Emily Wilson's translations of the Odyssey in 2017 and the Iliad in 2023 have become standard English-language versions, praised for their conciseness and fluency. Her fascination with Homer began at age eight when she played Athena in a school production, and that excitement persists. While some may question her translation choices—she questions them herself—her dedication is undeniable, having spent years finding the 'least bad' compromises.
Exploring Ancient and Modern Intersections
Her new book, Crossing the Wine Dark Sea, is a collection of essays on translation challenges and the pleasures of reading classics. Wilson is intrigued by how the ancient world intersects with the modern. Figures like Aeschylus, Demosthenes, Catullus, and Aristophanes appear alongside Spike Lee, Erica Jong, PG Wodehouse's Jeeves, and Boris Johnson, whom she calls 'an incompetent drunkard' who passed as an intellectual by parroting Homeric Greek. Wealthy white men in Silicon Valley are also critiqued for embracing a watered-down form of Stoicism. Continuities with the past—war, cruelty, political turmoil—are abundant, but Wilson warns against viewing antiquity as 'a mirror in which we always find ourselves'.
Sappho and the Fragments of Poetry
With Sappho, the challenge is the scant survival of her poetry; reconstructing her work is 'like trying to get a sense of a whole Tyrannosaurus rex from one claw'. Wilson admires Anne Carson's version as 'performance art on the page' but notes it strips Sappho of same-sex desire. Lesbos was associated with blowjobs—the word lesbiazein means to fellate—yet Sappho shaped understanding of female homosexuality. Feminists have made her an icon, but Wilson rejects the idea that male poets 'are always metaphorically raping Sappho, while female poets sing with her'. Instead, Sappho's poems emphasize individual isolation and exclusion.
A Pedant's Critique of Translation
Wilson describes herself as a pedant, and she is tough on translators and critics who miss the mark. She dismisses stilted, boring, sentimental, melodramatic, long-winded, archaising, and nonsensical translations. Robert Browning's version of Agamemnon is 'arguably more difficult to understand than the Greek'. Edith Hamilton, who popularized classics in the US, is accused of racism for remaking ancient Greece in an idealized American image, ignoring disfranchisement and enslavement. Even Peter Green is found 'oddly stiff' at times. Armchair classicists on television and in newspapers are guilty of snobbish gatekeeping.
Gatekeeping and Christopher Logue
Wilson opposes gatekeeping, aiming to dispel the notion that Latin and Greek are 'a useful qualification for passing as a gentleman and keeping out the plebs'. She warmly discusses poet Christopher Logue's War Music, a version of Homer by a man with no Greek, a modest background, and a criminal record. Logue's work is 'grand larceny' and 'extraordinary heist', but his jazzy rhythm and fetishistic love of detail dispel prejudice against classics. However, his modernizing similes—spilt blood 'like a car-wash', men crammed 'like shoppers'—sometimes go too far, and he fails to bring Helen of Troy to life. At least he avoids misogyny, unlike those who slut-shame Helen.
The Vegetarian Controversy
Wilson briefly departs from classics to discuss the controversy over Han Kang's The Vegetarian, whose English translation by Deborah Smith was denounced as a betrayal. This raises questions about translation: familiarisers prioritize accessibility, while foreignisers argue for embodying the original's strangeness. Translation theorists criticize domestication as unethical and politically conservative. Wilson takes a middle ground: reader-friendly translations don't necessarily colonise the original, but the shock and surprise of a foreign text should not be smoothed over. Tensions and complexities must remain legible. In verse, she uses iambic pentameter for the Odyssey to honor Homer's dactylic hexameters.
Translating the Odyssey
In the longest essay, Wilson explores translating the Odyssey, comparing her choices with predecessors. For the Sirens, modern imagination sees scantily clad mermaids, but Homer's Sirens are 'cognitively tempting' bird-women promising knowledge, not sex. Wilson uses 'mouths' instead of 'lips' to emphasize danger over allure. For Odysseus's first-line adjective polytropos, previous translations include 'resourceful man', 'skilled in all ways', 'man of twists and turns', and 'cunning hero'. Wilson chooses 'complicated', a stark word reminiscent of amateur psychology. She almost dropped it after hearing Isaac Hayes's 'He's a complicated man' in Shaft, but stuck with it, devoting 10 pages to her decision.
A Lifelong Project
Wilson acknowledges there is no right solution in translation. In 20 years, she hopes a younger generation will offer new ideas. Her afterword presents 20 rules, including: 'If the original makes you laugh, cry, feel excited, get goosebumps, feel puzzled, get bored, be charmed, then the translation should try to create those effects.' She advises, 'Try to rethink everything. Offer something different. It's OK to experiment. Don't give up too soon. There is always another way to say it.'
