The Odyssey of Homer (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: A RETROSPECT Many years have passed since this novel interpretation of Homer was offered to an uncertain public. In 1884 twelve Books appeared, accompanied by the Greek text; in 1891, twelve Books more, the earlier being revised and the Greek omitted. At intervals later, to meet the supposed needs of schools, additions have been made: by myself, a long historical and critical Introduction; by the publishers, a Pronouncing Vocabulary of Proper Names, a series of Questions calculated to stimulate the pupil to think about what he has read, and a mythical Map of the Wanderings of Odysseus, to curb thought and give school-teachers the comfort of certainty on matters about which the rest of the world is content to remain hi romantic ignorance. During these thirty-six years 200,000 copies have been sold, the plates have become worn, and a fresh setting of type is now demanded. The happy crisis brings me an opportunity for a thorough revision of the text, for adding a frontispiece, and for reconsidering in this note the principles of my translation, i The general plan of that translation ? whether as regards the characteristics of Homer there emphasized or the rhythmic medium chosen for their presentation ? I do not desire to change. The astonishing popular acceptance of the book warns me away from fundamental alteration, while increasing my annoyance over the many defects in the early workmanship. Seldom in later years have I turned the pages of the book without lighting on some ungainly sentencewhich I could hardly believe my own. Probably we have all been shocked at translators' English and wondered why anything so strange should be so common. But the translator's work is peculiarly fragmentary, his attention being primarily given to small parts of a sentence and only secondarily to...