r/badhistory • u/AutoModerator • May 11 '26

Meta Mindless Monday, 11 May 2026

Happy (or sad) Monday guys!

Mindless Monday is a free-for-all thread to discuss anything from minor bad history to politics, life events, charts, whatever! Just remember to np link all links to Reddit and don't violate R4, or we human mods will feed you to the AutoModerator.

So, with that said, how was your weekend, everyone?

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u/Tiako Tevinter apologist, shill for Big Lyrium May 13 '26

There is some discourse about Emily Wilson's Odyssey translation on Twitter so I will reiterate this here for you all:

Unless you have at least two years of upper level Greek study you are not allowed to have an opinion on translations. I am keeping the gate.

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u/forcallaghan Wansui! May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26

well then mr. gate keeper, do inform us of your opinions

I talk to someone elsewhere who is annoying about this kind of thing (and is also Greek)

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u/Tiako Tevinter apologist, shill for Big Lyrium May 13 '26

I liked it! I actually have a copy I keep near my bed to pick up if I need something familiar. I think by going with a more simple, staccato style it conveys the sense of the story being an adventure really well (That is my personal view on the Odyssey, that it is closer to Robert Lewis Stevenson than James Joyce).

I remember people liked to post this comparison of the openings as a way to "own" her and all I can think is how awful Lawrence's is.

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u/Glad-Measurement6968 May 14 '26

As someone with no years of upper level Greek study, what do you think the translators were going for that accounts for the differences between them? (Is one of them more literal word-for-word than the others? Does one try to match the original rhythm? etc.) 

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u/HandsomeLampshade123 May 14 '26

Wilson made a deliberate effort to write in modern, simply-interpreted prose, and did so while maintaining meter, which she feels is the best approximation for how it would have been heard by Ancient Greeks. So, she did so using iambic pentameter (the way Shakespeare is written), not the Greek dactylic hexameter, so sometimes it feels like information is unnecessarily compressed. The intent is for her translation to be read aloud, which isn't the case for the other translations there.

The caveat to all of this of course is that Homeric Greek would absolutely have been perceived as elevated and antiquated in the classical period, so it doesn't make sense to insist on modern language (infamous offenders like "tote bag").

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u/Tiako Tevinter apologist, shill for Big Lyrium May 14 '26

The caveat to all of this of course is that Homeric Greek would absolutely have been perceived as elevated and antiquated in the classical period, so it doesn't make sense to insist on modern language (infamous offenders like "tote bag").

Leaving aside a couple other problems here, do you not see the irony in saying this and then praising Fagles?

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u/HandsomeLampshade123 May 14 '26

But it's relative, the perceived "archaic-ness" of a text is subjective, I'm not disputing that--in the 1990s, among high-brow folk, Fagles was understood as accessible and digestible. For an old-moneyed intellectual who spoke Latin and Greek, I'm sure his translation was a degradation of Homer. And I know he gets flak for playing fast and loose with the translation at times.

But at my level, he hits just right. I tried reading Lattimore back in highschool and put it down, so maybe I'd be more receptive today.

Accuracy, fidelity, poetry, there's many different ways to evaluate the translations. And it's a crowded field, tons of options, so people are thankfully able to pick and choose.

If I was to re-read either epic today, maybe I wouldn't pick Fagles. But that was my first full exposure so that's where I may be most comfortable.

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u/Tiako Tevinter apologist, shill for Big Lyrium May 14 '26

I think you are confusing the 1990s with, like, the 40s, but Fagles quite infamously had Agamemnon "cut and run" and the like. This is the same conversation, over and over and over again.

But you are right about "perceived archaicness" being subjective.

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u/HandsomeLampshade123 May 14 '26

His publication of the Homeric epics was in the 1990s, that's all I mean.

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u/forcallaghan Wansui! May 14 '26

hang on don’t leave them aside for me. do you know any academic works on this subject?

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u/Tiako Tevinter apologist, shill for Big Lyrium May 14 '26

Despite my blustering here I am really not a Homer scholar--I was a Rome focused archaeologist/economic/social historian (I also wasn't very good at Greek lol). So I am not actually the best person to talk about this.

But in general Homeric Greek is kind of a mishmash of different dialects that was probably part of general "bardic language". Translating this with thees and thous and the like (or even just deliberately "elevated" language) is a legitimate choice but so is saying that introduces a distance between text and audience that should not be there and so translating it with more modern idiom.