Judith Kazantzis

Major Influences

Original Greek and Latin Source(s)

Homer

Mediating Sources

Translations of The Odyssey: Richmond Lattimore (especially) and also Rober Fagel, Robert Fitzgerald, T.E. Laurence and George Chapman.

General Comment

The Postscript to The Odysseus poems: Fictions on the Odyssey of Homer (Cargo, 1999), adds some comments on Kazantzis' approach. She describes herself as 'a pirate' and The Odyssey as a poem 'perennially open to plunder', a tradition that runs from Dante to Joyce and Cavafy and includes cartoonists and move-makers. Kazantzis comments that The Odyssey is about exile, wandering and a difficult homecoming and also about culture clash and different definitions of civilization, about mixed motives and ambivalence. She identifies the translators who have most influenced her as Richmond Lattimore (especially) and also Rober Fagel, Robert Fitzgerald, T.E. Laurence and George Chapman.