>rapes every other English translation of the Iliad so brutally that it makes the gods of Ovid look like eunuch feminists by comparison
>>23361161Only translations worth reading are Alexander Pope and Emily Wilson
>>23361161Why is this translation so much better anon? (I have not read the Iliad yet)
>>23361161Not something I care to read twice. Don't care about meter, specific word choices. Dull story, I got that from FAGles. Isn't the fault of that one particular translator. No music or value would be added by checking another version. Only something to be slogged through for general cultural knowledge and then otherwise forgotten. Can't for the life of me understand why /lit/ has such a boner for this thing. Bit gay, really. A bunch of guys fought war. Whoop-dee-doo. Minimal poetic, aesthetic and artistic value. Valued only because it is old and because the quality of the narrative is compartively better than the other trash on offer.
>>23361191It is designed foremost as an auditory experience, though there are no audio books for it. But I mean by that that it is intended to be read aloud in the same way Shakespeare is. It uses a long meter in order to replicate the dramatic weight of Greek epic poetry. As an aside it is also much more faithful than most translations if you care about that>>23361198I don’t agree at all. While many ancient descriptions of war are a slog, the Iliad is unique because of its elegant use of imagery and metaphor. It is not just poetry, since actual poetry predominated for a long time before prose was fashionable; it is poetic.
>>23361207Whoop-dee-doo, depictions of gods interacting with humans which are supposed to add complexity to the narrative. Whoop-dee-doo, similes about boars charging through the woods. Whoop-dee-doo, poetic descriptions of violent death, which the naive reader may find "unexpected" in poetry. Whoop-dee-doo, whoop-dee-doo, whoop-dee-doo. The more I read this thing, the more thoroughly I come to understand that it is one of the overrated literary works of all time. Dostoevsky, now there's an author of value.
>>23361212Dostoevsky was heavily influenced by Gogol whose Dead Souls was heavily influenced by Homer. Gogol applies Homer’s method of simile to Russian everyday life lending it a sort of rambling quality which he infused even in the prose beyond the similes, something which Dostoevsky drew enormously upon for his rambling, eccentric characters
>>23361212im that anon who hasn't read the Iliad yet, this sounds awesome actually
>>23361185Emily Wilson is dogshit. Nice bait
>>23361217“X this is good”“Well X is influenced by Y, therefore Y is good”No, pseud, sometimes art is just done better by more modern artists.Some things are good *for the time*.
>>23361236More specifically “x is good about A, and x from A plays a major role in y of B, which is key to what is good about B.”
>>23361161Finally another Merrill anon on /lit/...He's currently working on Theocritus and he's got Argonautica out. Blessed be Merrill
>>23361219>im that anon who hasn't read the Iliad yetThat doesn't narrow it down
>>23361557His Oresteia is very nice too
>>23361830Sorry, I fell for the Chicago trans meme ere Merrill's was out... Maybe a re-read will be nice.
>>23361198
>>23361185Richmond Lattimore is the most mature Iliad. Fagles is good if you are a baby and need to be spoonfed what the story is about with a glossary and intro.
>>23361185>Emily WilsonZeus was a problematic chud and Hades was a heckin sexist who needed to go to therapyThat's Wilson for you
>>23361839Merrill is a Chicago translator
>>23361236>>23361212No one cares you don't like Iliad.You aren't special.
>>23361212>Dostoevsky, now there's an author of value.Probably the worst writer of the great novelists. He is only valued for his philosophy. Not his artistic talent.
>>23361161I want to buy this book.That said, I want you to compare this with Pope translation, sentence by sentence, and show me important highlights of this translation.
>>23362001Lol Fagles is superior to Lattimore in every way.
>>23362161False.
>>23362235How?
>>23361161>>23361557>>23362001>>23362235>Every faggot in here says the translation they read is the best one>Cannot bring on reason whyAbsolute state of /lit/
>>23362250Lattimore sacrifices poetic structure for being as direct as possible. Fagles, while remaining extremely accurate, takes some liberty in re structuring the phrasing for the English language so it remains true to Homer’s original disjointed free verse. Lattimore sacrifices far too much to make it as literal as possible, the Illiad and Odyssey are meant to be epic poems and Fagles is the only translator who accurately represents them as such in the English language
>Fagles but betterThe most underrated version
I like Fitzgerald.
>>23361185
>>23362187No. The fuck? I am not a salesman, I am not receiving a commission on how many copies are sold. You can see excerpts on Google books with one click
>>23362395I live in China, please post the first few bits, mate :(
>>23362268You have that the other way around. Lattimore is accurate and disjointed while Fagles is direct as possible.
>bunch of chuds who speak one language arguing over best translationhow tf would you know nigger?
>>23362705If you have even a rudimentary understanding of Greek language and syntax you can immediately tell which ones are closest and which ones stray from the main poem.
>>23361198>Only something to be slogged through for general cultural knowledge and then otherwise forgotten. Felt this way about the Theogony, fuck /lit/ for tricking me into reading it
>>23362769Well the answer is that the book is over your head as well as the Iliad is over the head of the other dumbo you are replying to. It is not Homer’s fault that you are a simpleton dipshit.If you have to force yourself to read it and pay attention just give up and go back to watchin’ Care Bears.
>>23361217Dostoevsky was also influenced by Homer directly. He considered him the greatest of all poets.
>>23362769It's like a 1000-line poem, are you ok anon?
>>23362866And yet it still managed to be a slog. Hesiod is a special kind of hack.
>>23362929The way some people's brains work here never fails to amuse me
>>23362769No desire to rub your lead off and get to the gold?
>>23361161That isn't Lattimore!But in all seriousness, why do you recommend this one?
>>23361212IQ filtered
No one ever brings up E.V. Rieu... I liked it just slightly more than the Lattimore.Pope is great too, but a very different experience and shouldn't be compared to non-rhyming.
>>23363631Isn't Rieu just plain prose?
>>23362929>it was too long>uhhhh actually I mean it FELT too long>ok actually I just didn't like itBe honest. You just couldn't enjoy it because you spent half the time looking up what words like "ineluctable" means lmao
>>23363643I never said it was too long. It just wasn’t entertaining or worth reading. Homer is much more of a master. There’s a reason no one but classics majors reads fucking Hesiod in school.
>>23363066Like Lattimore but actually poetry
>>23362280How is the quality of the oxford classics series? I was looking at a different translation for thus spoke zarathustra
Imagine not reading it in Greek lmfao
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/simone-weil-the-iliad
Why would you spend the time reading all these translations and comparing them when you could just learn Greek?
>>23363855No one here reads Greek and no one here has the time to spend six years studying it for six hours a day in order to read Homer
>>23363870I've studied Greek for two years, an hour or two a day, and I can read most of Homer with comfort apart from the scenes where he describes a single arrow or sacrifice or whatever for 3 pages. And I mostly studied Attic, so if you only studied Homeric for 2 years you'd be in an even better position.
>>23362261I admit I chose Fagles because I am a babby who wanted to start with the Greeks and valued readability above all else. I enjoyed itI have no shame. I'll consider another translation when I want to reread it down the line
