Product Description

This is Homer's epic chronicle of the Greek hero Odysseus' triumph over Troy and arduous journey home: Odysseus survives a storm and shipwreck, the cave of the Cyclops and the isle of Circe, the lure of the Sirens' song and a trip to the Underworld, only to find his most difficult challenge at home, where treacherous suitors seek to steal his kingdom and his loyal wife, Penelope.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #49640 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

About the Author
Richmond Lattimore (1906-1984) was considered one of the leading translators of Greek classical literature.

Customer Reviews

An excellent verse translation
Filled with noun epithets and other Homeric figures of speech that could only be brought out in verse. So it's very good if you are studying Homer.
I read it in prose the first time when I was younger not knowing that there was verse translations.

With Lattimore's version you get a sense that you are actually reading somrthing that is as close to the original as you're gonna get.

An Epic (!)
There's a confusing choice of translations of The Odyssey available on the market; some are wonderful, and some are frankly torrid and almost impenetrable even to a reader who is educated in and familiar with the classics.

Although some of the prose translations may initially seem to offer an easier route into the marvels of Homer, don't be fooled! Lattimore has produced a translation that is sparkling in its imagery and is therefore in many respects a far easier read than many prose versions.

Quite simply, as the blurb on the cover states: you'd be excused for thinking that The Odyssey was actually originally written in English!

For a verse translation of Homer's Odyssey, you won't go wrong with Lattimore.

Homer's Odyssey Lives On
This is not a new translation, the translator Richard Lattimore died a few years ago, but it is one of the best blank verse translations I have ever read (the other really good one is by Francis Caulfeild, but you would be lucky to find a copy now). The translator has attempted to reproduce in English blank verse the style and idiom of Homer's original Greek version (dating from about 2600 years ago). I am not qualified to comment on the technicalities of Lattimore's Greek-English translation, but I have been enjoying The Odyssey in English translations for several decades now and know a 'good read' when I find one.
There is a very good introduction which, yes, gives the plot away, but that does not matter as Homer's original audience knew the story well anyway - what made Homer's Odyssey so good was the way he told it; and in essence it is the same thing that makes Lattimore's translation so good - there is a freshness that keeps you reading, and although I have read a number of different versions, each of them several times, this book is still compulsive reading. The introdction also covers the construction of the story, which starts halfway through, then fills in the earlier events like a 'flashback' before continung to the end (yes, Homer thought of this way of telling a story long before our current film/TV industry did).
There is an exhaustive and very helpful glossary, mostly concerning the identities of the numerous people and gods who appear or are referred to in the story.
Yes, this is a recommended book to anyone who wants something a bit more demanding than airport pulp fiction and who can be patient with and open to the idiosyncracies of a very old, and comparatively expansive, writing style.
The "Odyssey" of Homer (P.S.)