Review Comment

Stephen Mitchell’s new translation of the Iliad has attracted much attention recently, partly because Mitchell has earned a reputation as a fine translator of epic poems and partly because he takes as his starting point the Greek text prepared by the eminent scholar M. L. West, an Iliad which is considerably shorter (by over 1000 lines) than the standard Homeric text used by virtually all translators for hundreds of years. In West’s (idiosyncratic?) view, that traditional text has been diluted by generations of rhapsodes, and their additions need to be purged in order to get back to the purity of the original.

Since these impure additions include most of the Homeric epithets and patronyms and all of Book X, one is entitled to wonder what the reader may be losing. As I have mentioned elsewhere, there is a long (but minor) tradition of disparaging Homer’s epithets (which in Mitchell’s view are “often merely tedious”), but they are the most immediately distinctive and famous feature of Homer’s style. For many readers they are essential elements rather than easily disposable fill. Moreover, whatever aesthetic reasons one might have for excising lengthier passages, one needs to bear in mind that the Iliad is not simply an “original” text as a particular scholar (no matter how distinguished) may conceive it; it is also the poem as it has been accepted and read by countless generations. Many people have on aesthetic grounds challenged the ending of the Book of Job as an inauthentic part of the story, but without solid documentary proof few, I suspect, would recommend getting rid of it, simply because it has become, over time, an integral part of that text. Similarly Book X of the Iliad, no matter what one thinks of it (Mitchell finds it “baroque and nasty”), has long been part of the poem and, without incontrovertible evidence to justify the omission, its removal seems unduly capricious.

Mitchell uses “a minimally iambic five-beat line . . . it usually has from twelve to fourteen syllables, and occasionally eleven or fifteen. . . . With diction as with rhythm I have tried to sound natural, to write in a language that felt genuine to me, neither too formal nor too colloquial.” The result is a fast, clear, and rhythmic line in a recognizably modern language that keeps the poem moving forward, a welcome change from some of the rhythmically inert offerings of Homer’s poems in recent years.

Offsetting the generally effective rhythm, however, is a frequently loose syntax with, in many places, little sense of urgent compression, an effect that is especially evident in the way Mitchell uses simple conjunctions (particularly and) to pile one detail on top of another in a simple additive sequence:

Hector and the front ranks of the Trojans retreated,
and the Argives gave a loud shout and dragged off the bodies
and pushed far ahead. And Apollo looked on indignant,
from Pérgamus, and he shouted down to the Trojans. . . .

But Diomedes charged forward and hurled his spear,
and it hit the young man in the chest, between his nipples,
and it knocked him out of the chariot into the dust.
And Idǽus jumped off and, terrified, ran for his life. . . .

In passages like these, if one starts to anticipate the next and (hard not to do, given the frequency of the word) this stylistic feature can get quite irritating.

Mitchell, like some other translators, also has trouble establishing a consistently satisfying diction. For the most part, his language is sufficiently clear and direct, but there are times when the insertion of a modern colloquial expression (“son of a bitch,” “sissy,” “open his trap,” and so on) seems rather at odds with his desire to get back to the purity of the original. People’s reactions to such sudden reminders of a distinctively modern slangy idiom vary, of course, so what one reader may accept as a vivid and appropriate contemporary expression another may well deplore as an unwelcome interruption of her imaginative contact with Homer’s world (not an uncommon complaint with Lombardo’s translation, as well).

All that said, this translation is well worth the reader’s attention, and someone seeking a text of the Iliad for classroom use should certainly consider it. I suspect, however, that many teachers in search of a full text of a translated Iliad may not be happy about the omissions, and Mitchell’s text is too long for those seeking an abridged version.

For a lengthier and more detailed review of Mitchell’s Iliad, please consult the following link: Mitchell Iliad Review. For a few other short reviews of this translation, try Daily Telegraph, Economist, Wall Street Journal, Quarterly Conversation.

For a more extensive preview (at Amazon) of Mitchell’s translation, please use the following link Mitchell Iliad.

List of Published English Translations of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey