Customer Reviews

Homer in English (Poets in Translation, Penguin)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is the centerpiece of Penguin's wonderful and now tragically out of print Poets in Translation series, featuring selections from many translations with brief introductions. Editing a volume for Homer is to tackle a great volume of translations, many of them famous in their own right. The cut-off year is 1994, so the book doesn't include one of my favorite translations, Stanley Lombardo's, although it does have Fitzgerald and Lattimore excerpts; their texts are the other ones popular in schools these days.

While the Middle and Early Modern English selections could have used glosses, and some of the introductions are less than informative, the editors have done a fantastic job at digging up rare translations and finding examples of Homeria, Homer-inspired literature from Joyce to Keats to Walcott's OMEROS. One gets a sense not only of how Anglophone views of Homer have changed, but also how writing has changed. It demonstrates why certain translations (i.e. Chapman's, Pope's, Pound's First Canto) are justly famed.

If you like the idea of the Poets in Translation series, but not Homer, I suggest trying BAUDELAIRE IN ENGLISH or OVID IN ENGLISH, two of my favorites, and neither so overwhelmed by excess translators as this book can be. On the other hand, there will certainly be more than one Homer in this book to please even the most picky reader, and the joy of discovering another fine translation or inspiration makes this book worth 5/5 stars. Homer lives!

I have to say that ever since I stumbled upon this book in a used bookshop my love for Homer has increased immesurably!

It features samples from The Iliad and Odyssey from just about every translator up until 1994.

Comparing various prose, verse and ryhming translations by famous and non-famous translators and poets of the past proves to be an incredible source of inspiration and wisdom!

"Homer in Translation" can provide anyone who is looking into Homer academically or personally with more than enough comparative translations to NOT have to go out and purchase a few different copies of the Iliad or Odyssey. (It is good to own at least 2 of each).

I find that comparing Homer gives me the utmost joy and pleasure, and now having a glimpse of excerpts on the art of translating, my joy is fulfilled, and I guarantee yours will be too!

Take care!

Ever since I read Keats' poem "On First Looking
into Chapman's Homer," I've been looking for a
copy or at least a sample of his words.
Chapman was a contemporary of Shakespeare
and his words are wonderful. But this book is
more than a compilation of snippets from various
translators. It includes related writings from
Keats (the above poem, of course), Shelley,
Chaucer, James Joyce's description of the young
Homer and other authors.
For Homerphiles, it is a nice book to have and
a source that points to other authors who
have also been smitten with the ancient bard.

The editor of this book is a great critic but this is the second time he has proved himself to be a woefully incompetent anthology editor. The first was his 'The Penguin Book of Modern Verse Translation', a collection of wonderful poems , whose translators could only be discovered by consulting crowded contents pages, and which had no indexes either of poets or translators.

In the case of this anthology of Homer translations, Steiner given us his scholarship and endeavour in finding numerous translations, many of them obscure and ill-deservedly forgotten, but his publishers have failed to give the book a proper apparatus. They have also not persuaded Steiner to give the book the editorial input it requires, in particular an explanation of the otherwise arbitrary choice of passages selected.