In my new job, I am teaching some literature survey courses, which means I have to abide by some curricular protocol and not just teach whichever armload of novels happen to be infatuating me at the moment. This semester, that means less Nabokov and Eggers, more Homer and Chaucer.
Currently we are up to our ears in The Odyssey, and let me tell you, ninety percent of my time is spent trying to assure them that I do not care how they pronounce all the Greek names, and then, after they insist on it, pronouncing the Greek names for them over and over. Discussion will be rolling merrily along until someone is all, “So, like, when Odysseus is telling the Fye…the Fye…the Fay…the Fah…um, so, the guys? With the feast? How do you say that?”
This makes me want to bang my head against the desk until all goes blissfully, quietly dark. I am extremely glad our version of The Canterbury Tales is translated into Modern English, because hearing them struggle through the Middle English might just drive me over the edge. I do not even want to think about what they are going to do with the names in The Ramayana or The Tale of Genji. I don’t remember there being this much complaining about strange words back when I taught German, but I assure you the pronunciation itself was just as abominable.
Incidentally, I am enjoying The Odyssey much more than I thought I might. It is one hundred percent tolerable, and I have not even threatened to kill myself once. The Pillow Book, on the other hand, is absolutely where it’s at, and that’s no lie. Have you guys read that one? If not, put it on your list, post haste.
Could this problem be resolved by whipping up a print-out with all the names listed phonetically, syllable by syllable? Barring that, you could make always make them refer to the characters with descriptions like “that one dude who’s trying to get home” and “those evil demon chicks that sing.”
The Oddity is awesome, though probably best enjoyed in a prose translation as any of the innumerable blank verse or rhyming couplet or Whitmanesque versions wouldn’t really capture the effect of the original ancient Greek.
B — Sadly, there is a list just like that in our anthology, but damned if they use it. I honestly do not even care how they pronounce the names, I just hate how much time they waste apologetically circumlocuting them.
T — We are using the Robert Fitzgerald one, which is just because it’s the one the Norton guys picked for the anthology. I like it, though, since he spells the names in a pronounceable way (e.g. Akhilleus and Kirke and Telemakhos) — which makes the whole classroom pronunciation debacle even more annoying!
If there were a translation into text message, I bet the kids would be fine.
Penelope85: RU My husbind? Whr r u?
SexyOdy05: I R!
Oooh, yes! And instead of disguising Odysseus, Athena can just help him out by giving him a sockpuppet account, Myst33riosBeggar.