The Metamorphoses of Ovid

Rating:
Summary: an honest, earnest translation
Review: Slavitt's free translation of Ovid is generally very true to the tone of the original, & only sometimes slightly awkward. Slavitt's understanding of Ovid & of translation is great. The Ovid he presents modern English-speaking readers with is much more human & easily flowing than the Ovid of many other translators. Ovid's Metamorphoses is one of the greatest classics of western literature, Ovid one of the most significant writers of our thousands of years of literature, & Slavitt does the man, the book, & readers a good service with this translation.

Rating:
Summary: an honest, earnest translation
Review: Slavitt's free translation of Ovid is generally very true to the tone of the original, & only sometimes slightly awkward. Slavitt's understanding of Ovid & of translation is great. The Ovid he presents modern English-speaking readers with is much more human & easily flowing than the Ovid of many other translators. Ovid's Metamorphoses is one of the greatest classics of western literature, Ovid one of the most significant writers of our thousands of years of literature, & Slavitt does the man, the book, & readers a good service with this translation.

Rating:
Summary: Ovid in the Hands of a Master Poet and Translator
Review: So many translations suffer one of two fates: either the translator has a wonderful grasp of the foreign language in question but is not a very talented poet in his own, or he is a wonderful poet but a terrible linguist. David R. Slavitt is both an extremely prolific and talented poet, novelist, and essayist in his own native English, and an excellent linguist. This translation of a classic that is so often translated may seem unnecessary. Why have one more translation of Ovid's "Metmorphoses"? Read this version and you'll see why.

Rating:
Summary: The Worst English Translator of the Twentieth Century
Review: Whenever you see David Slavitt's name on a translation, look elsewhere. He's a third-rate poet who has made a career of destroying the great works of other poets. This translation is a good example of that. At various points he goes off on tangents, commenting--shallowly, I might add--on the contents of the poem he is supposed to be translating. You read things such as "What is Ovid doing here with this boring passage?" But it won't be a footnote, it will be inserted into the body of the poem. For this one, read Mandelbaum's translation. Stay away from Slavitt.