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Alexander Pope

“Preface to The Iliad of Homer”

History and Theory of translation TP1

Inês Paz

Magda Coelho

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Who was Alexander Pope?

1688-1744

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Born in London into a Catholic family

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He was a poet, translator, a man of letters, and a satirist

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Notable works:

  • 1711 An Essay on Criticism
  • 1712 The Rape of the Lock (mock-heroic masterpiece)
  • 1725-1726 Translation of The Odyssey (with William Broome and Elijah Fenton)
  • 1728 The Dunciad

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In 1713 he started his translation of the Iliad, publishing in 1715 the first four books and the completed project in 1720.

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The Iliad

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  • epic poem in 24 books by the Greek poet Homer

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  • Trojan War and the heroic ideal

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The word Iliad refers to the archaic name for the ancient city of Troy: Ilion or Ilios; Iliad means “Song/Poem of Ilion.”

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Preface to the Iliad of Homer

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Pope discusses Homer’s singular strengths.

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Identifies and praises Homer’s fire and invention.

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Elaborates on the characteristics of Homer’s writing, addressing types of fables, characters, speeches, sentiments, descriptions, images, similes, language, and versification.

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Homer’s writing Characteristics

Fables

  • Probable
  • “The action is hurried on the most vehement spirit, and its whole duration employs not so much as fifty days.”

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  • Allegorical
  • “How fertile will that imagination appear, which was able to clothe all the properties of elements, the qualifications of the mind, the virtues and vices, in forms and persons.”

  • Marvelous
  • “Includes whatever is supernatural and especially the machines of the gods.”

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Homer’s writing Characteristics

Characters

  • “Every one has something so singularly his own, that no painter could have distinguished them more by their features than the poet has by their manners.”

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Speeches

  • “As there is more variety of characters in the Iliad, so there is of speeches than in any other poem.”

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Sentiments

  • “ What were alone sufficient to prove the grandeur and excellence of sentiments, in general, is that they have so remarkable a parity with those of the Scripture.”

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Homer’s writing Characteristics

Descriptions, Images and Similes

  • “If we observe his descriptions, images, and similes, we shall find the invention still predominant. [...] where we see each circumstance of art, and individual of nature, summoned together by the extent and fecundity of his imagination”

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Language

  • “We acknowledge him the father of poetical diction, the first who taught that ‘language of gods’ to men.”

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Versification

  • “He was not satisfied with his language as he found it settled in any one part of Greece, but searched through its different dialects with this particular view, to beautify and perfect his numbers.”

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Pope’s ideas on Translation

“As far as that is seen in the main parts of the poem, such as the fable, manners, and sentiments, no translator can prejudice it but by wilful omissions or contractions. As it also breaks out in every particular image, description, and simile, whoever lessens or too much softens those, takes off from this chief character.”

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“It is certain no literal translation can be just to an excellent original in a superior language: but it is a great mistake to imagine (as many have done) that a rash paraphrase can make amends for this general defect.”

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“It is not to be doubted, that the fire of the poem is what a translator should principally regard, as it is most likely to expire in his managing”

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Translating The Iliad

“Nothing that belongs to Homer seems to have been more commonly mistaken than the just pitch of his style [...] There is a graceful and dignified simplicity, as well as a bold and sordid one which differ as much from each other as the air of a plain man from that of a sloven.”

“There are two peculiarities in Homer’s diction, which are a sort of marks or moles by which every common eye distinguishes him at first sight [...] I speak of his compound epithets, and of his repetitions.”

“As for Homer’s repetitions, we may divide them into three sorts: of whole narrations and speeches, of single sentences, and of one verse or hemistitch.”

“Upon the whole, I must confess myself utterly incapable of doing justice to Homer.”

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Quiz time!!

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References:

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