choosing a passage and reading it in all the available translations (at the store, anyway), and the one that seemed the clearest and most aesthetically pleasing to me was the one by Robert Fagles.
Vote #3.
Matthew Zolton
12-21-05, 11:22 PM
Ok, I recommend the Stanley Lombardo translations. They are by far the best translations out there. They are not a 'literal' translation per se, but they are one of the few SUCCESSFUL attempts to make the work flow in english in the same way that they flow in greek.
Fact is, any translation is going to tell you the 'story' but the Lombardo translations are the most succesfull at capturing the epic and poetic nature of the stories.
Actually, Lombardo was my professor during my undergrad, I'm not recommending him just because he was my prof. Honestly, I don't like the guy, but he really knows his stuff and his work is really well done (I've wasted a lot of time reading and translating this stuff).
His versions are the most readable and pleasing by far.
Todd B.
12-24-05, 04:47 AM
FWIW, my <a href="http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~classics/people/nagy.html">college professor</a> had us read the Fitzgerald translations.
neocheddar02
01-20-06, 02:28 AM
Another vote for Fagles, and the book looks pretty good on the bookshelf, too.
Buy: