English Translations from the Greek: A Bibliographical Survey

by Finley Melville Kendall Foster

Another agency of supreme importance in bringing Greece before the eyes of the English public at this time was the [pg xvii] removal of the marbles from the Acropolis by Lord Elgin. These marbles, the last of which arrived in England in 1812, were the center of much discussion in England. One has but to call to mind the caustic remarks by Lord Byron on Elgin in The Curse of Minerva and Childe Harold to realize the intenseness of the opposition to taking away from Greece part of the last vestiges of her ancient glory. The coldness of their reception was finally overcome by Visconti and Canova, who pointed out their historical and artistic value. Finally in 1816, after an extensive investigation of their merits, Parliament appropriated £35,000 for their purchase by the government. From that time until to-day they have been preserved for public view in the British Museum. After the Greek Revolution the service which Lord Elgin had rendered not only to England, but to the world, was recognized; for they alone of all the monuments of Greece escaped the ravages of the years of warfare. The importation of these marbles, then, was another cord which fastened English attention on Greece; for they provoked public discussion of the merits of the action, and for those who had access to London, furnished a physical bond of connection with Greece.

The Greek Revolution, which raged from 1821 to 1829, was another factor in deepening the interest which the English public had in Greece. After the outbreak of the revolution, although the government officially ignored the revolt and added its name to those who refused to admit the Greeks to the Congress of Verona, the people of England announced in no uncertain terms their approval of the Greek cause. The grounds for this approval were two: the Greeks were the people who had in the ages long gone by given priceless literature and art to the world for which the world had done nothing in return; secondly, the Greeks were Christians and were to be encouraged to throw off [pg xviii] the yoke of bondage imposed upon them by the Mohammedan Turk. Such sentiments as these are to be found in the magazines of the time and in the various pamphlets which appeared in behalf of the Greeks in the early part of the war. Concretely the interest of the English public was shown by meetings held in various parts of the country, chiefly Edinburgh and London, and in the formation of the London Greek Committee. This committee collected £7,000 by voluntary subscription from the British public, with which to purchase military supplies for the Greeks. At the suggestion of Lord Byron, whom the committee made one of its agents in Greece, the committee assisted in the floating of two Greek loans in England. The battle of Navarino (1827) which, though considered as "untoward" by the government, was a brilliant naval success for the English and French fleets, was heartily welcomed by the English public. And finally at the conclusion of the revolution the English nation became one of the guarantors of the constitutional monarchy established in Greece. Thus through the political events of the decade 1820-1830 Greece was kept in the eye of the British public.

All of these factors, the literary interest in Greece and Greek, the Elgin marbles, and the Greek Revolution, created a desire for things Greek on the part of the English public. Of these three forces the third was of course effective only on the generation then living; but the other two lost none of their power as the century proceeded. In fact the interest in Greek literature as literature, I do not say as a language, was much stronger at the close of the century than at the beginning, largely, I think, because of the efforts of such men as Matthew Arnold, Benjamin Jowett, and Richard Claverhouse Jebb. The work of these men has been ably carried on by Sir Gilbert Murray and J. P. Mahaffy into our own century.

Consequently when one turns to view the progress of Greek translation through these years, one is not surprised to find an abundant and increasingly large output. The demand for translations grew almost in direct ratio as the study of the Greek language and the reading of the literature in the original declined. The interest in Greece which had been fostered and developed through the century could only be satisfied by an abundance of translations whose range covered the whole of Greek literature.

This interest in and demand for the works of these ancient authors produced a form of publication which was new to the reading public, namely, the classical library. The first of these was The Works of the Greek and Roman Poets, translated into English verse. This work was published in eighteen volumes between the years 1809 and 1812; the volumes were then gathered together and given the uniform date of 1813. The next library to follow this was Valpy's Family Classical Library, published between 1830 and 1834. The works, as was also the case with the Greek and Roman Poets, were reprintings of translations already in existence. The emphasis was placed on Greek rather than Latin literature; for of the twenty-seven authors represented in the collection, sixteen were Greek. Another significant fact in regard to this Library was its price; the books were sold at four shillings and sixpence a volume, a price which placed the translations within the reach of all possible purchasers. The last and probably the most famous library before the turn of the century was Bohn's Classical Library. This collection of books, at five shillings a volume, was published in great part between 1848 and 1863. The aim of the Classical Library was to furnish the British public with cheap translations of all the important classical works. In the accomplishment of this purpose the Library was much extended in scope beyond Valpy's and made more complete [pg xx] by the translation of all the works of many of its authors. While in some cases the translations were reprintings of those already popular, the majority were new translations made for the Classical Library. Of the great popularity of this Library I do not need to speak; for the translations have been on the shelves of almost every educated family in England and America for the last sixty years.

Satisfied with the translations published by Bohn, the reading public of the latter part of the century made little demand for any other similar collection of books. The only series of translations of any importance which was published during these years was Ancient Classics for English Readers, and these contained only selections from the authors with a great amount of introductory matter. These works, edited by the Reverend W. Lucas Collins and published by Blackwoods, were sold at two shillings and sixpence a volume. Of the twenty authors translated in this collection twelve were Greek. The series was more educational in its nature than any preceding one and the outlines and analyses in the books were intended for those who had little or no classical knowledge. The next classical library of interest to the general reader was The New Classical Library in which were published translations of Herodotus, Plutarch, and Theophrastus between 1906 and 1909. The last library and one which bids fair to take the place of the Bohn Classical Library is the Loeb Classical Library, which was begun in 1912. Once more an attempt is being made to supply the English reading public with adequate translations of all the classics. Inasmuch as it is at present incomplete little can be said of it at this time; but it seems assured of success.

In addition to the translations published in purely Greek and Latin collections many translations were included in the general collections of books which became popular [pg xxi] in the latter part of the nineteenth century and are still in vogue. In such libraries as the following were published translations from the more popular Greek authors, e.g., Aristotle, Herodotus, Homer, Plato, Plutarch, and the dramatists: Morley's Universal Library (1884), Cassell's National Library (1887), Lubbock's Hundred Best Books (1891), Temple Classics (1897), Golden Treasury Series (1901), World's Classics (1902), New Universal Library (1906), and Everyman's Library (1906). There are a few other sporadic publications in other libraries, which have been noted in the Survey as they occur.

As the publication of “classical libraries” is a nineteenth century development, so the introduction of schoolboy helps began with the early years of the century. The work of T. W. C. Edwards in the twenties and thirties was intended for schoolboy consumption. At the same time one or more persons hid behind the all-inclusive authorship of "Graduate of the University of Oxford" to produce literal translations of the works of the dramatists. In the middle of the century much of the work of Doctor J. A. Giles was done to help the schoolboy over hard places. In 1870 and the following years a new series of translations of the dramatists was brought out by a “First-Class Man of Balliol College.” Roscoe Mongan, whose translations were to a large extent published in Kelly's Keys to the Classics, began his work in 1878. These translations went over the ground covered by his predecessors, and spread out into history, epic and philosophy. Evidently the schoolboys of his time found them very useful, for many of them were reprinted within a few years.

During the early eighties the “First-Class Man of Balliol College” reappeared with a translation of Herodotus book by book. From this time until the outbreak of the present war there was a steady output of these utilitarian translations. [pg xxii] G. F. H. Sykes, J. H. Haydon, A. H. Allcroft, J. A. Prout, F. G. Plaistowe, E. S. Crooke, J. Thompson, B. J. Hayes, H. Hailstone, T. R. Mills, W. H. Balgarnie, J. F. Stout, and others who did only one or two books, made their translations with the student of the language as their reading public. Some of these translations appeared in the University Tutorial Series, a collection of books in which the text, translations, notes, vocabulary, difficult parsings, and test papers were published.

The work of these men, quantitatively at least, is an important factor in the history of Greek translation. Between 1850 and 1870 only eleven translations of this type were published; between the years 1870 and 1910, however, at least two hundred and eleven schoolboy helps were published. The following table gives the minimum figures for this kind of translation during these years.