What is the best translation of the Prose and Poetic edda?

by Sleep-deprived-6208

I’ve read a lot of 1st hand Greek mythology texts before but I’ve never really read either of the eddas before. I just watched Thor Ragnarock in preparation for love and Thunder, and I wanted to read the original norse version, but since I’ve never really experienced norse texts, I don’t know what is a good translation?

Steelcan909

Well the best translation is going to depend a lot on what sort of factor you're looking at. The answer will be different if you're looking for modern English readability, textual faithfulness, and so on.

I personally use Lee M. Hollander's translation of the Poetic Edda and Jesse Byock's Prose Edda as I find that they strike a good balance between modern accessibility and textual faithfulness. (Though I will caution that I don't read Old Norse). Hollander may be a bit too old fashioned for some readers though, so as a rule of thumb if you read Tolkien and love it that translation will be fine, but if you aren't drawn to that more archaic word use, sentence structure, and style then I'd recommend Carolyne Larrington's Oxford World's Classics edition.

y_sengaku

In addition to Hollander's and Byock's, /u/bloodswan and I also mentioned several translated editions of both eddic texts before in: Are there good editions with historical notes of the two Eddic texts with (possibly) the original text as well?, though I'm not native in English so that my opinions on the English language of individual Edition might not so be trustworthy.