Samuel Butler
English novelist and translator of Homer
- Born
- 4 December 1835, Nottinghamshire, England
- Died
- 18 June 1902, London
- Novels
- Erewhon (1872); The Way of All Flesh (1903)
- Translations
- Iliad (1898); Odyssey (1900)
The Victorian satirist who wrote about machines evolving in Erewhon and translated Homer's golden maidens of Hephaestus.
What is Samuel Butler known for?
Samuel Butler was an English novelist, essayist and critic who challenged Victorian certainties. His satirical novel Erewhon (1872) describes a land that has banned machines for fear they will evolve consciousness and overtake humanity, an idea he first floated in an 1863 essay on Darwin among the machines. His autobiographical novel The Way of All Flesh was published after his death.
Late in life he turned to Homer, publishing prose translations of the Iliad (1898) and the Odyssey (1900) and arguing, against scholarly opinion, that the Odyssey was written by a woman.
His plain prose Iliad is widely reprinted and free online. The site quotes it for Book 18, where Hephaestus is helped along by golden handmaids who work for him and are like real young women, with sense, voice and strength. For a translator who had imagined machines gaining minds, it was a fitting passage.
His translation of the Iliad supplies the quoted description of Hephaestus' golden maidens.
Mentioned on these pages
- Rabbit holeHephaestus' golden maidens
Sources
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, 'Samuel Butler (1835–1902)'Reference
- Wikipedia, 'Samuel Butler (novelist)'Reference
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