The Illiad Essay, Research Paper

The Illiad

Homer

Homer is one of the greatest writers; his works have action, romance, war, friendship, and much more. Since, Homers writings are not in English the Greek non-speaking majority of us rely on people to translate or interpret his works for us. The problem with that is everyone has their own interpretation of what homer is saying, and not only that but their own way of putting it into words. Chapman, Gladstone, Graves, Fitzgerald are just to name a few of the many intelligent men that have chosen to interpret Homers writings. Each one in their own time period had their own unique way in translating homer s writings.

Chapman is one of the earliest writers from this group of men. You can tell this by the spelling of his words. You really have to sound it out and guess what he is referring too. I also noticed that he jumped right into the battle, not telling us the beginning of the story and how it began like Graves and Fitzgerald had in their translations. He was straight to the point but I didn t find him understandable like I did with the other writers, this may have to do with the fact that this was written in the 1500 s. I understand that Chapman was a very intelligent man and a great writer but his wording just didn t seem to make sense to me and I couldn t really feel what he was talking about.

With Gladstone s translation it was pretty much the same information, no introduction like Graves and Fitzgerald, but the spelling was correct so there wasn t any guessing being done, and a lot more clearer. He was saying the same things as Chapman but his words were simpler, and more understandable.

Graves and Fitzgerald s translations seemed a lot more descriptive than Chapman s and Gladstones. I was actually picturing the battle in my mind. The descriptive words were very good. As Graves talks about the bright sunlight glittering on the arms and decorated armor, I can see it in my mind. That is the key to a great writer. What also helped was the introduction in both these writers translations, this was not given in neither Chapman s nor Gladstone s.

The only problem I saw with Grave s translation is that it was just simply too short. There should have been more written. This is where Fitzgeralds translation comes in. I feel it was clear, it had a nice rhythm to it, great detail, and a lot of information. Therefore Fitzgerald s translation was the most effective to me. It had everything that the other writers had lacked.