Product Description

The most eloquent translation of Homer's epic chronicle of the Greek hero Odysseus and his arduous journey home after the Trojan War

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #54816 in Books
• Published on: 2007-07-01
• Released on: 2007-06-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780061244186
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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About the Author
Richmond Lattimore was born in 1906. He was considered one of the leading translators of Greek classical literature. He died in 1984

Customer Reviews

Too Good!
Since reading Lattimore's translation of the Odyssey this past summer, I haven't been able to read ANYTHING ELSE with the same interest and enthusiasm. Homer's Odyssey needs no endorsement from me. It sits at the very heart and genesis of the Western literary tradition and will forever continue to do so. If you haven't read the Odyssey, you should: it's an important part of our human heritage. It's also incredibly fascinating for its age. Almost three thousand years old now, the Odyssey transports you into another strangely foreign time, imagination, and culture.

The Odyssey is also a compelling narrative in its own right. It's simply an amazing and beautiful story, and this is certainly what accounts for its continued influence throughout history. The prose, beautifully and faithfully rendered in this edition by Lattimore, are captivating and rythmically satisfying. The world is rich, awe-inspiring, but not over-indulgently described. Odysseus is a hero in the truest sense of the word. Everything you want is there but not in over-abundance. The Odyssey is just sparse enough to leave you yearning for more, which is why I haven't been able to read much else lately. I figure Lattimore's translation of the Illiad is my next stop. I'll let you know how that goes.

The best translation available
Overall, the best translation available -- here presented in a new approach with Reading Group questions at the end. I am not sure how many reading groups are going to read The Odyssey, and most of those reading, either for solitary pleasure or in a classroom setting where better questions are going to be discussed make the past few pages really somewhat worthless -- but overall, this is the finest translation you can get. If you read this in High School and haven't picked it up in 20 years, take the leap -- and enjoy reading it in a way you never recalled while in HS....complement this with the authors translation of The Illiad and you have a summer of reading ahead of you.

The Odyssey of Homer translated by Richard Lattimore
I've read other translations of the Odyssey but Lattimore's is the most readable and clear. Fitzgerald's translation occasionally clarifies a point of two but for the most part I depend upon Lattimore's.