Translating and Transforming Homer

Translating and Transforming Homer.

 

Introduction

 

Image 1: Anne Dacier, L’Iliade d’Homere: traduite en françois, avec des remarque, 3 vols (Paris, 1711), i, p. 34, Diomedes fighting the Trojans with interference from the god Zeus.

 

Much discourse regarding ancient and modern translations of the work of the ancient poet Homer concerns the responsibility of balancing stylistic interpretation with accuracy. During the period from the Reformation to the Enlightenment, several prominent translators took on the task of striking their own balance of these qualities in their translation. While translators such as George Chapman (1539?-1634), interpreted and changed language used in the works of Homer to make his edition more appealing to his audiences’ sensibilities, others, such as Anne Dacier (1654-1720), advocated a pure direct translation of the text. While there is no way to deem which choice of interpretation is better or worse, one thing can be agreed, namely that all these translators were driven by the same goal: to broaden their own breadth of knowledge and to introduce the text of a beloved author to new readers.

 

Image 2: Anne Dacier, L’Iliade d’Homere: traduite en françois, avec des remarque, 3 vols (Paris, 1711), iii, p. 117, Achilles with the assistance of the goddess Athena fights the Trojan Prince, Hector, who is supported by the god Apollo.

 

The epics of Homer all recount themes of heroism and the balance of gods and mortals through trials of war and battle as well as strenuous journeys. As translators took on the task of relaying these ideas, they sought to impose their own beliefs on the text, manipulating the poems to advocate their own opinions. Renaissance humanism stressed the importance of individual choice in the pursuit of a moral life and many translators used this key humanist principle to guide their reading of Homeric material.[1] This desire to emphasize human achievement culminated in the romanticization of the character of Achilles. In most of the translations within Worth’s collection, Achilles is idolized above others as the standard for mortal achievement. Although Achilles makes morally questionable choices while in combat, translators, in their eagerness to stress the principle of morality, sought either to downplay such lapses or to suggest that the incident was meant to be read ironically.[2] It is in their attempts to explain such inconsistences that the motives of translators become apparent.

 

Greek Editions and Commentaries

 

Worth’s oldest edition of the works of Homer dates to the year 1524. The two books, one containing the poem of the Iliad, entitled: Hommeri Iliadis and the other, the Odyssey, entitled: Hommeri Ulyssea were printed by the famous Aldine press of Venice. They contained not only the texts of the poems in Greek but also (in the Iliad), lives of Homer attributed to Herodotus and by Plutarch. It was Manutius’ third edition of this text, which he had first printed in 1504. Each volume included a summary of the work.

 

Image 3: Omērou Ilias and Omērou Odysseia (Venice, 1524), title pages.

 

Much of the Homeric material at the Worth Library, and specifically the translations of the epic poems, are bound in small octavos such as these, ideal for portability. The Aldine press, under the inspirational printer Aldus Manutius (1549/50-1515), had been at the forefront of the production of small format classical editions. These were not only attractive to the reader because they could easily fit in a pocket, but were even more attractive to the bookseller who could simultaneously save on the cost of paper and print for a wider market since classical texts such as these were the mainstay of early modern education. These ancient editions were widely studied during the period and were perceived as an academic pursuit of the elite.[3] Therefore, owning and carrying around one of these portable texts would display one’s ability to meaningfully engage with these ancient authors.

 

The Renaissance not only witnessed the publication of various editions and translations of the Greek texts of the Iliad and Odyssey but also the compilation of several collections of Homeric works in the form of reference works. Worth owned an example of the latter, a large four-volume compilation by Eusthatius, a twelfth-century archbishop of Thessalonika, whose magnum opus was published at Rome in the middle of the sixteenth century: Eustathiou Archiepiskopou Thessalonikēs Parekbolai eis tēn Homērou Iliada kai Odysseian meta euporōta tou kai pany ophelimou pinakos (Rome, 1542-1550). Worth’s copy had been previously owned by Henry Compton (1632-1713), Bishop of London. This type of reference material allowed for an in depth exploration of the appearance of certain characters and events within the epic poems of Homer, as well as a concordance of other references to these figures in the entire corpus of Greek and Roman myth. In contrast to the material in translation, these reference compilations are much larger in size and were not intended to be used as portable travel material.

 

Image 4: Homeri Ilias, id est, De rebus ad Troiam gestis (France, 1554), title page and p. 1.

 

This edition, printed under the auspices of the famous mid-sixteenth-century French scholar and royal printer Adrien Turnèbe (1512-65), was purchased by Worth from the collection of Cardinal Guillaume du Bois (1656-1723) in the year 1725.[4] It is bound in a much later binding, dating to late seventeenth-century France, and is gold-tooled in red goat with a small golden fleece at the corners of the covers and in the centre. The spine is likewise gold-tooled with a small golden fleece tool and has the title tooled directly onto the second compartment of the spine. Its French owner obviously prized it for not only are the covers and spine gold-tooled but the board edges are also gold-rolled, the edges of the text-block are marbled under gilt, and, in addition (and unusually in the Worth Library), the inside covers are also decorated with gold-rolled leather. Turnèbe had been appointed professor of Greek literature at the Collège Royal de France in 1547 and was a noted Greek scholar. His edition is a reprinting of the original Greek, with a commentary of the poem in both Greek. Worth’s copy includes annotations in Greek and Latin (mainly parsing of verbs). As this book was published in the mid 1500s, the languages of scholarship were still primarily Greek and Latin, presenting less of a need for classical material to be printed in translation. Furthermore, as literacy had yet to become widespread, only those who could afford an education in Greek and Latin would have sought out the printed editions of Homer’s work.

 

Latin Translation/Latin Texts.

 

Prior to translations of the works of Homer into modern languages, they were translated into Latin. During this period, Latin was the language of education and was used in church liturgy and services. These Latin editions were translated in the prose style, which would have made them more readable and therefore more accessible to a wider audience. Several of these prose editions may be found in the Worth Library. This style was considered more appealing to an introductory learner of the language, and, moreover, enabled the translator to compile the story in a concise narrative form.[5] Since both Latin and Greek are declinable languages, which allow for specific interpretations to be expressed in the grammar, Latin translations of ancient Greek material generally more accurately reflected the original Greek.[6]

 

Image 5: Lorenz Beger, Bellum et excidium Trojanum (Berlin, 1699), Sig. a3r.

 

In addition to such directly translated works, Worth possessed several books containing artistic renderings of the events in Homer’s poetry. One such was Lorenz Beger’s book of collected engravings, printed in 1699, which sought to depict the stories of Homer. Beger (1653- 1705) relied on imagery rather than text to re-imagine the Homeric epics.

 

Image 6: Lorenz Beger, Bellum et excidium Trojanum (Berlin, 1699), plate 7, the gods convening in ‘paradise’.

 

The plates chosen from this book are detailed recreations of images from ancient pottery and art. Similar to the translations featured in this exhibition, the images all intend to capture the fascination of the heroic spirit, as well as the flashier scenes displaying the interaction of gods and humans. In the image above, Beger includes two sides of a piece of pottery showing an interaction between the gods of Olympus in the heavens. This image contains a lot of seemingly incomplete figures, such as human figures with missing limbs and heads, as well as incomplete animals. This lack of completion reflects the damage inflicted on the ancient piece of pottery it sought to replicate.

 

Image 7: Lorenz Beger, Bellum et excidium Trojanum (Berlin, 1699), p. 22. The crafting of Achilles’ armour.

 

The beginning of this book contains several pages explaining the images in the text, as well as minor commentary on the stories of Homer. Beger clearly wished to emphasize the role and ethos of the hero. The image above shows the crafting of the armour of the hero Achilles, which he will wear in his final days of battle. The armour later becomes a symbol of the hero’s code, namely that a hero is guided by one morally righteous cause and is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to defend it.[7] To support this idea, Beger included images which depicted scenes which were not mentioned in either of the epic poems but were created as backstory and recorded by other authors of myth. The backstory is included to support the idea of the role of the hero. The scene depicted displays critical moments of choice, choices which ultimately contribute to the characters joining the Trojan war. By including these images instead of scenes which actually take place within the Homeric stories, Beger sought to add greater emphasis to the central role of the hero.[8]

 

Image 8: Gisbert Cuper, Apotheosis vel consecratio Homeri, sive, Lapis antiquissimus in quo poe¨tarum principis Homeri consecratio sculpta est, commentario illustratus a Gisberto Cupero (Amsterdam, 1683), plate 1, the Apotheosis of Homer.

 

Heroic themes also played an important role in contemporary coin collections and this is particularly evident in another book in Worth’s collection: Apotheosis vel consecratio Homeri, sive, Lapis antiquissimus in quo poe¨tarum principis Homeri consecratio sculpta est, commentario illustratus a Gisberto Cupero (Amsterdam, 1683). Gisbert Cuper (1644-1716), a seventeenth-century Dutch politician and antiquarian, looked at the stories of Homer in the context of numismatics. While highlighting the use of heroic themes in numismatics, Cuper also prioritized the inclusions of two foldout plates containing stories and themes of the Homeric world. The first foldout was a celebratory procession celebrating the Apotheosis of Homer. Homer is here regarded as a divinely inspired poet, and devotees of his work revere the poet as a god figure.[9] The image, taken from an engraving from antiquity, displays a reclining Zeus at the top of the image surveying the celebrations below. The muses and other major deities trail the king of the gods in the levels below him. On the lowest level is a seated Homer being crowned by personifications of time (Chronos) and the World (Oikumene). In front of the poet are personifications of ideal qualities such as wisdom, fidelity, and memory to name a few.[10] While this is not an image discussed in the Homeric corpus, the symbolism capitalized upon the intended values which scholars wished to emphasis within Homer’s written work.

 

Image 9: Gisbert Cuper, Apotheosis vel consecratio Homeri, sive, Lapis antiquissimus in quo poe¨tarum principis Homeri consecratio sculpta est, commentario illustratus a Gisberto Cupero (Amsterdam, 1683), p. 203, battle of the Centauromachy.

 

The second and final foldout plate within this book depicts a battle between the civilized human world, and the barbaric world of beasts and monsters. Cuper includes the story of the Centauromachy, a tale of a battle between centaurs and the Lapith people at the wedding of Pirithous and Hippodamia. While several centaurs are characterized as generous and helpful figures the overwhelming depiction is that of a beastly creature (centaurs are often viewed as a personification of man battling his inner beast, thereby highlighting some of the flaws of humanity). Including an engraving of man’s struggle against the beast in a book that otherwise handles material of Homer speaks to the role of the hero against the enemy.

 

English translators

 

One of the first prominent English translations of Homer was by the English Renaissance poet, George Chapman (1559? -1634). The Worth Library’s edition of Chapman’s controversial The Whole Workes of Homer, Prince of Poetts: in his Iliads, and Odysses Translated According to the Greeke (London, 1616-1634) is explored in the Worth Library’s August 2023 Book of the Month.

 

Image 10: George Chapman, The Whole Works of Homer, prince of Poetts: In his Iliads, and Odysses. Translated According to the Greeke (London, 1616-1634), portrait of Chapman.

 

As translations were being created for a more modern reader, translators were forced to face the question: is it better to be true to the original text or is it better to make changes to the source material to appeal to new readers? This is a question that will never be answered and is still up for debate today. However, looking at Chapman’s stylistic choices in translation, it is evident that Chapman prioritized stylistic changes in order to establish himself as an author on a par with Homer.

 

French Translators

 

Image 11: Anne Dacier et al., Dictys Cretensis et Dares Phrygius De bello et excidio Trojae (Amsterdam, 1702), title page, and frontispiece image of woman (Helen?) as the city of Troy burns.

 

The French translator Anne Dacier (1645-1720) approached her translations in direct contrast to the above trends in interpretation. Madame Dacier sought to be as true to the original Greek as possible. She favored a purist translation style over changing the language in order to appeal to the sensibilities of her French audience. Madame Dacier believed that changing the language, even if it would make the text more accessible for her audience, would diminish the themes which Homer intended to place in his work.[11] Anne Dacier transposed several editions of the Iliad, and Odyssey of Homer, in addition to her translations of the poetry of Sappho and the works of Anacreon.

 

Image 12: Anne Dacier, L’Odyssée d’Homere: traduite en françois, avec des remarque 3 vols (Paris, 1716), i, frontispiece of Odysseus killing the suitors of Penelope.

 

The Worth Library houses Dacier’s 1711 three-volume translation of the Iliad entitled, L’Iliade d’Homere: traduite en françois, avec des remarques, as well as her 1716 three-volume translation of the Odyssey entitled, L’Odyssée d’Homere: traduite en françois, avec des remarques. These editions are prose translations of the poetic Homeric verse. Both sets of books were bound in the early eighteenth century and include gold-tooled details on the spine and on the title labels. In addition to these translations, Worth owned the 1702 edition of Dictys Cretensis et Dares Phrygius De bello et excidio Trojae, a selection of essays tracking the fall of Troy, which contains the commentary of Madame Dacier as well as a dissertation by the Dutch classical scholar Jacobus Perizonius (1651-1715), notes by the twelfth-century Joseph of Exeter (who had been responsible for a six-book epic on the fall of Troy), and Samuel Dresemius (1578-1638), with additional notes on numismatics by Ludolph Smids (1649-1720).

 

Image 13: Anne Dacier, L’Iliade d’Homere: traduite en rançois, avec des remarque, 3 vols (Paris, 1711), i, title page, and frontispiece of the goddess Athena reaching for the hero, Achilles, in his conflict with King Agamemnon.

Image 14 : Anne Dacier, L’Iliade d’Homere: traduite en françois, avec des remarque, 3 vols (Paris, 1711), i, p. 238, Hector and Andromache saying their goodbyes.

 

As a female translator in a male dominated field, Anne Dacier gained respect and recognition amongst French academics of her time. Her translations of the Homeric corpus into French served as a gateway for other scholars to experience the ancient world in their own language. Madame Dacier never took on a ‘nom de plume’, or a false male identity in her published work, but always published as herself. In her work she never spoke about her gender or made it a defining element in her translations. Anne Dacier did not change the meaning of the Homeric text to suit her own personal beliefs and interpretations. Instead, she attempted to keep her prose translation as close as possible to its Homeric meaning. An example of this may be seen in her treatment of the book six meeting of Hector and Andromache before Hector is to leave for certain death in battle. As the above image demonstrates, Madame Dacier establishes Hector as a strong willed individual, not willing to let his city fall. In line with the original Greek, she depicts his wife Andromache on a level playing field with her husband as they plan and lament for the battles to come. This is in contrast to the treatment of Andromache by other translators who focus on Hector’s heroism alone. In the corner of the engraving the son of the couple, Scamandrius, better known as Astyanax (a future king) is wearily looking at his father, in fear of his large helmet. This scene and image remind the readers of the human toll of war, and the strength of will of the Trojan prince and his wife.

 

Image 15: Anne Dacier, L’Iliade d’Homere: traduite en françois, avec des remarque, 3 vols (Paris, 1711), ii, p. 163, a battle between the Greeks and Trojans with interference from the goddess, Iris.

 

Anne Dacier’s work and perspective on the role of translator did not exist without controversy. As more scholars used Madame Dacier’s translation as a starting point for their own interpretations of the Homeric poems, she began vocalizing her disappointment and contempt for these new takes on the epics. In the most well-known conflict, known today as ’The Homeric Quarrel’, Madame Dacier critiqued the translations completed by Alexander Pope (1688-1744).[12] Using her reputation as a purist translator, Madame Dacier criticized Pope for taking too many liberties in order to appease the mass audience of readers. She was particularly offended by the fact that Pope used her own translation as a starting point for his.[13]

 

Image 16: Antoine Houdar de La Motte, L’Iliade: Poeme. Avec un discours sur Homere (Paris, 1714), p. 58, the gods convening on Mount Olympus to discuss the events of the Trojan war.

 

Another author who used Anne Dacier’s translation and who would later be criticized by her for taking too many creative liberties, is Antoine Houdar de la Motte (1672-1731), whose interpretation of the Iliad is entitled, L’Iliade: Poeme. Avec un discours sur Homere. Worth’s copy was printed in 1715 and bound in an early eighteenth-century French binding. After reading Madame Dacier’s translation of the Iliad, De la Motte decided to put his own spin on the Homeric tale by condensing the story to one volume and emphasizing the scenes of combat and heroism while mitigating the use of accurate language and Homeric themes to appeal to his French audience.[14]

 

Image 17: Antoine Houdar de La Motte, L’Iliade: Poeme. Avec un discours sur Homere (Paris, 1714), p. 128, Hector and Patroclus fighting over the corpse of the hero, Sarpedon.

 

This aesthetically revamped rendition of the Iliad was written to appeal to French beliefs and sensibilities in order to make the ancient poem resonate with De la Motte’s audience. De la Motte knew no Greek when transposing his rendition of the poem and relied entirely on the translation composed by Madame Dacier to inform his text. Monsieur De la Motte noted his dislike of the stylistic and moral lapses in Homer’s tale, and produced his translation as a means of rectifying what he viewed as flaws in the source material.

 

Image 18: Antoine Houdar de La Motte, L’Iliade: Poeme. Avec un discours sur Homere (Paris, 1714), p. 75, Hector and Andromache saying their final goodbye.

 

De la Motte also included an image of Hector and Andromache in his version of the Iliadic text. In a stylistic telling of the Iliad, laced with details of physical and emotional conflict, he included this scene depicting a touching family moment, in an attempt to appeal to French sensibilities and taste before more conflict ensued. While the image from Madame Dacier’s translation shows Hector helmed, and his wife Andromache standing on the same level as her husband as they reach for their child, De la Motte chooses to depict Hector with his helmet off, and Andromache holding their child. By choosing to illustrate Hector after he has taken his helmet off prior to approaching his son, De la Motte hoped to depict the hero as a human and loving father. This is in contrast to the relatively popular depiction in Anne Dacier’s work which emphasized the warrior image. Madame Dacier, in her later translated editions of the Iliad, would go on to dismiss and state her distaste for the liberties taken by De la Motte in his work.

 

The interpretation and re-working of material written by Homer is in a constant state of reinvention and production. The texts within the Worth Library reflect the extremes of both interpretation styles, while also displaying a balance of these techniques. As future artists look to translate and transform these works, a balance will inevitably be struck between these two practices.

 

Text: Ms Sofia Podgorski, Third Year Student, Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, Boston University, USA.

 

Homeric Material at the Worth Library

 

Homer, Omērou Ilias = [Homeri Ilias.] (Venice, 1524).

Homer, Omērou Odysseia = [Homeri Odyssey.] (Venice, 1524).

Eustathius, Archbishop of Thesssalonica, Eustathiou Archiepiskopou Thessalonikēs Parekbolai eis tēn Homērou Iliada kai Odysseian meta euporōta tou kai pany ophelimou pinakos (Rome, 1550).

Homer, Homeri Ilias, id est, De rebus ad Troiam gestis (France, 1554).

Homer et al., Hoi tēs hēroikes poiēseōs proteuontes poiētae, kai alloi tines. Homēros, Hēsiodos, Orpheus, Kallimachos, Aratos, Nikandros, Theokritos, Moschos, Biōn, Dionysios, Kolouthos, Tryphiodōros, Mousaios, Theognis, Phōkylidēs, Pythagorou chrysa epē]. = Poetae Graeci principes heroici carminis, & alii nonnulli. Homerus, Hesiodus, Orpheus, Callim. Aratus, Nicand. Theocrit., Moschus, Bion, Dionysius, Coluthus, Tryphiodorus, Musæus, Theognis, Phocylides, Pythagorae aurea carmina edited by Henri II Estiennes (Geneva, 1566).

Empress Eudocia, Homerici centones, à veteribus vocati [Homerokentra]: Virgiliani Centones. Vtrique in quædam historiæ sacræ capiti scripti. Nonni paraphrasis Euangelii Ioannis, Græcè & Latiné (Geneva, 1578).

Homer, Homeri quae extant omnia: Ilias, Odyssea, Batrachomyomachia, Hymni, poematia aliquot / cum Latina uersione omnium quæ circumferuntur, edited by Jean de Sponde (Basle, 1583).

Chapman, George, The Whole Works of Homer, Prince of Poetts, in his Ilads and Odysses. Translated According to the Greeke (London, 1616-1634).

Duport, James, Homeri poetarum omnium seculorum facilè principis Gnomologia, duplici parallelismo illustrata; uno ex locis S. Scripturæ, quibus Gnomæ Homericæ aut propè affines, aut non prorsùs absimiles. Altero ex gentium scriptoribus; ubi citationes, parodiæ, allusiones, & deniq[ue] loci paralleli. Insertis hinc inde observationibus ethico-politicis in sententias, & ad voces insigniores notis criticis. Cum triplici indice sententiarum. Locorum S. Scripturæ. Vocabulorum. Quibus mantissæ loco accessit appendix continens syllogen testimoniorum de Homero, ex variis autoribus, quà antiquis, quà neotericis collectam. Per Jacobum Duportum Cantabrigiensem, Græcæ linguæ nuper professorem regium (Cambridge, 1660).

Herodotus, Herodotou alikarnaseos istoron logoi 9 ’epigrapho’menoi Mousai. Tou autou, exegesis peri tes Homerou biotes.= Herodoti halicarnassei historiarum libri IX novem Musarum nominibus inscripti. Ejusdem narratio de vita Homeri. Excerpta è ctesiæ libris de rebus Persicis & Indicis. Græcè & Latiné. Et H. Stephani Apologia pro Herodoto. Accesserunt huic editioni chronologia Historiæ, & tabula geographiæ Herodoteæ; necnon variantes lectiones, & notæ ex pluribus Mss. codd. & antiquis scriptoribus collectæ; unà cum indice Græco & Latino, edited by Henri II Estienne (London, 1679).

Cuper, Gisbert, Apotheosis vel consecration Homeri, sive, Lapis antiquissimus in quo poe¨tarum principis Homeri consecratio sculpta est, commentario illustratus a Gisberto Cupero…auctore eodem (Amsterdam, 1683).

Beger, Lorenz, Bellum et excidium Trojanum (Berlin, 1699).

Dacier, Anne, et. al., Dictys Cretensis et Dares Phrygius De bello et excidio Trojae … cum interpretatione Annae Daceriae. Accedunt in hac nova editione notae variorum integrae, nec non Josephus Iscanus, cum notis Sam. Dresemii. Numismatibus & gemmis, historiam illustrantibus exornavit Lud. Smids. Dissertationem de Dictye Cretensi praefixit Jac. Perizonius (Amsterdam, 1702).

Homer, Homērou Ilias kai Odysseia kai eis autas scholia, ē exēgēsis, tōn palaiōn. Homeri Ilias & Odyssea, et in eadem scholia, sive interpretatio, veterum. Item notae perpetuae, in textum & scholia, variae lectiones, &c. cum versione latina emendatissimi. Accedunt Batrachomyomachia, Hymni & Epigrammata, unà cum fragmentis, & gemini indices. Totum opus cum plurimis mss. vetustissimis, & optimis editionibus collatum, auctum, emedatum, & priscae integritati restitutum. Operâ, studio, & impensis, Josuae Barnes, S.T.B. in Academiâ Cantabrigia Regii Graecae Linguae Professoris, edited by Joshua Barnes (Cambridge, 1711).

Dacier, Anne, L’Iliade d’Homere: traduite en françois, avec des remarques, 3 vols (Paris, 1711).

La Motte, Antoine Houdar, L’Iliade: Poeme. Avec un discours sur Homere (Paris, 1714).

Terrason, Jean, Dissertation critique sur l’Iliade d’Homere: où à l’occasion de ce poëme on cherche les regles d’une poëtique fondée sur la raison, & sur les examples des anciens & des modernes. Par Monsieur l’abbé Terrasson, de l’Academie des sciences, 2vols (Paris, 1715).

Dacier, Anne L’Odyssée d’Homere: traduite en françois, avec des remarques, 3 vols (Paris, 1716).

Hardouin, Jean, Apologie d’Homère: où l’on explique le veritable dessein de son Iliade, & sa theomythologie (Paris, 1716).

Homer, Iliade d’Omero tradotta dall’ originai Greco in versi sciolti, translated by Anton Maria Salvini (Venice, 1723).

 

Works Cited (Secondary Material)

 

Bounia, Alexandra, The Nature of Classical Collecting: Collectors and Collections, 100 BCE- 100CE (New York, 2017).

Buenger, T.A., ‘The Classics and the Protestant Reformation’, The Classical Weekly, 11 (5) (1917), 34–37.

Chaix Rouchon, Beatrice, ‘«Onely Paine Crownes Worth » : George Chapman et la difficile gloire du Poète-traducteur’, Études Épistémè, (42) (2022).

Conrath, J., ‘The Apotheosis of Homer’, London Magazine, (3) (London, 1821), 81-85.

Hall, Edith and Henry Stead, ‘Approaching Classical Reception through the Frame of Social Class’, in Maarten De Pourcq (ed), Framing Classical Reception Studies (Leiden, 2020), pp 83-93

Hall, Edith, ‘Approaching classical reception through the frame of social class’, in Edith hall and Henry Stead (eds), A People’s History of Classics: Class and Greco-Roman Antiquity in Britain and Ireland (New York, 2020), pp 207-229.

Miola, R. S., ‘On Death and Dying in Chapman’s ‘Iliad’: Translation as Forgery’, International Journal of the Classical Tradition, 3 (1) (1996), 48–64.

Miola, R. S. (ed.), ‘George Chapman: Homer’s Iliad’, MHRA Tudor and Stuart Translations, 20 (2017), 49-64.

Pieretti, M. P., ‘Women Writers and Translation in Eighteenth Century France’, The French Review, (2002), 474-88.

Presson, R. K., ‘Wrestling with This World: A View of George Chapman’, PMLA, 84 (1) (1969), 44–50.

Sowerby, Robin, ‘Early Humanist Failure with Homer’, International Journal of Classical Tradition, (4.1) (1997), 37-63.

Taylor, Helena, ‘Polemical Translation, Translating Polemic: Anne Dacier’s Rhetoric in the Homer Quarrel’, Modern Language Review, (116) (2021), 21-41.

Wolfe, Jessica, Homer and the question of strife from Erasmus to Hobbes (Toronto, 2015).

 

[1] Sowerby, Robin, ‘Early Humanist Failure with Homer’, International Journal of Classical Tradition, (4.1) (1997), 60.

[2] Presson, R. K., ‘Wrestling with This World: A View of George Chapman’, PMLA, 84 (1) (1969), 44–50.

[3] Hall, Edith and Henry Stead, ‘Approaching Classical Reception through the Frame of Social Class’, in Maarten De Pourcq (ed.), Framing Classical Reception Studies (Leiden, 2020), pp 207-229.

[4] A note on the end-leaf refers to the Du Bois sale of 1725.

[5] Hall, Edith and Henry Stead, ‘Approaching Classical Reception through the Frame of Social Class’, pp 83-93.

[6] Miola, R. S. (ed.), George Chapman: Homer’s Iliad, MHRA Tudor and Stuart Translation, 20 (Cambridge, 2017), vol. 20.

[7] Sowerby, ‘Early Humanist Failure with Homer’, 60.

[8] Ibid.

[9] ‘The Apotheosis of Homer’, London Magazine, (3) (1821), 81-85.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Pieretti, M. P., ‘Women Writers and Translation in Eighteenth Century France’, The French Review, (2002), 478.

[12] The Worth Collection is not in possession of any Alexander Pope translations. Whether this reflects a lack of interest on Worth’s part or a lack of access to a copy of the text is unknown.

[13] Taylor, H. ‘Polemical Translation, Translating Polemic: Anne Dacier’s Rhetoric in the Homer Quarrel’, Modern Language Review, 116, (2021), 23.

[14] Ibid., 25.

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