Canter Bridge

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For lovers of language and epic drama, Homer and the Bible brook few competitors. For readers up for a slightly higher degree of difficulty, William Cowper’s eighteenth-century English translation of the Odyssey provides a second layer of beauty. Not only do you get Homer’s genius. You also soak in the resonant and ironic tones of an English dialect that is familiar enough to be almost completely understood but also different enough from modern American dialect to bring astonishing and pleasing insight into the language we speak.

Odysseus gets lost on his way home from the Trojan War.

And what a piece of luck that is, for it generates this tale of epic suffering, nobility, vice, vengeance, and freshly requited love that is so riveting that one almost aches for his neighbor who has not read or heard Homer.

Moderns unfamiliar with the classics may want to approach the Odyssey by way of the film Brother, Where Art Thou? Though a retelling of the Odyssey that all but redefines the word ‘loose’, the plot structure is similar enough to serve as a point of reference while reading Cowper’s Odyssey translation or—better still—listening to Naxos’ recording of the same.

Reviews are intended to be about the book, not about the reviewer’s pleading. But forgive me just this: you really need to meet Homer and his most elevated and elevating narrative poetry. You won’t be sorry. Bite the bullet. Grit your teeth. Fight those inner demons. Forget everything your boring literature teacher told you.

Discover the Odyssey.