by Anonymous, Ciarán Carson
The Tain, sortof a bizarro Irish epic - like all the other Irish epics - was one of my favorite works in college. The definitive translation is by Kinsella (1969), but there's this newish one by Ciaran Carson (2007), which I've finally gotten around to judging.Here's the spoiler-free gist of the Ta...
Note: I compared this translation to Ciaran Carson's here. Tl;dr Kinsella wins.
The Tain is epic. In fact it is Epic - at least as Epic as more famous Epics, such as the Iliad. In fact, the number of correspondences between the Cattle Raid of Cooley and the story of Achilles' rage is remarkable. (It must be - I just remarked it.) Wanna know what they are (at least some of them,...
There are now two other non-dual language modern versions of The Táin in English, but for my money, this is the one to read. Kinsella manages to capture the colloquial, almost conversational tone of the Irish, as well as the nuances of the intertwingled relationships between the tales before and aft...
As this is the only translation I've read of this tale, I may not be best placed to write a review. I found this book fairly easy to read, especially in comparison to the texts that are available online. The endnotes were especially helpful, though I am not sure if some matters were left out as t...
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