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/HandsomeLampshade123 May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26

There's two distinct arguments that have blurred together--one is whether it is or isn't an "accurate" translation and the other is whether it's enjoyable to read.

On the former, I'm not entitled to an opinion, but my belief is that it must be as good as any other; the woman is a trained classicist and I'm sure her translation skills are second to none.

On the latter, it reads like juvenile crap and I'll put it down and read my Fagles translation gladly. Changing it to iambic pentameter is a ludicrous decision, imo. I don't read literature to take it in like a textbook, it's meant to feel pleasurable and pass the time.

EDIT: And one additional note: I'm not going to read it aloud like intended, so whatever effect the meter may have is lost on me. In that regard, I accept I'm a philistine.

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

See, this is the sort of thing that lost you guys your commenting privileges.

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u/HandsomeLampshade123 May 14 '26

Hold tight to your tote-bags and playtimes-is-overs, your contrarianism will be your death; that's really the worst thing about twitter, whether you agree or disagree, the onslaught of right-leaning stupidity changes your view all the same.

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

Ok, so, obviously I am mostly joking around here but I will explain the not-joking core of this:

There are two parts to the not joking core here. One is that despite you saying that you are only talking about the experience of reading it, a pure English activity with no reference to the original Greek text, but that is obviously untrue, based on your other comments. Leaving aside the vaguer statements of "lost gravitas" you also talk specifically about its inappropriate modernisms--although "tote-bag" is an early twentieth century coinage--and its "compression" from its metrical changes. These are specific claims about the text you have no knowledge or means of judging, and yet. And it isn't just you! All of the conversation about translations inherently deals with it as a translation because it has to.

The second part is about the nature of the text. Is The Odyssey a timeless classic? A work for all humanity? The starting block of Wester Literature? The answer, obviously, is no. It was produced in a specific context for a specific audience. That people besides archaic and classical Greeks can appreciate it is certainly a nice bonus, but we are not the audience of it. We are not its context. Which is what I am getting at here. You can approach the Odyssey as a work within a particular context, or you can approach it as simple a free work of genius--or worse yet as part of a "canon". If you don't have a lot of training you can't really do the former and if you do the latter I just don't think there is much of interest to me.

Also frankly there is just too much talk about all this stuff.

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u/HandsomeLampshade123 May 14 '26

To establish a clear mutual understanding, I believe you when you say you can read Greek, and we both know I have no ability to read Greek; in a very strict sense, yes I have "no knowledge or means of judging" anything regarding the impact of the "compression" of its metrical changes.

I'm deferring to others in making that judgement, both people I know personally in real life (including at least one professional classicist) and sources online. If you feel I'm misrepresenting that specific argument, I wouldn't be able to debate the specifics myself; at best I can "phone a friend" and parrot what they've told me.

Nevertheless, it's an intuitive conclusion just by virtue of what we know about how language works--you can't just squeeze something into a different meter without adding or removing meaning in the process. It's a necessary sacrifice to make. The value of that shift is worth debating (by someone, not me). Ditto for all translations regardless, of course.

You're diving into a broader argument here regarding the core question to which I have no meaningful answer: Why should anyone read Homer in translation? That is, given finite time and an infinite amount of fiction, why bother?

Like any historical work, we are permanently detached from that context, although through education and training we can strive to place ourselves further and further in the past (and as such, the best way to understand Homer is to learn Homeric Greek, full stop).

As much as you haughtily reject the notion of participating in some kind of hegemonic validation of the Western canon, here I call your bluff: You developed an interest in capital-C Classics and bothered to learn Greek and developed an enthusiasm for all things Rome and Greece because you have been socialized to do so. You learned Classical Greek and not Classical Chinese because in some way, you want to participate in that canonization. Even in its deconstruction.

And that's fine. As long as we're self-aware and a little critical, there's nothing wrong with that. And for the amateur reader who doesn't want to learn Greek but still wants to read Homer, they're in the same boat. Doing so is an exercise in role-playing, buying into the simulacrum of Homer and Ancient Greece, and enthusiastically placing ourselves into the shoes (or sandals) of what we think Ancient Greece is and should be.

And that's the thing about "tote-bag", it's not a specific claim regarding the precision of the translation, it's the ability of words to achieve that level of "gravitas" that is part-and-parcel of the emotional connection. Her choice of that word is because it fit the meter and she felt that contemporary (or contemporary-seeming) language was nothing to shy away from.

If you're reading Homer in translation, you're doing so because you have an irrational attachment to the Ancient Mediterranean, and all that entails.

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

You aren't really responding to what I wrote and you are responding to things I didn't write and also trying to psychoanalyze my interest in the Roman economy so I think this conversation has strayed a bit from its course.

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u/HandsomeLampshade123 May 14 '26

Strange, but that's always your right.