English Translations of Classics

DiscussionsGeeks who love the Classics

Rejoignez LibraryThing pour poster.

English Translations of Classics

Ce sujet est actuellement indiqué comme "en sommeil"—le dernier message date de plus de 90 jours. Vous pouvez le réveiller en postant une réponse.

1rebeccareid
Juil 18, 2008, 3:46 am

I have some non-English works on my reading list right now, and I intend to read some of these in the next few months (Don Quixote, Crime and Punishment, Maupassant, Nabakov). I was wondering how much difference a translation makes. Has a bad translation ever "ruined" a good book for you?

2cornerhouse
Oct 22, 2008, 11:02 pm

Without a doubt...translation can make all the difference.

When I first tried to read Kristin Lavransdatter (to pick something in the current groupread), the English translation from the 30s or so was quite bad: purposefully archaic, turgid, etc. I put the book down after about 100 pages, tired of wading through the prose of another era. The new translation eschews this and is wonderful to read.

Other badish translations that come to mind: Longfellow's Dante, some early translations of Don Quixote, Louise and Aylmer Maude's Russian translations.

But here's the thing -- you often don't know whether it's the translation or the book itself until the next, hopefully better translation comes along. That's how I know that Ciardi's Dante is better than Longfellow's (though I also read Italian well enough), and how Edith Grossman's Quixote, and Pevear and Volokhonsky's translations of Gogol, Dostoyevksy and now Tolstoy are improvements on their predecessors.

3criels
Modifié : Oct 31, 2008, 5:49 pm

Much could be said about this question. The primary things to consider are as follows. First, Does the translator have the expertise necessary to translate this work well? I usually begin seeking the answer by considering whether the translator is an expert in the author's language, and then whether he / she has credentials that indicate that he / she has advanced knowledge of the author. You can usually judge these questions from the kind of mini-biography that is usually available on the translation's book jacket or back cover: a good marker of expertise is the information about the translator's other publications.

Also on the book jacket or back cover, there is often a blurb, and sometimes even snippets from favorable reviews of the book, that will give a clue of the aesthetic features of this particular translation. And that brings us to my second recommended question that should guide your selection of translation: What are you looking for in a translation? Do you want one that hews as closely and literally as possible to the original language (and therefore most accurately represents the culture, thought, context, etc. of the author, much of which will be at least a bit alien to you)? Personally I much prefer to read something as close to the original as I can get, because I want to know what that particular work is in itself, not as modified to be more "friendly" to our quite different contemporary culture. This second aesthetic principle of translation--subordinating fidelity to the original language for a version that will suit more readers of today--is the other one from which you have to decide. If you want to see the difference between the two approaches, it would be well worth your while to compare Stanley Lombardo's and Richmond Lattimore's translations of the Iliad of Homer.

4rebeccareid
Nov 3, 2008, 2:35 pm

criels and cornerhouse, thank you very much for your responses. I'm learning by reading.

In fact, criels, I just picked up four translations of the Iliad last week and compared the first few pages to get a feel for what I'm looking for. I completely see what you mean about Lattimore's versus Lombardo's. I'm going with something a bit more in the middle: Fagles. I have to say I'm probably more interested in a more modern language translation, but Lombardo's seems a bit too modern in some ways.

Then I started wondering why I prefer the more modern. I suppose it's because I'm reading in my sparse free time whilst caring for a young child: I read to enrich my mind and escape, and since I'm very unfamiliar with The Illiad, I'm looking for more clarity and story than I am Greek culture and poetry. I don't want reading The Iliad to be painful, and Lattimore's seemed unclear enough to be painful.

At some point I'll revisit the Lattimore translation to get a feel for the poetry of it. It does seem beautiful.

5cornerhouse
Nov 3, 2008, 3:00 pm

Another suggestion, just to get the feel of the poetry: see if you can find a recording of the Iliad being recited in Greek. There's a certain visceral force to Greek dactylic hexameters that English doesn't really have the ability to encapsulate.

The only one I've been able to find quickly is of Gregory Nagy reading Iliad 1.1-16

http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~classics/poetry_and_prose/homer/iliadone.html

He's not a great performer, but he's got the meter right.

There are also recordings by Lombardo and an older, very strange one by Daitz.

6criels
Modifié : Nov 4, 2008, 12:30 am

When you do go to Lattimore's Iliad, there is an invaluable resource that will make the task of understanding it much lighter. A Companion to the Iliad by Malcolm W. Willcock is a line-by-line commentary designed to provide the information about the text that a general reader cannot be expected to know. If you use that (which admittedly will involve a lot of looking back and forth that will be disruptive to reading), you can get the benefit of the more difficult translation.

7bumblesby
Modifié : Mar 1, 2009, 4:23 pm

I am looking at the Folio version of The Iliad translated by Fagles and the Easton Press version translated by Alexander Pope.

The Pope version is available on gutenburg.org. I started reading the Pope version with some difficulty. It became much easier for me to understand if I read slowly and aloud. The gutenburg text did have many foot notes which helped to explain unfamiliar names. I am not much familiar with Roman (Latin) mythology. I rather liked Pope's version of what I have read so far. The best word I can think of is "lyrical" nearly Shakespearean. The "thees" and "thous" don't bother me.

So what is the opinion about the Folio version by Fagles?

Since I like Easton and Folio both, I am trying to decide between the two.

Edit: I was looking at some of the other translations at gutenburg.org. Two are written in prose, two written in verse. As you can tell I am quite ignorant about this. I thought all translations were in verse.

8rebeccareid
Mar 2, 2009, 8:06 am

tames, I loved reading Fagles' The Iliad. I thought it was a great start to a classic work that I was completely unfamiliar with. I'm currently reading Fagles' Odyssey and then I want to read Aeneid (haven't decided if I'll go with Fagles or some one else's translation for that).

That said, I intend to read Pope, Lattimore, Lombardo, and maybe other translations of the Iliad. I really loved reading it, and now that I have a basic understanding, I think it's a book that I can revisit every year in a different translation and enjoy it every time. I may decide to do the same with The Odyssey and Aeneid, but I'm surprised that the Odyssey isn't as intriguing.

I hope you enjoy whichever translation you decide to begin with!

9bumblesby
Modifié : Mar 3, 2009, 7:21 am

Is the Fagles version in prose or in verse?

I just found an Easton copy on Ebay and purchased. I may do the Folio since I will be renewing soon.

10rebeccareid
Mar 5, 2009, 12:01 pm

Fagles is verse. Very readable.

11semckibbin
Mar 13, 2009, 10:43 pm

Penguin had a wonderful edition of Pope's translation in 1996, edited by Shankman.. It's out of print, unfortunately; Penguin publishes three other Iliad translations but no longer that one. The poetry of Pope is fine (I'm not commenting on the fidelity to the original), but an added attraction are the notes. The notes! A summary of the available commentary at that time (most are stolen from Eustathius or M. de la Motte), but there are many enlightening and interesting ones by Pope himself. Reading Pope and Lattimore together (and sometimes Chapman, too) I found to be an exceptional reading experience. I highly recommend it.

12slickdpdx
Mai 7, 2009, 6:21 pm

In my opinion, E.V. Rieu's prose translations are the best of the bunch.

13leccol
Jan 16, 2012, 12:21 am

I first read the Pope translation, and didn't find it all that difficult. Next, I read the Fagles and enjoyed it. I also read the Odyssey translation by Lawrence of Arabia which is prose. I don't believe Homer should be read in prose. The rhyming verse of Pope or the free verse of Fagle both fit the mood of this epic poetry.

14kdweber
Jan 20, 2012, 2:49 pm

Clearly, translations are very personal. With regards to the Iliad, I've read Pope, Lattimore and Fagles and prefer Fagles. Just picked up the new Mitchell translation but I haven't read it yet. I like both Ciardi and the Hollanders for Dante. Grossman for Quixote and Pevear & Volokhonsky for the Russians. Learning a bunch about Verne translators in another LT thread.

15jsimonharris
Jan 17, 2017, 3:45 pm

Cet utilisateur a été supprimé en tant que polluposteur.

16Majel-Susan
Août 14, 2017, 4:15 pm

Poetry is another tough one to translate. For instance, one of my absolute favourites, Cyrano de Bergerac, is a French play in verse. I bought Carol Clark's translation, which was the only one available at the bookstore, and I instantly loved it. It was fresh, brilliant and brimming! And I was so surprised when I found out on Amazon that people disliked the translation; they liked Brian Hooker's translation, which I'd really love to read if only I could get a hold of it. Since then, I've also read the Thomas and Guillemard translation, parts by A. S. Kline, and also parts of what I could understand in the original French. It's difficult because there has to be a balance between literal translation, the mood captured by rhyme, and also what will have to be lost in translation. Love that play all the same though!

17cs80
Oct 14, 2017, 12:24 am

I tend to prefer the translations that are closest to when the book was written; you can better capture the spirit of the age.
For Don Quixote that would be the Thomas Shelton translation, which I highly recommend!

18leslie.98
Jan 15, 2020, 12:39 am

>16 Majel-Susan: For French plays in verse, I love Richard Wilbur's translations! I don't think that he translated Cyrano but his Moliere translations are wonderful. I also recently came across a Corneille play he translated, The Liar, which was excellent.