Greek Literature: An Anthology: Translations from Greek Prose and Poetry

by Michael Grant (Editor), Various

Presents modern translations of the major literary, critical, and philosophical writings of Greeks from Homer to Plotinus

Genres: Classics, Literature, Poetry, Anthologies, Greece, Short Stories, Fiction

491 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 1973

About the author

Michael Grant was an English classisist, numismatist, and author of numerous popular books on ancient history. His 1956 translation of Tacitus’s Annals of Imperial Rome remains a standard of the work. He once described himself as "one of the very few freelances in the field of ancient history: a rare phenomenon". As a popularizer, his hallmarks were his prolific output and his unwillingness to oversimplify or talk down to his readership.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A real Classicist’s selection, much better than that of the bogus poser W.H. Auden found in the Viking Portable Greek Reader.

The secondary purpose of this anthology, besides the presentation of Ancient Greek literature, is the demonstration of a new great age of translation. Grant highlights the two new waves of translators from the first three quarters of the 20th century whose work “challenges the splendid output of the Elizabethans.”

On this point, Michael Grant makes insightful comments in the introduction, and laments that “evolving” educational standards will probably leave future generations without the mastery of Greek needed to produce worthwhile translations. Grant has largely been proven correct here. The last really important Greek translations were produced in the ‘90s by men mostly in their 70s. That’s all over now.
But the great age of translation that founded the Penguin Classics series and countless others is on display in this anthology. And for a sufficiently wide view of Ancient Greek literature with a focus on how recent translators handled the problems of their craft, you can’t do much better.

[Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Epic.

[Ash · Rating 1 out of 5]

Me gusta mucho la literatura griega, pero lo que opine un Papa sobre ella me la chupa

[Roz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good collection of Classical Greek literature, this anthology does a pretty good job of covering a wide range of literature in translation.

In this anthology, editor Michael Grant runs the gamut, covering everything from philosophy to history to poetry to literary criticism. It's a great sampler of Greek heavy hitters, giving ample selections of everyone from Plato to Plutarch, Lucian to Aristophanes. One thing I especially liked is the range of translations, too: it ranges from the 16th century (Timothy Kendall)to the second half of the 20th century, with Richard Lattimore's translations of Homer. Like his other anthology for Penguin Classics, Latin Literature: An Anthology it's not only a good look at the ancients, but an interesting look at how translation changes over the years. It's fascinating to see how interpretations and styles differ through the centuries when translating the same piece.

There's a few things I think are missing from here. For one, it lacks the capsule biographies from his other anthology which explains how each of those Roman authors have influenced through the ages. And there's a few omissions, too: Arrian's Ababasis isn't here, nor is Pausanias' descriptions of Ancient Greek. When a collection skips them yet includes a collection of imitations of Greek epigrams, I think it missed a good opportunity.

Still, this is a nice collection that covers a wide range of time (8th century BC to 3rd century AD), styles and personalities. I don't think it replaces reading any of these in full (especially some of my favs like Plutarch, Lucian or Marcus Aurelius) but it's a good way to try a bit of each author.

[Takipsilim · Rating 5 out of 5]

The foundation of Western Civilization.