CalMeacham
12-04-2011, 03:37 PM
Who? I hear you ask. The man wasn't particularly well known, but I was introduced to his work my freshman year in college. Purely by chance I learned that he died on December 2. It didn't make even a small splash in the news.
He was a poetr who has been working on the most idiosyncratic, weird, and wonderful translation of Homer's Iliad. He's been working on it for over fifty years, and it's still not finished. He's been publishing it piecemeal, and was supposed to be working on the last installment when he passed away.
His translation is unlike any other translation of the Iliad. Or of any other book. It includes parodies, lines borrowed from advertising campaigns, and typographic fireworks.
Here's Achilles' prayer to Zeus from Book 16 (The Patrocleia):
Our Father, who rules in Heaven,
Hallowed be your name.
Because your will is done on Earth
Grant me this prayer,
As you have grannted other prayers of mine,
As you did grant me Agamemnon.
Humble in my stead.
I ask that you stay by me now,
Even as you go with my men,
And my Patroclus.
Give him this day your visctory.
And let him show Prince Hector he can win
Without me at his side.
And grant, above all else, O Lord,
That when the Trojans are defeated, he
Shall come home safe to me. Amen.
God heard his prayer and granted half of it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Logue
Here's an obituary:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/03/christopher-logue
He was a poetr who has been working on the most idiosyncratic, weird, and wonderful translation of Homer's Iliad. He's been working on it for over fifty years, and it's still not finished. He's been publishing it piecemeal, and was supposed to be working on the last installment when he passed away.
His translation is unlike any other translation of the Iliad. Or of any other book. It includes parodies, lines borrowed from advertising campaigns, and typographic fireworks.
Here's Achilles' prayer to Zeus from Book 16 (The Patrocleia):
Our Father, who rules in Heaven,
Hallowed be your name.
Because your will is done on Earth
Grant me this prayer,
As you have grannted other prayers of mine,
As you did grant me Agamemnon.
Humble in my stead.
I ask that you stay by me now,
Even as you go with my men,
And my Patroclus.
Give him this day your visctory.
And let him show Prince Hector he can win
Without me at his side.
And grant, above all else, O Lord,
That when the Trojans are defeated, he
Shall come home safe to me. Amen.
God heard his prayer and granted half of it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Logue
Here's an obituary:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/03/christopher-logue