djasson's review
5.0
Dorothea Wender is just fabulous. Her wit and cutting scholarship bring me such joy. I can see why some of the more stodgy classicists might have taken issue with her, but in my opinion, she nails it again and again. Top notch marks for her. Well worth your time in reading this volume (and her translation of Hesiod and Theognis).
This collection of Roman poetry was a joy to read, even if at times I wasn't taken (nor was she) by some of the authors. Her opening paragraph of the introduction just nailed the differences between Greek and Roman specialists. I laughed out loud! Later, in the same introduction, she talks about the difficulty of translation as Roman readers would know quite a bit of mythology that many today aren't familiar with. It made me think about the cultural knowledge we share today but how that base of knowledge has become much more framgmented and divided in our digital age. Many of us simply don't share the same sources we did just 20 years ago.
I enjoyed Catullus's poem 51, an adaptation of Sappho's poem 31. I thought Wender's translation of Lucretius's De Rerum Natura was better than the one I read by Stallings (especially lines 1.62-84 and 3.870-887). Her comments on Virgil struck me, especially with regard to his Georgics. She says Cato will tell you how to farm but Virgil makes you want to farm (p. 47). I liked her thoughts on Horace and Ovid. On Ovid, she notes that he is easy to read but not a good re-read (p. 101). However, she does tone that down by saying he is a good storyteller (p. 101), and I agree. Her translation of the Metamorphoses is great, almost as lovely as the one I read by Charles Martin. And, I wholly agree with her negative thoughts regarding Martial and Juvenal.
Spend some time with this volume.
This collection of Roman poetry was a joy to read, even if at times I wasn't taken (nor was she) by some of the authors. Her opening paragraph of the introduction just nailed the differences between Greek and Roman specialists. I laughed out loud! Later, in the same introduction, she talks about the difficulty of translation as Roman readers would know quite a bit of mythology that many today aren't familiar with. It made me think about the cultural knowledge we share today but how that base of knowledge has become much more framgmented and divided in our digital age. Many of us simply don't share the same sources we did just 20 years ago.
I enjoyed Catullus's poem 51, an adaptation of Sappho's poem 31. I thought Wender's translation of Lucretius's De Rerum Natura was better than the one I read by Stallings (especially lines 1.62-84 and 3.870-887). Her comments on Virgil struck me, especially with regard to his Georgics. She says Cato will tell you how to farm but Virgil makes you want to farm (p. 47). I liked her thoughts on Horace and Ovid. On Ovid, she notes that he is easy to read but not a good re-read (p. 101). However, she does tone that down by saying he is a good storyteller (p. 101), and I agree. Her translation of the Metamorphoses is great, almost as lovely as the one I read by Charles Martin. And, I wholly agree with her negative thoughts regarding Martial and Juvenal.
Spend some time with this volume.
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