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Influence of Translations 1. Homer, the Odyssey (Eighth Century BCE)

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Influence of Translations 1. Homer, the Odyssey (Eighth Century BCE) Influence of Translations 1. Homer, The Odyssey (Eighth Century BCE) a. Plot i. “The argument of the Odyssey is not a long one. A certain man has been abroad many years; Poseidon is ever on the watch for him, and he is all alone. Matters at home too have come to this, that his substance is being wasted and his son’s death plotted by suitors to his wife. Then he arrives there himself after his grievous sufferings; reveals himself, and falls on his enemies; and the end is his salvation and their death.”1 ii. The episodes in The Odyssey:2 b. Structure: “The language of Homer … is the hexameter…. [T]he meter is based on pronunciation time, not, as in our language, on stress.”3 1 ARISTOTLE, Poetics, in RHETORIC AND POETICS 219, 246 (Ingram Bywater trans., Modern Li- brary 1954). 2 HOWARD W. CLARKE, THE ART OF THE ODYSSEY (1967) (frontispiece). 3 Bernard Knox, Introduction to HOMER, THE ODYSSEY 3, 12 (Robert Fagles trans., Viking 1996) [hereinafter FAGLES ODYSSEY]. c. Composition and Publication i. The Odyssey “is a written text based on an oral tradition,” composed “at some point between the late eighth and late seventh century [BCE].”4 ii. “Dante, though he put Homer in his limbo of non-Christian poets, had never read him, and could not have read him even if he had seen a text. For the best part of a thousand years, since the end of the Roman Empire, the knowledge of Greek had been almost lost in Western Europe.”5 iii. “[T]he first printed edition of Homer [was] issued in Florence in 1488.”6 d. Translations into English i. Translation of George Chapman (1559-1634) published in 1616,7 and reported- ly translated into English at least 27 times since 20008 ii. Translation of Robert Fagles (1933-2008) published in 1996 – a gold standard a) Professor Fagles taught at Princeton from 1960 until his retirement in 2002; also translated The Iliad (1990) and The Aeneid (2006)9 b) “He was not an exactingly literal translator but rather one who sought to reinterpret the classics in a contemporary idiom…. While faithful to the spirit and intent of the original, his translations were remarkable for their narrative energy and verve.”10 iii. Translation of Emily Wilson (1971-) published in 2017 – best ever? a) Professor Wilson teaches at the University of Pennsylvania11 4 Emily Wilson, Introduction to HOMER, THE ODYSSEY 1, 11, 13 (Emily Wilson trans., W.W. Nor- ton 2017) [hereinafter WILSON ODYSSEY]. 5 Knox, supra note 3, at 4. 6 Id. 7 CLARKE, supra note 2, at 104. 8 Richard H. Armstrong, Homer for Scalawags: Emily Wilson’s “Odyssey”, LOS ANGELES RE- VIEW OF BOOKS (Aug. 5, 2018), https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/homer-for-scalawags-emily-wilsons- odyssey/. 9 Ruth Stevens, Robert Fagles, Celebrated Translator of Ancient Epics, Dies at Age 74, PRINCE- TON UNIVERSITY (Mar. 28, 2008, 11:47 AM), https://www.princeton.edu/news/2008/03/28/robert-fagles- celebrated-translator-ancient-epics-dies-age-74?section=topstories. Charles McGrath, Robert Fagles, Translator of the Classics, Dies at 74, N.Y. Times, N.Y. TIMES (Mar. 29, 2008), https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/books/29fagles.html. 10 McGrath, supra note 9. 11 EMILY WILSON, https://www.classics.upenn.edu/people/emily-wilson (last visited Feb. 12, 2019). - 2 - b) First published translation by a woman into English of The Odyssey12 c) Iambic pentameter translation, with same number of lines as original13 d) Professor Wilson’s translation has been well-received,14 and less than a year after publication Columbia selected the translation to replace Richard Lattimore’s 1967 version as part of the Core Curriculum.15 e. Excerpts: Approaching the sirens,16 Odysseus awakes on Ithaca17 2. Cao Xueqin (c. 1715-c. 1763), Dream of the Red Chamber (The Story of the Stone) (printed 1791) a. Plot i. Semi-divine beings (the Stone and Crimson Pearl Flower) experience the mor- tal world as Jia Bao-yu and Lin Dai-yu, members of a noble family in decline: The novel focuses on the Jia family, originally from the city of Nan-jing, which owes its status to the favor won by two glorious ancestors for out- standing service to their Manchu overlords…. Succeeding generations of Jia males are less successful, and the family fortunes both social and fi- nancial are definitely in decline. Tracing the Jias’ collapse in the present generation, the novel sweeps from environments of unimaginable wealth, privilege, and refinement to the dregs and extremities of Chinese socie- ty….. To enter the world of the Jia family, the reader must step through a narra- tive frame set in a mystical realm called the Land of Illusion…. In the Land of Illusion … stands The Stone of the title…. This Stone was origi- nally made by the goddess Nü-wa during large-scale operations to repair 12 Elizabeth Stockdale, New Book Review, AUSTRALASIAN WOMEN IN ANCIENT WORLD STUDIES (July 4, 2018), https://socawaws.wordpress.com/2018/07/04/new-book-review/. The first published trans- lations of The Iliad and The Aeneid by a woman into English were, respectively, those of Caroline Alex- ander in 2016, and Sarah Ruden in 2008. Id. 13 Emily Wilson, Translator’s Note to WILSON ODYSSEY 81, 82. 14 See, e.g., Corinne Pache, Review, BRYN MAWR CLASSICAL REVIEW (Oct. 28, 2018), http://www.bmcreview.org/2018/10/20181058.html (“Emily Wilson’s Odyssey is a delight to read. The style is limpid, the iambic pentameter rhythm appealing, and the narrative is fast-paced and enchanting…. The effect is to turn the Odyssey into a quick-paced page turner, an experience I’d never had reading the poem in translation.”). 15 Alejandra Quintana, Emily Wilson’s Translation of the “Odyssey” Replaces Lattimore’s on Lit- erature Humanities Syllabus, COLUMBIA SPECTATOR (Oct. 11, 2018, 11:02 AM), https://www.columbiaspectator.com/arts-and-entertainment/2018/10/11/emily-wilsons-translation-of-the- odyssey-replaces-lattimores-on-literature-humanities-syllabus/. 16 FAGLES ODYSSEY, supra note 3, at 276-77 (12:180-207); WILSON ODYSSEY, supra note 4, at 306-07 (13:167-91). 17 FAGLES ODYSSEY, supra note 3, at 292-94 (12:213-283); WILSON ODYSSEY, supra note 4, at 322-24 (13:187-249). - 3 - a hole in the sky. For some reason … the Stone … was left over and dis- carded when the job was finished…. He wandered about the Land of Il- lusion until he found the Crimson Pearl Flower …. The Stone was so en- tranced by its beauty that he took to watering it daily with sweet dew …, which eventually transformed the Flower into a fairy girl. The sense of her obligation to the Stone weighed upon her mind, until finally she de- cided that the only way she could repay her benefactor would be to sub- mit to a lifetime of suffering in the mortal world, where she could repay her debt, drop for drop, in tears…. They were a perfect match in the [Land of Illusion], the Stone and the Flower. The match for earthly jade, however, is not jade (yu, the second character in both their names), but gold (jin), in the person of Bao-yu’s and Dai-yu’s cousin, Xue Bao-Chai…. Bao-chai is Dai-yu’s natural rival on every level: in beauty, in intellect, in family status.18 ii. “Focusing on the romance in the novel between Bao-yu and Dai-yu, in which Bao-chai serves as a rival or foil, is a time-honored reading of Stone…. Anoth- er approach is to follow Bao-yu’s journey toward enlightenment.”19 iii. “The opening chapters, which are intended to form a link between the world of spirits and the world of mortals, belong to the supernatural; after that the story runs smoothly along upon earthly lines, always however, overshadowed by the near presence of spiritual influences.”20 b. Composition and Structure i. “It is a somewhat surprising fact that the most popular book in the whole of Chinese literature remained unpublished for nearly thirty years after its author’s death, and exists in several different versions, none of which can be pointed to as definitively ‘correct’.”21 ii. Early manuscript versions were annotated by commentators using names “Red Inkstone” and “Odd Tablet”, and “all … broke off at the end of chapter 80, just as the plot appeared to be drawing towards some sort of climax.”22 18 DORE J. LEVY, IDEAL AND ACTUAL IN THE STORY OF THE STONE 8-10, 14 (1999). 19 Andrew Schonebaum, Commonly Taught Selections, in APPROACHES TO TEACHING THE STORY OF THE STONE (DREAM OF THE RED CHAMBER) 16, 16-17 (Andrew Schonebaum and Tina Lu, eds., 2012). 20 LUCIEN MILLER, MASKS OF FICTION IN DREAM OF THE RED CHAMBER: MYTH, MIMESIS, AND PERSONA 23-24 (1975) (quoting HERBERT A. GILES, A HISTORY OF CHINESE LITERATURE 356 (1901). 21 David Hawkes, Introduction to 1 CAO XUEQIN, THE STORY OF THE STONE 15, 15 (David Hawkes trans., Penguin Books 1973) [hereinafter HAWKES & MINFORD STORY OF THE STONE]. 22 Id. at 15; see also id. at 15, 34-36. - 4 - iii. The composition question folds nicely into the novel’s themes: Such a high degree of distortion cannot be accidental. [Cao] is not mere- ly being faithful to Chinese novelistic conventions when he fails to men- tion that he is the author of the novel. The ambiguity created by five dis- tinct titles (none of them definitive) and the question of authorship (we know only the names of editors and late redactors and the titles they make up to agree with their readings of the novel) are indications of the meaning of Dream of the Red Chamber.
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