The Victorian list is the most cheering thing in this. An Icelandic-saga Homer, a Spenserian one, one in King James English. He seems to arrive in whatever form the receiving language is already carrying, which makes a decent case for the capacious view of translation you say Power takes.
I'm writing a displaced Odyssey myself at the moment, so the point about the epic impulse surviving in the nineteenth-century novel rather than in the poetry went in deep. And Carlyle and Darwin as the English epic writers after Wordsworth is a provocation I'd like to see someone pick up properly.
I am curious if you have a preferred (or favourite) translation of Homer? A while back I was reading through a Peter Green translation that I found to be a little uninteresting at parts (and also encountered a fairly large error in the text at one point which had me scratching my head and re-reading Part 3 a few times in case I had misremembered something).
Oh man, that Saxon Homer extract had me cackling, with the nurse's dapper girdle and all. I'm loving your point that the Victorians got properly weird with their translations, and honestly the world needs more of that kind of scholarly madness. Great fun. Well done.
The Victorian list is the most cheering thing in this. An Icelandic-saga Homer, a Spenserian one, one in King James English. He seems to arrive in whatever form the receiving language is already carrying, which makes a decent case for the capacious view of translation you say Power takes.
I'm writing a displaced Odyssey myself at the moment, so the point about the epic impulse surviving in the nineteenth-century novel rather than in the poetry went in deep. And Carlyle and Darwin as the English epic writers after Wordsworth is a provocation I'd like to see someone pick up properly.
Thank you Henry. I shall seek this book out, kangaroo impressions not withstanding.
This is terrific.
I am curious if you have a preferred (or favourite) translation of Homer? A while back I was reading through a Peter Green translation that I found to be a little uninteresting at parts (and also encountered a fairly large error in the text at one point which had me scratching my head and re-reading Part 3 a few times in case I had misremembered something).
Oh man, that Saxon Homer extract had me cackling, with the nurse's dapper girdle and all. I'm loving your point that the Victorians got properly weird with their translations, and honestly the world needs more of that kind of scholarly madness. Great fun. Well done.
https://jacklaurel.substack.com/p/an-alliterative-iliad-i-x ...I enjoyed browsing this translation on Substack... is this "Anglo-Saxon-style"?