Word: version
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...very risky version of Shakespeare's Coriolanus blew across the Loeb Mainstage last weekend, featuring eerie music, shocking slideshows, vinyl costumes, and a set that looked like a construction site. Fortunately, more than enough talent and Shakespearean savvy were poured into this post-modern production to make all the creative risks...
...principal reason seems to rest on precedent. The Fagles translation of Homer's Iliad, published by Viking in 1990 to considerably less hubbub than that heralding the upcoming Odyssey, went on to exceed all commercial expectations by selling 22,000 copies in hardback; the paperback version, now in its eighth printing, has moved 140,000 copies. And an abridged audiotape of the Iliad read by Derek Jacobi surprised Penguin Audiobooks by selling 35,000 copies...
...called the Fagles phenomenon forms an intriguing new chapter in the long saga of efforts to knead Homeric Greek into suitable English. The first translator with access to the Greek texts and the gumption to try his hand at them was George Chapman (circa 1560-1634), whose complete version of the Iliad in English appeared in 1611, the same year that saw the release of the King James Version of the Old and New Testaments...
...King James Version, thanks to its felicities of language and the imprimatur of the Church of England, ruled supreme and largely unchallenged among English-speaking Christians for about 350 years. Chapman's Homer, a redaction of the secular words of a pagan bard, naturally received no such binding spiritual and temporal authorization. But Chapman's translations were both thrilling enough--see Keats' sonnet On First Looking into Chapman's Homer--and challenging enough to provoke competing versions. Since Chapman, nearly four centuries' worth of British and, later, American writers have taken on Homer...
...turns out they did it right: Ink doesn't stink. The first version was a strained attempt at something resembling '30s screwball comedy: Danson and Steenburgen finalized their divorce in the opening scene and were back at adjoining desks the very same day; when Steenburgen offered to quit, she was made managing editor instead. Even if the setup had been more plausible, the show proved how unfriendly TV is to stylized screwball comedy. Viewers don't want to be distanced by brittle, rat-a-tat comedy patter; they want comfortable characters they can relate...