Emily Wilson is a woman of twists and turns. The University of Pennsylvania classicist is perhaps most famous for being the first woman to publish an English translation of Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey, made even more famous by Director Christopher Nolan when he said it inspired his recent blockbuster adaptation. Now, though, Wilson is denouncing the film that propelled her to the status of a true public intellectual. In a pair of reviews, she recently claimed that Nolan failed to capture the true depth of the ancient Greek world she attempts to communicate in her own work. Considering all the controversy that has raged over both the film and Wilson’s translation, the irony might be enough to make even Socrates smile.
Fascinatingly, Wilson has now vowed to retranslate The Odyssey from scratch — although she says she will “probably” keep her controversial first line: “Tell me about a complicated man.” While readers will have to wait some years for this new, corrected version, they can occupy themselves in the meantime with Wilson’s newest book, Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea. After years of “woke” accusations, even her critics may be surprised at just how conservative her outlook is across this collection of essays. Wilson’s politics are no doubt somewhere to the left of center, but her intense desire to understand classical authors as they understood themselves is evidence of a disposition to preserve the past as a living thing, something those on the Right should better appreciate.
My first encounter with Wilson’s work came when I downloaded an audiobook of her original translation of The Odyssey, read by the actress Claire Danes, to listen to during a pandemic-era road trip. I was somewhat skeptical of the translation after witnessing the social media pile-on, but I quickly fell in love with Wilson’s unique voice. It is true that her work brims with modernity, but the goal of breaking with more traditional English translations is often to point us back to the sometimes-strange, sometimes-beautiful world of ancient Greece. While some commentators condemned the novelty of her choices, I found that they helped the poem come alive by demonstrating just how far away the Homeric hero is from modern values. Wilson does not disguise the fact that Homer’s Odysseus is something of a pirate, or that his actions throughout his time fighting at Troy and during his long journey home to Ithaca are repellent to us moderns, Christians, and liberals alike, even if the character brims with humor and charm.
Read more in the Washington Examiner.
