[lit-ideas] Loeb Is All You Need

From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2007 11:13:22 EDT
Exactly. This is my third (and last) post today, so I hope YOUSE ALL -- as  
they say in New Wales -- will collaborate:
 
Go to your local bookshop or library,  ask:

"Do you have (or have you got) any  library discard -- those old 
old-fashioned Loeb volumes? Someone in Argentina is  collecting them."
 
And see how things proceed. Say it's for a charity in the 'Third World' --  
although I mean it in Popper's sense, they won't know about it.
 
Now seriously, I've been doing some more research on J. Loeb, all  from his 
website.
 
The man was a Jewish-American (I believe, but I don't think a practising  
one), whose alma mater was Harvard -- but I don't know which college -- I know  
them all (I love the riverside ones). He bequeathed the Loeb Classical Library  
(c) to Harvard. The number of volumes published to this day exceeds 500 -- 
502,  I think.
 
There are interesting notes on the outdateness of the translations, but I  
find I like an archaic translation.
 
The _http://hup.com_ (http://hup.com)  site notes that they  felt like 
updating Homer, since some of the old translation didn't naturally  roll in 
today's 
people's tongues. I disagree. I find the phrase
 
               "Since thou hast come to my high-roofed house 
               with floor of brass, thou shalt not, methinks, 
               be driven back." 
 
a delight to read. But here's the rationale for the new edition:
 
"While it was once considered suitable for Homer's Odyssey to be  translated 
into the English of the King James Bible, this resulted in passages  like: 
"Odysseus, since thou hast come to my high-roofed house with floor of  brass, 
thou shalt not, methinks, be driven back." This is not prose that one  would 
want 
to read for 500 pages and, for today's readers at least, it's also  not in 
keeping with James Loeb's original vision of making the Loeb Classical  Library 
as accessible as possible."
 
There is an interesting bit on the non-translation on penis, too, which I  
found funny -- this relates more to the new unexpurgated edition, and 
personally 
 I think keeping the thing in Latin would not have been so bad. 
 
"[The objective in the original edition was] tto alter or omit licentious  
and obscene passages--anything that "might give offense"--is now considered to  
be shabby scholarship. The early edition of Catullus contains a sentence which 
 had been translated: "'Tis you I fear, you and your passions, so fatal to 
the  young, both good and bad alike." The new translation, while accurate, also 
 
explains why it had originally been diluted: "'Tis you I fear, you and your  
penis, so ready to molest good boys and bad alike."
 
Etc.  I append below a bit on Scots that may amuse (but then it  may not) 
Ritchie -- as another example of dated translation. 
 
While to have the whole Loeb -- is all you need -- would be monumental, I'm  
sticking to first volumes. Say, Livy's Historiae is in 34 volumes. If I can 
get  the first, and read it, and learn how to teach it to the Argentines, I 
will 
be  happy. Ditto for Pliny, etc. I'll stick to the first volumes, which tell 
the  beginning of the story, anyways (sic). 
 
If you are not familiar with the Loeb, please don't do what Ritchie did,  
"I'm innocent". Take your time to visit the wonderful site at 
 
_http://www.hup.harvard.edu/loeb/author.html_ 
(http://www.hup.harvard.edu/loeb/author.html) 
 
browse it at your leisure and find a book that you WOULD like to read  
(perhaps before you've heard of it, or have read it before). Any comment or  
recommendation as to way, say, the third volume of Ploutarkhos's Moralia is  
especially worth having, most welcomed. 
 
Many thanks, you have been a very attentive and kind audience.
 
Cheers,
 
JL
 
------- If you come across an old Loeb edition, and you want to get rid of  
it in a nice, charitable way, send it direct to:
 
          The Swimming Pool  Library
                 c/o J. L. Speranza, Esq. etc.
                    St. Michael Hall,
                      Calle 58, No. 611
                         La Plata, B1900BPY
                             Buenos Aires, Argentina.
 
Mind, only if you come across it in a library discard box, or in a  
charity-book store. The library is going to stay at St Michael Hall for public  
use, I 
hope. 
 
 
"In Volume 225, where the Mimes of Herodas--in an attempt to suggest the  
Greek dialect in the original--were translated not into English, but into  
Scottish dialect. Most readers today would not only fail to grasp the subtlety  
of 
this suggestion, but would also struggle with the Scottish dialect". 



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[lit-ideas] Loeb Is All You Need

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