Why read Jordans translation instead of–or in addition to–Robert Fagles translation?
The Fagles 1990 translation is an admirable piece of work. It does differ, however, from the Jordan translation in ways which might induce readers to choose Jordan instead of–or in addition to–Fagles. Professor Kopff in the interview cited above:”[Fagles] expanded the size of the poem noticeably. It’s more than fifteen per cent longer in Fagles’ version than it is in Homer’s version. One of the things that Herbert Jordan has done is to step back, in a way that hasn’t been done since the time of Richmond Lattimore, more than a generation back, and make sure that not only are the words correctly translated, but there’s a line-by-line translation, so you get a feeling for the same scope that Homer did, and not expand it and make it bigger. Fagles sometimes used Homer as a springboard to jump off of, so that he could expound his own feelings for language, so that it is a much longer work than Homer’s. Jordan sticks to the Greek, sticks to the line-by-line, giving you a real feeling for t
