Odyssey (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Homer
- First Published: 725
- Type of Work: Poetry
- Genres: Poetry, Epic, Narrative poetry
- Subjects: Language or languages, Husbands, Wives, Africa or Africans, Traveling or travelers, Voyages, Mythology or myths, Poetry or poets, War, Legends, Folklore, Gods or goddesses, Reading, Sea or seafaring life, Egypt or Egyptians, Adventure, Heroes or heroism, Life and death, Greek or Roman times, Greece or Greek people, Antarctica, Fables, Trojan War
- Locales: Sparta, ancient, Greece, ancient, Mediterranean, Argos, ancient, Mount Olympus (mythic), Ithaca, ancient
One might argue, though with misplaced confidence, that the large number of very good translations of Homer’s Odyssey makes the struggle of learning Ionic Greek unnecessary, at least for readers of English. The shelves of any decent British or American library swell with versions that range from the crisp Oxonian prose of E. V. Rieu (1946) and the updating by his son D. C. H. Rieu (1991) to the rhapsodic verse of Robert Fitzgerald (1961). The stark formality of Richmond Lattimore (1965) has a grand plainness that particularly suits Homer’s Greek, while the prose of Walter...
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