2006-02-11

The Odyssey of Homer

The Odyssey of Homer (Perennial Classics) I've finished reading it for class. It's not bad. It's a line by line translation of Homer's original text, but a strange sort of English sometimes get in the way. I don't know. Maybe since this is thousands of years ago, the style of writing and repetition is different from now. Still, I like the book and recommend that people read it, if they're willing to get over the sentence structure. I'm beginning to get a sense of how important the Trojan War was, and how it still influences our worldview.

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3 Comments:

Blogger Alex said...

This is one of my editions, and the one I'm using for my thesis. Lattimore's translation is about as close to the Greek as you can get, and yes, you are correct to assume that there is a certain amount of language structure at play here. Enjoy the song of the man of many twists and turns, and chat with me sometime about it :-D

Sunday, February 12, 2006 at 1:06:00 PM PST  
Blogger Cary Patrick Martin said...

Which translation did you read? I, too, like the Lattimore. If you're not used to heightened language, it can be a difficult read. But your experience reading Shakespeare no doubt proved helpful.

It's one of my favorite books; rich, emotional, and epic. I highly recommend The Iliad as well!

Sunday, February 12, 2006 at 6:02:00 PM PST  
Blogger Alan said...

Oh, it was a little different to get used to the language at first, but I enjoyed it. I've read only the Lattimore translation, so that's pretty much it.

Yes, Shakespeare is significantly more difficult than this translation, probably because in this one, the language is more modern.

Monday, February 13, 2006 at 10:46:00 PM PST  

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