Renowned Classics Translator Stanley Lombardo To Perform At UT Monday

By Iris Camille Claudio in Blog on September 17, 2010 at 6:03 pm | No Comments

I remember dreading that inevitable day in college when I would have to conquer the Iliad. It didn’t matter that every household in America seemed to own a copy (if not two, three, or four); I was convinced the epic was just one of those things you had to publicly endorse if you wished to keep any intellectual face among your literary peers.

Well, sure enough, I arrive at my World Literature course on the first day of freshmen year, and what’s first on the reading list?

You guessed it. The Iliad.

Turns out, we weren’t assigned just any copy of the Iliad, but Dr. Stanley Lombardo’s, ’76, renowned for his skillful and colloquial translations of the Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid, and other Classics. You can imagine my surprise when upon finishing the Iliad, I headed straight to Book People for the rest of Lombardo’s collection, now sitting proudly on my bookshelf.

Lombardo’s translations are designed to be preformed orally, as they were in Homer’s day. Join him this Monday from 7-9 p.m. in the Jessen Auditorium, as he guides the audience through a tour of the Underworld.

For more information, visit the event’s Facebook page. Admission is free.