Medievalising Homer: William Morris’s archaising translation of The Odyssey

ABSTRACT

This essay explores how William Morris’s archaising translation of Homer’s epic can be read as a critique of modernity. In The Odyssey (1887) the translator’s use of archaic forms is intended to create a medieval world and offer a vision of pre-modern values and qualities as a counter-point to nineteenth century equivalents. As part of a widespread movement of medieval revival in the Victorian age, Morris transforms the ancient Greek epic into a medieval romance through the use of archaic diction, romance-associated words and long rhyming couplets, and the thematic overlap: an idealised medieval world is contrasted with a modern society that is perceived as undermined by capitalism and commercialism.

KEYWORDS:

• Homer
• Morris
• archaising translation
• medievalism
• modernity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Sun Kyoung Yoon is an Assistant Professor of literary translation at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. Her research interests include English translations of classical authors, English translations of Korean literature, decolonising translation, and translation and gender. She has published many translations and articles on literary translation including ‘Popularising Homer: E. V. Rieu’s prose English translations’ (2014) in The Translator.

Notes

1 Namely, Grettis Saga: The Story of Grettir the Strong (1869), Vőlsung Saga: The Story of the Volsungs and Niblungs, with Certain Songs from Elder Edda (1870), The Aeneid of Virgil Done into English (1876), The Tale of Beowulf Done out of the Old English Tongue (1895) and Old French Romances Done into English (1896).

2 In ‘On History’ (1830, 1893), Carlyle states that ‘[history] lies at the root of all science’ (p. 83) and commands his readers to ‘[e]xamine history, for it is “Philosophy teaching by Experience”’ (p. 85).

3 According to Geoffrey Riddehough, Morris’s other classical translation The Aeneid of Virgil Done into English (1876) also has a medieval romantic quality (1937, p. 345).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Research Fund [grant number 20191389001].