William Cowper's Odyssey

About This Translation

William Cowper (1731–1800) was one of the most popular English poets of the later eighteenth century and a noted hymn-writer. His complete translation of the Iliad and Odyssey was published in 1791. Unlike Pope, Cowper rendered Homer in blank verse — unrhymed iambic pentameter — explicitly modeled on the manner of John Milton.

The Age That Made It

Cowper undertook the work, by widely repeated account, out of dissatisfaction with the ornament and polish of Pope's hugely successful version. Where Pope had smoothed Homer into rhyming couplets, Cowper aimed for a plainer, more literal fidelity to the Greek, choosing Miltonic blank verse to carry what he saw as Homer's simple majesty. The result sits at a transition point in English taste, as the elaborate Augustan style began giving way to the plainer registers that Romantic and later poets would favor.

What's Distinctive, and What's Contested

Cowper's Odyssey is generally regarded as more faithful and closer to the original than Pope's, and is often praised for its dignity and “simple majesty.” The critic Matthew Arnold described it as conscientiously literal. Its reputation, though, is mixed: some readers and critics have found it stiff, and have argued that its heavy debt to Milton gives it a borrowed solemnity rather than Homer's own ease. As with every translation, the trade-off between fidelity and flow is partly a matter of what the reader values.

How This Version Reads

Expect grave, unrhymed blank verse with an audibly Miltonic cadence. It is plainer than Pope and more flowing than Chapman, but still formal and eighteenth-century in feel. It suits readers who want a faithful older verse rendering and don't mind a measured, stately pace.