ABSTRACT
Translations of poetry from ancient Greece and Rome have formed a central and continuous part of the British – and, later, the American – literary tradition. The reasons for this are not difficult to discern. First, much of the poetry and poetic drama of the Greek and Roman world is of considerable and abiding intrinsic interest and quality. Second, the classics have performed a prominent role in Anglophone education from the Middle Ages to the early 20th century. This has given Greek and Latin poetry a particular prestige and kudos and has also stimulated the demand for translations of a variety of kinds, ranging from humble ‘cribs’ and ‘ad verbum’ versions (versions rendering the original literally word by word), designed to assist students in the basic construing and understanding of Greek and Roman texts, to more ambitious renderings which have sought, in the famous words of George Chapman, “with poesy to open poesy” – to convey something of the artistic quiddity, ‘flavour’, and quality of classical originals to English readers, and to provide them with something approaching the experience of reading Greek and Latin poems in their original languages. In the past, the second kind of version was not only read by those whose education had denied them access to classical languages – not least among them, women – but also by classically trained readers. Some of the latter no doubt welcomed translations because their Latin and Greek had grown rusty. But more practised classicists (even writers as classically learned as Milton and Dryden) seem also to have taken delight in hearing their favourite ancient poets speak in their own language and idiom, in seeing how the concerns of classical poets could be brought into active imaginative contact and dialogue with the modern world, and in comparing their own responses to classical texts with those embodied in English translations. More recently, with the decline of classical education, translations, not surprisingly, have been more regularly used as straightforward substitutes or proxies for their originals. But versions of classical poetry have also continued to appear which have offered more radical reinterpretations or resituations of their originals.
