Richmond Lattimore

Richmond Lattimore (1906-1984). Courtesy Bryn Mawr College.

Richmond Alexander Lattimore (May 6, 1906 - February 26, 1984) was an American poet and translator known for his translations of the Greek classics. His versions of the Iliad and Odyssey are generally considered as among the best English language translations available.

Life

Lattimore was born to Margaret (Barnes) and David Lattimore in Paotingfu, China. His brother, Owen Lattimore, was a Sinologist who was blacklisted for his association with China during the McCarthy era.

Richmond Lattimore graduated from Dartmouth College in 1926. He was a Rhodes Scholar at Christ Church, Oxford, where he received a B.A. in 1932. He then earned a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in 1934.

He joined the department of Greek at Bryn Mawr College the following year, and married Alice Bockstahler, with whom he later had 2 sons, Steven and Alexander. (Steven also became a classical scholar and professor at UCLA; his translation of Thucydides was published in 1998 by Hackett.)

From 1943 to 1946, Lattimore was absent from his professorial post to serve in the United States Navy, but returned after the war to remain at Bryn Mawr, with periodic visiting positions at other universities, until his retirement in 1971. He continued to publish poems and translations for the remainder of his life, with 2 poems appearing in print posthumously.

He translated the Revelation of John in 1962. A 1979 edition by McGraw-Hill Ryerson included the 4 Gospels. Lattimore completed translating the New Testament, which was published posthumously in 1996.

Recognition

Memberships

Lattimore was a Fellow of the Academy of American Poets, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the National Institute of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Philological Association, and the Archaeological Institute of America, as well as a Fellow of the American Academy at Rome and an Honorary Student at Christ Church, Oxford.

Awards

Lattimore's 1962 translation of Aristophanes' The Frogs won the Bollingen Poetry Translation Prize.

Publications

Poetry

• Poems. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1957.
• Sestina for a Far-off Summer: Poems, 1957-1962. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1962.
• Selected Poems. Oxford, UK: Clive Allison, 1965.
• The Stride of Time: New poems and translations, 1966. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1966.
• Poems from Three Decades. New York: Scribner, 1972.
• Continuing Conclusions: New poems and translations. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1980.

Non-fiction

• Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1942.
• "On Classical and English Poetry." Phoenix, 6:3 (Autumn 1952): 84-91.
• The Poetry of Greek Tragedy. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1958.
• Story Patterns in Greek Tragedy. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1964.

Translated

• Pindar, Some Odes of Pindar: New English versions. Norfolk, CT: New Directions, 1942.
• Homer, The Iliad of Homer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951. w
• Greek Lyrics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960.
• Aristophanes, Aristophane’s The Frogs. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962.
• The Revelation of John. New York: Harcourt Brace & World, 1962.
• Euripides, Iphigenia in Tauris. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973.
• Homer, The Odyssey of Homer. New York: Harper & Row, 1967.
• The Four Gospels and the Revelation. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1979.
• Acts and Letters of the Apostles. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1982.
• The New Testament. New York: North Point Press, 1996; London: Dent, 1998.

Edited

• Hanover Poems (edited with Alexander Laing). New York: H. Vinal, 1927.
• (with David Grene) The Complete Greek Tragedies (edited with David Greene). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959.

Iliad 1 Lattimore read by Jamey Hecht

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of U.S. poets

External links

Poems

• Richmond Lattimore 1906-1984 at the Poetry Foundation

Audio / video

• Richmond Lattimore at YouTube

Books

• Richmond Lattimore at Amazon.com

About

• Richmond Lattimore in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• Biography of Richmond Lattimore (1906-1984) at Bryn Mawr College
• Lattimore, Richmond Alexander at Pennsylvania Center for the Book