Richer Resources Publications

Dear Mr. Johnston,

I cannot tell you of the pleasure I have had reading your translation on-line. It is clear, it is eloquent, and — most importantly — it's exciting. The Iliad thrilled me as a schoolboy (my generation was probably the last to have Homer inflicted upon them as part of the standard American grade-school curriculum) and I have eagerly absorbed each of the many versions that have appeared down the years. Our classics teacher was a very wise man — he knew we'd never read it at home as part of an assignment — so he assigned us all roles in the story and we read the whole thing aloud in class over the course of an entire school year. The class was as polarized and confrontational being Greeks and Trojans as were the Jets and the Sharks when Jerome Robbins rehearsed West Side Story. Of course, everyone wanted to be Achilles and nobody wanted to be Hera, but . . . .
If a standard Word document is still available I would love to be sent a copy — but more importantly, it should be published in the good old-fashioned way (book form that is, not scrolls . . .).
Cordially yours,
John M.
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Dear Ian,
Having followed a link and getting to your website I was captivated by your new translation of the Iliad. I am currently reading Samuel Butlers translation, having recently discovered Greek Mythology thanks to Dan Simmons' Sci-Fi Novels Ilium and Olympus, and even though it is extremely engaging and fantastic to read, I instantly found that your translation flows better and was more accessible. . . .
Kindest Regards

Richard W.
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Dr. Johnston:
I wish to congratulate you on a fine translation of Homers epic poem. For poetic content, I always favored Lattimer's translation. (Who else rendered English into the Greek favored Spondaic Hexameter?) But for flow and understanding, you translation is, in my humble opinion, vastly superior. Again I offer thanks and congratulations for your fine work.

Best wisher,
Bert F.
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Ian- your translation of The Iliad is definitely student friendly. I'm using Fagles' translation with my Grade XII Classical Studies classes and your translation would be even better. . . .
Thanks for your work. My students will benefit.

Peter A.
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Bonjour Monsieur Johnston,
I have long wished to let you know how much joy and peace the works available on your site have brought me.
When I was in high school many years ago, the nuns made me take physics and chemistry rather than the classics, which I loved, because of my high marks (!!!).
Two summers ago, I happened upon your translation of the Iliad. Every other day or so, I would print a book or two and read them on the bus to and from work, and brought the sheafs of paper with me when I traveled with my mother, who needed to visit her children after my father died suddenly.
The Iliad provided a retreat, to which I eventually brought Sophocles, Aeschylus and Ted Hughes.
The simple elegance and truth of your translation still delights me.
For what the above is all worth, I have a grade 7 English and did not attend university.
I was touched by the dedication of the site, I have a 25 year-old son and a granddaughter, very fortunate, they are my heartbeat.
Merci encore

Lupita K
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Dear Mr. Johnston,
We corresponded briefly last month over Homer and Kafka. I run Naxos AudioBooks and we are looking to record the Iliad and Odyssey unabridged. We think your translations are very direct and ideal for an audiobook version.

Nicolas S.
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I just wanted to say thanks for putting your translation of the Iliad
on the web- I think it's excellent.
Yours,
Timothy E
Fellow in Law
Balliol College
Oxford
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Dear Professor Johnston,
I'm currently a sophomore in high school, and I studied the Iliad and Odyssey last year as a freshman. Now, I'm a third year Latin student, and while researching an essay on similarities between the Aeneid and Homer I came upon your translations of the Iliad and Odyssey. Especially for the Aeneid, the only English copies of ancient texts are translations almost as ancient, which are hardly a help when doing research. Your translations of the Homer, however, are easily understandable and have an excellent poetic flow as well. I ended up liking your translations so much that I used them instead of the other modern translations I had read last year. Thank you for being unselfish enough to post your translations in the public domain rather than publishing them; they were indispensable to me, as I'm sure they are to many other students. Thanks again, and good luck in all of your endeavors!

-Ian B.
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Dear Dr. Johnston.
I am a visiting assistant professor at the Washington University in St. Louis, MO, and I am writing to thank you for posting your excellent translation of the Iliad on the web. I am teaching Homer this semester, and I often turn to it to understand better the ancient text; I have also directed my students to that website, so that they can enjoy it for themselves. It is a wonderfully written piece of work, and I wanted to give you the satisfaction that your labors have benefited a colleague as well as a new generation of young classicists.
Warm regards,
Eleni M.
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Dear johnstonia:
Searching for some materials on ancient Greek, I find your homepage. Oh, I'm very happy to find a new translation of Iliad here. What you do give me much good inspiration. Thank you for your effort.

Yours, Tang
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Dear Prof. Johnston,
I stumbled across your translation of the Iliad on the web, and like it very much - and intend to use it for a class next term. Do you have any plans of publishing it in the future?
Best,
Frank R.
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[re theatre production of Iliad in Philadelphia]
Dear Dr. Johnston,
I am so sorry that you have been omitted from the written acknowledgment of our production. however, we have had an audience talk back after each and every production in which your name has been acknowledged, and gratefully so. please accept my heartfelt apologies for our oversight in what has been a difficult road dealing with various school departments. we will of course put your name onto the website as soon as possible. honestly, it never occurred to us - it was a year or so later that we used a website at all.
Please find attached our version that we have adapted. it is the latest version that we use and I hope you will be pleased. we used a version that I found on your website early on, it seems, as it changed the last time I went. I can only say that I have been uplifted and enthused by your translation and it has given acknowledged enjoyment to audiences around our area.
I am so sorry if I have troubled you at all.
sincerely,
Jared R.
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Many, many thanks for your recent translation of the Iliad. I was classically trained myself, and now my son is going off to St. John's College in Annapolis. His first assignment is the Iliad, and I have given him your translation. It has the life of the original!!!!

David S.
Lehigh University
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[re Iliad] I'm sure it will soon prove to be my favorite translation of Homer's great epic. What an exciting discovery for me today!
Yours,
Tom B.
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Professor Johnston,
I send this note simply to say thank-you for making available your translation of the Iliad. I am using it in my mythology course and was delighted to find a text my students did not have to purchase! You translation style too keeps close enough to the Greek to allow room for comments about the oral-derived nature of the present text. All the best,
Andrew Porter

P.S. I am a Canadian studying in the US, and so am pleased to be able to show our American neighbours the sort of work going on in Canada.
Graduate Lecturer
Editorial Assistant for the journal Oral Tradition
Editor of Mercurius
Department of Classical Studies
420 GCB
University of Missouri - Columbia
Columbia, MO 65211
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Dear Prof. Johnston,

I came across your Iliad translation when I made a Google (actually Vivisimo) search for new translations and/or the original Greek online.

Yours is simply gorgeous, or at least what I've seen of it. It's the truest in both verse form and spirit of the original that I've seen. Don't mean to gush, but it simply blew me away.

What I'm wondering is this: does it exist in PDF or some other downloadable and printable form? Or has it been published as a book? And if any of these, how could I get it and is there any charge, despite your
generosity in placing it in the public domain?

I ask this because I'd like to organize a marathon reading using your text. A year ago I attended a marathon of Paradise Lost in Seattle, and find I'm rather hooked on this form of literary experience. And if I do get an Iliad project together, could you come? I'm in Portland (retired, not aacdemically affiliated), which isn't that much of a trip from Nanaimo.

With best wishes,

Nancy C.

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Thank you for such a wonderful translation of the Agamemnon and for making it so accessible
(St Andrews, Scotland)

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I am a pre-service teacher in California. As I was doing my fieldwork I came across the Ian Johnston translation of “The Odyssey,” which I then showed to my master teacher. He liked the translation so much that he wants to use it exclusively in his classes. When I get my own classroom, I plan to always use the Ian Johnson translation of any text that is available. These texts are far superior for
the secondary classroom setting and I am so excited that I found them. I just wanted to say thank you for making available such a useful classroom tool.
(California)

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Thank you so much for this beautiful translation of the Iliad. I have been searching and searching for a poetic form of the Iliad that I can give to my sophomores. This will totally work. I really enjoy your translation of the Iliad. Thank you so much for making this and your other translations available.. I have been using small sections of it my Western Civ classes for years. (Idaho)

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I really enjoy your translations and after skimming some other versions of Homer's stories, I found that your translations were the best. I would really like to compliment you on that as well. Good luck on your publications, and keep up your great work. Your lectures and notes have also been very interesting to read. I would like to express my sincere thanks for your translation of Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals. I am using it this semester in my Introduction to Philosophy course. I find it forceful and accurate, successfully capturing the spirit of the work, and my students find it stimulating and interesting to read. It is wonderful that you have made such a fine contribution to scholarship. (Rhode Island)

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I started reading your abridged translation of the Iliad and am impressed with the readability - quite different than the version I remember from my university days (1967). Thanks for the excellent work. I am staying in Moscow, Russia, and am re-reading the classics. (Moscow)

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I really liked your translations of The Iliad and The Odyssey. I want to learn would you mind if I used them in the lesson as course books? (Uzbekistan)

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I'll be reading Philoctetes with my class this year, and will also recommend your Orestes (although there is some doubt about whether we'll have time to read it as a group). I haven't read through either translation in detail yet, but what I've looked at is excellent: an up-to-date version that gives people a clear sense of what the author wrote, in English a typical student can understand and respond to.
(Regina)

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I am teaching English 123 . . . . And I would like to use your translation of Oedipus. Although I bought Moses Hadas as a text, students are finding it difficult. I like your translation much better.
(Peoria, Illinois)

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Dear sir: I heard your translation of Homer on NPR recently and was impressed by the clarity and readability of your language. I am an English teacher in Connecticut and am always trying to introduce students to more Homer. (Waterford, CT)

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I discovered your Iliad and Odyssey texts on line three years ago, and have used them ever since for my grade 9 gifted students in a high school program. . . . Like many of your other admirers, I really like your translation. (Toronto)

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I have read the first chapter of your translation of The Iliad on line, and was so pleased that I will be ordering this as well your version of The Odyssey. I have a copy of the Iliad translated by Samuel Butler, which I attempted to read for the first time after my 8 year old son read Mary Pope Osborne's rendition of The Odyssey, but I did not have the same success he had. I think I'll be more successful with your translation. (Toronto)

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As per your website, I am requesting your translation of the Odyssey in a Word doc format. In reality, I have already ordered the book directly through the publisher. However, we are in urgent need for the text before it will arrive. Your translation is so much easier to understand than any other publication available. Even what we have read online has helped my son who is encountering this
epic for his first time ever as a high school freshman.

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Thank you very much for the modern translation of the Iliad of Homer. I am enjoying it very much. I learned of your translation of the Iliad from NPR. I found it on the web and after reading a few lines was immediately convinced that it offered a far better introduction to the text than any of the other translations that I've read. Thank you both for the work you've done in making the translation and for your generosity in making it freely available. I would ask you to send me a Publisher file of Aristophanes, The Frogs. At the same time, let me congratulate you for this very practical possibility, of outstanding quality. (Saarbrucken)

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Dear Dr. Johnston - Your translation of "The Iliad" is quite remarkable. It has power that I have not seen in previous translations. Thank you for this work, thank you for posting it online. I look forward to adding it and your translation of "The Odyssey" to my library. (Ann Arbor)

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Thank you so much for bringing Homer's works to life in a way that I and I'm sure thousands of others will love. (Kansas)

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I read your translation of the Iliad last semester as I was preparing for my exams in university. I enjoyed it very much. My professor assigned the Lattimore translation, which I found absolutely mind-numbing to read, so I scoured the internet to find a more friendly translation, which I found in yours. I'm interested in a copy of the Odyssey in a single file, and would greatly appreciate it if you could send it to me. I'd like to thank and commend you on producing wonderful translations of these texts. I know I will return to translations of yours whenever possible in the future. I am enjoying very much your lucid translation of On the Genealogy of Morals. I find it much more accessible than the earlier Kaufmann edition, thus enabling a readier sense of conversation with this cantankerous uncle of ours. Thank you very much for having posted it online. (Washington, DC)

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I read the text on Bacchae and I found it very useful. I want to translate it to Macedonian for our class, but I'm having trouble understanding (or better yet translating) some of the sentences and points in the text. So, I was wondering if I can ask you for some clarification? (Macedonia)

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As part of the drama minor programme, I am producing The Bacchae, and I've decided to use your translation. Having read your translation for my Greek Tragedy class, I found your version surprisingly accessible for a translation that’s so faithful to the Greek. (Fredericton)

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I have very much enjoyed reading your Homer translations on your website – I really enjoy the easy fluidity of your style! Thank you for so graciously offering them freely to the world. (Harrisburg, NC)

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Thank you so much for the translation of "The Frogs" you have made available on the web. I am going to see the play performed tonight at the ancient theatre in Argos and I'm sure I'll get a lot more out of it thanks to your efforts. I compared a few translations but yours seemed the most satisfying. The notes are very useful, too - I might have got the mythological references, and even some of the literary ones, but gay Athenians, ghost writers and crooked laundry keepers would have passed me by.

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Hello. I'm a student at the University of Illinois - Chicago and am a big fan of your work. I strangely find myself coming back again and again to your work in Johnstonia, leaving each time with a satisfying reading experience. As I'm sure you are acutely aware, your work has a certain pristine quality to it that other translations fall short of. The clarity of your expression (and the accuracy too) is quite remarkable. I've long been a fan of your translation of the Iliad---now that the Odyssey's here, I can't be happier. Do you have a fairly modern translation of Lysistrata? I love the translation of Oedipus the King I wish to congratulate you on a fine translation of Homers epic poem. For poetic content, I always favored Lattimer's translation. (Who else rendered English into the Greek favored Spondaic Hexameter?) But for flow and understanding, you translation is, in my humble opinion, vastly superior.

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Your translation of the Iliad is fantastic; I'm really enjoying it (as is my six-year old, who occasionally has me read some to him). I'm fairly tearing through it at this point, and looking forward to the "sequel." Do you have a word copy of the Odyssey?
(New York City)