A collection of essays by the classicist and translator of the Odyssey and the Iliad on Greek and Roman literature and the art of translating it. Topics include Sappho, Aristophanes, Roman comedy, Helen of Troy, the Stoics, Christopher Logue's War Music, Edith Hamilton, and the problems of rendering Homer into English.
Books mentioned in Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea (68)
The Task of the Translator by Walter Benjamin: “the great German-Jewish intellectual Walter Benjamin, whose essay 'The Task of the Translator' (1923) drew on his mystical notion of 'pure language'”
The Invisible Man by G. K. Chesterton: “In a famous short story by G. K. Chesterton, 'The Invisible Man', the murderer enters the house of the victim observed by several witnesses”
Gunga Din by Rudyard Kipling: “he secretly wrote his own name at the end of a fair copy he made of Rudyard Kipling's poem, 'Gunga Din'”
The Greeks and the Irrational by E. R. Dodds: “the view put forth in E. R. Dodds's The Greeks and the Irrational (1951)”
Apology by Plato: “In Plato's Apology the play is said to have contributed to the case against Socrates”
Circe by Madeline Miller: “the novels of Jennifer Saint, Miller's Circe, Pat Barker's The Silence of the Girls and Women of Troy”
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller: “Madeline Miller's heartbreaking novella, Song of Achilles (2011), helped to make the representation of queer love stories more mainstream”
The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker: “Pat Barker's The Silence of the Girls and Women of Troy”
The Women of Troy by Pat Barker: “Pat Barker's The Silence of the Girls and Women of Troy”
Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes: “Natalie Haynes' Stone Blind and A Thousand Ships”
A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes: “Natalie Haynes' Stone Blind and A Thousand Ships”
Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe: “Helen plays an unspeaking bit part in Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, but she is a phantom”
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: “As in Romeo and Juliet – a love story dependent on Romeo's quick abandonment of Rosalind”
Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare: “His Seven Books of the Iliades was a source for Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida”
The Tempest by William Shakespeare: “Clayton's Demea sounds like a strangely laid-back, Byronic version of Prospero at the end of The Tempest”
The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare: “Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors is based on Plautus's Menaechmi”
Hamlet by William Shakespeare: “'springes' recalls Polonius warning Ophelia not to let Hamlet take her virginity”
Menaechmi by Plautus: “Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors is based on Plautus's Menaechmi”
Aulularia by Plautus: “Molière's Miser is a version of Plautus's Aulularia”
The Captives by Plautus: “Plautus's play The Captives seems to deal with precisely this issue: a master changes places with his slave”
The Miser by Molière: “Molière's Miser is a version of Plautus's Aulularia”
The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu: “the Koran, Homer, Tolstoy, Sundiata, Balzac, The Tale of Genji – are read in translation”
Sundiata: “the Koran, Homer, Tolstoy, Sundiata, Balzac, The Tale of Genji – are read in translation”
Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot: “Achilles' deathless horses... take on the voice of Eliot's Four Quartets: 'This time we will, this time we can, but this time cannot last.'”
Manfred by Byron: “the first line here is stolen from Byron's Manfred”
The Scholars by W. B. Yeats: “Yeats' great poem 'The Scholars', whose lines were 'rhymed out in love's despair'”
The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter by Ezra Pound: “Ezra Pound's famously controversial imitation of Li Po's 'The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter'”
The Sea and the Mirror by W. H. Auden: “the passage would seem at home in Auden's long poetic riff on The Tempest, 'The Sea and the Mirror'”
Phyllyp Sparowe by John Skelton: “John Skelton's remarkable poem 'Phyllyp Sparowe' (written around 1500)”
Sappho to Philaenis by John Donne: “Donne's wonderful verse epistle 'Sappho to Philaenis' is the first English poem to describe what Sappho did with her girlfriend”
Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats: “Catullus's poetry often has a far more aggressive, satirical edge than, say, Ode to a Nightingale”
Sappho's Leap by Erica Jong: “Erica Jong's novel, Sappho's Leap (2003), corrects the legend by describing a Sappho who is unharmed”
Sparrow by Carol Muske-Dukes: “to Carol Muske-Dukes' collection Sparrow (2003)”
Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: “Lawrence Sterne's rollicking comic novel, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy”
Nana by Émile Zola: “Émile Zola's gripping novel Nana (1880) evokes the rise, fall and early death of a sexy blonde teenager”
The Vegetarian by Han Kang: “the International Booker Prize was awarded for the first time to a single novel, The Vegetarian, which was translated from the Korean”
Orientalism by Edward Said: “Edward Said's influential study of the concept he popularised, 'Orientalism'”
Ode to Aphrodite by Sappho: “only one complete poem – the wonderful 'Ode to Aphrodite' (Fragment 1)”
On the Sublime by Longinus: “Fragment 31 ('He seems to me equal to gods'), quoted at length in On the Sublime”
Iliad by Homer: “a haunting, capricious patchwork of poetic narratives based on Homer's Iliad”
The Odyssey by Homer: “Translating the Odyssey (essay in the collection about the author's own translation)”
The Oresteia by Aeschylus: “Aeschylus's tragic trilogy, the Oresteia, being the richest example”
Agamemnon by Aeschylus: “Hamilton's translations of Aeschylus's Agamemnon, the perhaps-Aeschylean Prometheus Bound, and Euripides' Trojan Women”
The Eumenides by Aeschylus: “In the final play, The Eumenides ('Kindly Ones', a traditional euphemism for the Furies)”
Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus: “the perhaps-Aeschylean Prometheus Bound”
The Trojan Women by Euripides: “Early modern readers were far more interested in Euripides' Hecuba than in his Trojan Women”
Hecuba by Euripides: “Early modern readers were far more interested in Euripides' Hecuba than in his Trojan Women”
Helen by Euripides: “Greek tragedies with happy endings and little wailing – such as Euripides' Helen or Ion”
Ion by Euripides: “Greek tragedies with happy endings and little wailing – such as Euripides' Helen or Ion”
Iphigenia in Tauris by Euripides: “an escape fantasy, like Euripides' tragedy Iphigenia in Tauris (produced in the same year)”
The Clouds by Aristophanes: “There is a moment in Clouds when the avaricious protagonist, Strepsiades, discovers to his horror that his son has learned from the school of sophists”
The Birds by Aristophanes: “the founding of an ideal society, minus the humans (in Birds)”
Lysistrata by Aristophanes: “Spike Lee's film Chi-Raq, a hip-hop adaptation of Lysistrata set on the South Side of Chicago”
Women at the Assembly by Aristophanes: “the wild idea of emancipating women to end political corruption (in Women of the Assembly)”
Encomium of Helen by Gorgias: “Gorgias... does just that in his Encomium of Helen, presenting our heroine as the victim of either deceit or her own weak will”
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius: “the emperor Marcus Aurelius, whose Meditations amply demonstrate his deep engagement with the philosophy”
The Discourses of Epictetus by Arrian: “wrote what he described as a verbatim record of Epictetus's teaching in four books, known as the Discourses”
The Enchiridion by Epictetus: “He also wrote a separate summary of it, known as the Handbook”
Letters to Lucilius by Seneca: “In his Letters to Lucilius, the Roman writer and philosopher Seneca cites the question of 'whether Sappho was a prostitute'”
The Satyricon by Petronius: “two comic novels, the Satyricon by Petronius... and the Golden Ass”
The Golden Ass by Apuleius: “the Satyricon by Petronius and the Golden Ass by the great orator, neo-Platonist philosopher”
The Aeneid by Virgil: “The translations of Aeneid books 2 and 4 by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey in the sixteenth century were foundational”
The Greek Way by Edith Hamilton: “write two surveys of ancient literature, The Greek Way and The Roman Way”
The Roman Way by Edith Hamilton: “write two surveys of ancient literature, The Greek Way and The Roman Way”
Mythology by Edith Hamilton: “Along with Mythology, her retelling”
War Music by Christopher Logue: “Perhaps the most powerful example is Christopher Logue's War Music – a powerful poetic reimagining of the Iliad”
A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect by Richard John Cunliffe: “to quote Richard Cunliffe's A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect – a key resource for any translator of Homer”