Homer's Iliad. Translated by Marc Wallenberg.

Homer. Part 1-2. Stockholm, Olof Grahn, 1814-15. 8th. xvi,304 + 4,327,1 p. The first complete translation of the Iliad into Swedish, comprising songs I-XII + XIII-XXIV. Later half-French band.

"Johanna Akujärvi writes about Wallenberg as a translator in the Swedish translator's dictionary: Marcus Wallenberg (1774-1833) became associate professor of Roman eloquence in 1800, and was predicted a brilliant career at Uppsala University. "However, this one was abandoned after the so-called musical process, when Gustaf IV Adolf's coronation was to be celebrated with music and Wallenberg and some other amateur musicians refused to accept that a piece containing unmistakable bars from the 'Marseilles' was lifted from the repertoire. The consequence for Wallenberg was relegation from the university for a year. Wallenberg instead went to Lund University, where he continued to qualify and met his future wife, Anna Laurentia Barfoth, daughter of medicine professor Anders Barfoth. The youngest son, André Oscar, founded Stockholm's Enskilda Bank and laid the foundation for the Wallenberg family's wealth and position of power.
As a translator, Wallenberg has been remembered as the first to translate the entire Iliad (1814-1815, two parts) and the Odyssey (1819-1821) into Swedish. Apparently this is the only thing he translated. The Iliad was published while Wallenberg was still a lecturer in Greek, and when the last part of the Odyssey came out, he was appointed bishop. The interest in Homer lay in time. Gustaf Regnér had already begun his interpretation attempts in 1786, and after him a long series of excerpts had been translated and published from both the Iliad and the Odyssey. The translations had been printed in journals, translation anthologies, small monographs and dissertations; all were in verse and the method of translation alternated between free translation in modern verse meters and hexameter translation that closely followed the source text. Wallenberg's preface shows that he had followed this development and had long hoped to see the whole of Homer in Swedish 'with the fidelity which, as far as possible, managed to maintain the spirit of the original, and in the type of verse which in rich and varied harmony could come to the same closest'. When no one else took on the task, he had begun to try it himself, but at first without the intention of having anything published, which he sufficiently emphasized in his preface. When he translated the entire Iliad, he had contacted expert men to clear up some problems with meter and content, and it was at their encouragement that Wallenberg decided to have his own close-to-the-text hexameter translation published. The translation was enthusiastically received.".