What made the Greeks laugh?

Useful in the context of translating humour, see Mary Beard in the TLS on What made the Greeks laugh?

Sappho and Catullus

Interesting essay by Josephine Balmer on translating Sapphho and Catullus

Translating the classics

Why are the classics no longer central to our life?, asks Garry Wills in a review of Sherod Santos's Greek Lyric Poetry: A New Translation,(Poetry, October 2005)

The review produces a good deal of correspondence, including some lively defences of Santos's translations

Wars and a man

Brad Leithauser in The New York Times on Robert Fagles' Aeneid

Comparison of a passage from the Aeneid in three translations

Eric Ormsby's Variations of Virgil , review of Fagles in The New York Sun

Charles McGrath, feature on Fagles in The New York Times, Translating Virgil's Epic Poem of Empire

Review by David Barber in the Boston Globe


A new Aeneid for the 21st century Richard Jenkyns in the TLS

Carpe diem, and all that

The Odes of Horace, translated by Len Krisak, is an excellent reworking of the Latin author's poetry, says Nicholas Lezard in The Guardian