Bombast and Sesquipedalian Words: Translation, Mistranslation, and the Epigraph to The Waste Land

• Published in: Modernist cultures Vol. 17; no. 1; p. 109
• Main Author: Clemens, Ruth Alison
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Edinburgh Edinburgh University Press 01.02.2022
• Subjects: 20th century; Greek civilization; Meaning; Modernism; Translation

The epigraph to T. S. Eliot's long poem The Waste Land (1922) is one of the most well-known paratexts of twentieth-century literature. However, as previous scholars have noted, the popularized English translation from the Ancient Greek of Petronius’ Satyricon contains a small but significant mi...