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The Odyssey of Homer | 
 enlarge | Author: Homer
Creator: Richmond Lattimore
Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Category: Book
List Price: $13.00
Buy Used: $2.44
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Rating:  31 reviews
Sales Rank: 30754
Media: Paperback
Pages: 384
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.2 x 1
ISBN: 0060931957
Dewey Decimal Number: 883.01
EAN: 9780060931957
ASIN: 0060931957
Publication Date: June 1, 1999
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Condition: Standard used condition.
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Product Description
The most eloquent translation of Homer's Odyssey into modern English.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 26 more reviews...
 A fantastic translation November 8, 2002
A Law Student (Midwest, USA)
62 out of 62 found this review helpful
This review will focus upon the translation of "The Odyssey" more than the work itself. Having withstood the test of time and considered the first great work of the Western tradition, "The Odyssey" can do well enough without my two cents.
This translation is among the most accurate on the market. Though I speak no Greek myself, classics professors have urged me to read this translation, the best English source available. Despite the usual popularity of the Fitzgerald translation, the Lattimore version provides a more literal translation with consistent themes of word choice running throughout. "They put their hands to the good things that lay ready before them," for example, will come up over and over again because, quite simply, the phrase comes up over and over again. And we have the same adjectives consistently before each of the major players: resourceful Odysseus, thoughtful Telemachos, and circumspect Penelope, along with the gray-eyed Athene. Lattimore explains how he chooses to translate the work, and his translation is a literal work of a genius. He retains the lyric style in form throughout the work, aligning this translation even more closely with the original text.
For those who desire the most accurate translation of this great work, I would highly recommend the Lattimore translation of "The Odyssey of Homer."
The stuff that heroes are made of? January 29, 2001
Sergio Flores (Orange, CA United States)
33 out of 36 found this review helpful
This Lattimore translation of "The Odyssey" was the first book I read last quarter for my Comparative Literature class, and it became a preview of coming wonders. I had neglected the old classics out of ignorance and prejudice (these two tend to go together) and "The Odyssey" was one of those books that forced me to look at an entire collection of genres and literary epochs in a different, far more positive way. I do not know Greek, therefore I cannot say whether the translation is absolutely faithful to the original, but it flows well when read silently and it sounds even better when I read it aloud, alone at night. This is the story of Odysseus, King of Ithaka, Captain of the Greeks, who must return to his homeland and his family after helping defeat the Trojans. Amazingly enough, many people seem to have bought entirely into the idea of Odysseus as a noble, courageous, and honorable leader of men who gets sidetracked solely because of the wrath of Poseidon. I finished this poem with an entirely different view of its protagonist. To me, Odysseus was an arrogant liar, a murderer and a rapist who did not hesitate to attack people who were not his enemies (the Kikonians on his way back after sacking Troy and killing and/or enslaving most of its people, as reads in Book IX, page 138), and who did not hesitate to endanger the lives of his men just to boast of his deeds (same Book, page 150). This "hero" eventually makes it to Ithaka and ends up drenched in the blood of the suitors of his wife, ordering the torture and death of the serving women who had become lovers of the suitors. His son Telemachos becomes a murderer as well: he kills a man by stabbing him on the back with a javelin. Since the suitors represented the youth of Ithaka's noble families, Odysseus has arranged to create a blood feud with everyone on the island. Only the intervention of Athena will save the day, and after all the bloodshed, all the lies, the pillaging, and the murders, he leaves Ithaka and Penelope once more to wander in other lands and thus follow a prophecy regarding his own death. "The Odyssey" is a great poem. It is never boring and only after reading it complete one understands how little the film and TV productions kept of the original work, and how poorly we have been served with such adaptations. My reading of this timeless classic is rather different to that of other people who may have much better qualifications in this area. What I got out of it was the impression that Homer, whomever he was, used irony to drive home a message regarding his "hero," and this irony, together with the folklore that surrounded the Trojan War and its participants, helped Euripides, by the Fifth century BC, paint a far more direct and damaging picture of the Greek victors in his "Trojan Women." I now consider "The Odyssey" necessary reading. Even if you read it and arrive to a different understanding of the poem, I think it will be an extremely valuable experience.
Which translation to buy? February 1, 2005
Martingale
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
That is the question which most non-specialists will be asking themselves as they go through these reviews. After reading Lattimore's translation, I would have to say they could do worse than choosing this one.
This version of Homer's Odyssey tries to stay true to the original, allowing those of us that do not speak Homeric greek to catch a glimpse of the true structure of the poem.
Some will say that Lattimore's literalness makes for dull reading. Not so. I feel it preserves the raw beauty of a three thousand year old poem, in which base, fundamentally human, emotional states are explored.
Modern moral standards should in no way be used to mask, by means of saccharine lyricism, the power, indeed brutality, of many of the scenes described by Homer.
Overall, a great book.
Lattimore's pride April 20, 2004
Rocco Dormarunno (Brooklyn, NY)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
As with his work on the Iliad, few translators have had the success that Richmond Lattimore has when it comes to THE ODYSSEY. I would be hard pressed to find a better translation since others are either too literal to be poetic or too liberal to be faithful to Homer's story. Alexander Pope's is, of course, one of the greatest, but you have to go back 250 years to find one as enduring as Lattimore's.
quintessential epic April 2, 2006
uprising81 (louisville, ky)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
I have delved into the classics (western) as of late and purposefully saved this one for last...and much like dessert is the last and sweetest part of the meal, so was "the odyssey" after reading other classics. One of the first things that stood out in Lattimore's intro was his comment about the fantastic character development occuring throughtout the text. After reading "the iliad," i was expecting similar flat characters, but Odysseus, Telemachos and Penelope were indeed richly developed throughout the epic making the reader yearn for the climax when Odysseus is finally united with his family. The character development of "odyssey" also allowed characters from "the iliad" to be given more substance in this translation. In particular, I am thinking of Agamemnon when Odysseus visits the underworld. Because of the character development earlier in the poem this scene was chilling and meaningful.
I also enjoyed Lattimore's conjecture regarding the original author or authors of "the iliad" and "the odyssey." In particular I laughed out loud when he proposed that perhaps the author of "the odyssey" might have parodied "the iliad" when he wrote the part in "odyssey" where Telemachos sneezes and abruptly rattles his armour about him, which would poke fun of the soldiers crashing to the ground in their armour in "the iliad."
I have only read this translation of "the odyssey," but after reading "the iliad" and "the aeneid" by different translators, i feel that this one was so well done that it seems like it easily could have been an original English poem. Lattimore provides a wonderfully extensive glossery of characters from Greek mythology and poetry elaborating on their parentage.
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