Chapman's Homer - (Bollingen) (Paperback)
Similar Products
Products of same category from the store
All
Product info
<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><p>George Chapman's translations of Homer are among the most famous in the English language. Keats immortalized the work of the Renaissance dramatist and poet in the sonnet On First Looking into Chapman's Homer. Swinburne praised the translations for their romantic and sometimes barbaric grandeur, their freshness, strength, and inextinguishable fire. The great critic George Saintsbury (1845-1933) wrote: For more than two centuries they were the resort of all who, unable to read Greek, wished to know what Greek was. Chapman is far nearer Homer than any modern translator in any modern language. This volume presents the original text of Chapman's translation of the <i>Odyssey</i> (1614-15), making only a small number of modifications to punctuation and wording where they might confuse the modern reader. The editor, Allardyce Nicoll, provides an introduction, textual notes, a glossary, and a commentary. Garry Wills's preface to the <i>Odyssey</i> explores how Chapman's less strained meter lets him achieve more delicate poetic effects as compared to the <i>Iliad</i>. Wills also examines Chapman's fine touch in translating the warm and human sense of comedy in the <i>Odyssey</i>. <p/><br> Oft of one wide expanse had I been told<br>That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;<br>Yet did I never breathe its pure serene<br>Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold.<br>--John Keats</p><p/><br></br><p><b> From the Back Cover </b></p></br></br><p>"<i>Chapman's Homer</i> provided for the <i>Iliad</i> and the <i>Odyssey</i> exactly what the <i>King James Bible</i> (also published in 1611) did for the <i>Hebrew Bible</i> and the <i>New Testament</i> in English: it offered a stylistically vigorous and morally powerful translation that has influenced generations of subsequent readers, even as new versions have proliferated."<b>--Jan M. Ziolkowski, Harvard University</b></p><p>"Chapman's versions inspired English poets for centuries after his time. They rest on a minute and perceptive reading of the texts. And they retain their power to fascinate and provoke anyone interested in Homer and his afterlife, in Renaissance ideas about classical and modern poetry, or in the development of the language of English poetry."<b>--Anthony T. Grafton, Princeton University</b></p><p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br>Each age approaches Homer, and particularly the Odyssey, with a kind of astonishment . . . Chapman was Shakespeare's contemporary. . . At times, noticing the epic sustainability of his verse, you get the feeling that he occupies a point on an imaginary line between Shakespeare and Milton. . .<b>---Nicholas Lezard, <i>The Guardian</i></b><br><br>In Chapman's <i>Whole Works of Homer</i> . . . English is spendthrift, inebriate with waste motion, at times precious and as yet uncertain of its coruscating force. It is also the language of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, charged with sensory, corporeal thrust. At moments, it is already exact in that manual, pragmatic vein which is the virtue of English. At others, it comes armed with lyric sorrow. Homer, as Chapman construes him . . . makes the English language know itself and impels it to cast its lexical-grammatical net over a thronging prodigality of life.<b>---George Steiner, <i>Homer in English</i></b><br>
Price History
Cheapest price in the interval: 32.49 on October 22, 2021
Most expensive price in the interval: 32.49 on November 8, 2021
Price Archive shows prices from various stores, lets you see history and find the cheapest. There is no actual sale on the website. For all support, inquiry and suggestion messagescommunication@pricearchive.us