PINDAR'S VICTORY SONGS. Translation, Introduction, Prefaces by F.J. Nisetich. With a foreword by H. Lloyd-Jones.
Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore / London, n.d.(>1980). XII,367p. Paperback. Lower corner bit bumped causing wrinkling of the pages till p.158. Spine with light reading traces. Private summary from WGA loosely inserted.
'The victory odes have not lacked translators in recent years, perhaps because each version offers a rather different poetry. If a translator tries to reproduce Pindar's diction or metaphors, he may sacrifice continuity and make his Pindar intermittently dazzling and obscure. If he tries to convey basic sense, he may wind up simplifying Pindar's language into ordinary prose, making the poet sound as banal as a television sermon. (...) In addition to problems of reproducing language, a translator must somehow cope with explaining the less familiar names and places mentioned in the poems (...). To keep the poet's narrative technique from seeming deliberately perverse, a translator must contrive to supply all the missing information. Then there is the challenge of making an English Pindar sound like poetry. The original follows strictly metrical sequences (...). In recent years the ususal solution has been to print stanzas in shapes that correspond roughly to the original, letting the eye do the work of the ear. (...). Frank J. Nisetich is the only translator who appears able to cope with all these problems simultaneously.(...) He is sensitive to metaphor and the rhythm of the original, but determined to show that there is logic behind the poet's intricate expressions and swift changes of topic. He provides a full glossary, a summary of myths, maps, bibliography, and an index; in an introductory essay he discusses general problems of interpretation, historical background, and presentation; he uses short prefaces to describe the important features of individual odes. As a result his book serves as a comprehensive introduction to Pindar's poetry that should prove helpful also to readers who know Greek.' (MARY LEFKOWITZ in Times Literary Supplement, 1980.12.05). From the library of the late Prof. W. Geoffrey Arnott.
€ 18.50
(Antiquarian)