Book overview
A. M. Juster's striking new translation relies on the tools and spirit of the English light verse tradition while taking care to render the original text as accurately as possible. Limited preview - 2008 - 147 pages |
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ReviewsEditorial Review - Cahners Business Information (c) 2002 The lyric poetry of antiquity is often as important to modern poets as it is to translators and classical scholars. Mulroy is a professor of classics (Univ. of Wisconsin, Milwaukee), and Carson (classics, McGill Univ.; The Beauty of the Husband) and the late William Matthews (After All: Last Poems) are well-regarded poets. Following Pound's dictum to "make it new," Mulroy and Matthews translate Catullus and Horace into modern American idiom, striving where possible to find cultural equivalents rather than literal translations. At the same time, they try to be true to the shifting tones and rhythms of their originals. The results are fluent, giving some sense of the contemporaneousness that Catullus and Horace would have evoked in their audiences. Carson's translation follows Sappho's diction and form much more closely and includes the Greek original on the facing page. Much of what survives of Sappho are fragments, often just a stray word, phrase, or even a few letters. Like many modern poets, Carson deploys these on the blank page, letting their suggestiveness fill the gaps and create whole lyrics in the imagination of the readers. All three translators aim for a general audience, though Mulroy and Carson also include notes and introductions of value to the more scholarly reader. All three books are recommended for both public and academic libraries. T.L. Cooksey, Armstrong Atlantic State Univ., Savannah, GA Common terms and phrasesAGAMEMNON Albucius Antony Balatro Book II Brown Brutus Caesar Canidia Catius Cicero Crispinus Damasippus Davus Falernian father fine wine Freudenberg Fundanius genre gods Greek guest Hermogenes Tigellius hexameter Horace Horace's Satires humor iambic insane joke king known Latin Lucilius Maecenas meter modern Muecke Nasidienus never Nomentanus Octavian Ofellus Old Comedy OPIMIUS Persius person philosopher play poem poet poetry praetor praise probably Quintus reference reply rhyme Roman Rome Rudd Rufus Sarmentus Schlegel scholars Servius slave someone Stoic things though TIRESIAS translation Trebatius ULYSSES unknown Varius verse Virgil word write Other editions
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