#emily wilson
A Goddess Reimagined: The NYPL Podcast Episode 214
Madeline Miller’s latest novel, Circe, puts you inside the life of the mythological goddess, one of the great characters of Homer’s Odyssey. Miller discusses her writing process, witchcraft, and why this story resonates today with classicist and translator Emily Wilson, the first woman to translate The Odyssey into English.
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Introduction by Caroline Alexander | Homer | The Iliad
Homer | The Iliad | Translated by Caroline Alexander
“Tell me about a complicated man…” This opening line has been quoted in every single article about Emily Wilson’s translation of the Odyssey – and for good reason. Tell me a story about a complicated man, in uncomplicated language – free of flourishes and embellishments, quick and exact, and without conceits so as to make it feel sufficiently “classical.”
Emily Wilson’s translation has the simplicity, the rhythm, the immediacy – and all hard won. Her translation is compressed into exactly the same number of lines as the Greek original, moving to a swift and pounding beat that gives the English-language reader the closest experience they could possibly get to reading the original. Her 100-plus page introduction is vital to understand the decisions that she has made, why she has made them, and how her translation impacts our impressions of key characters and events in the book.
I not only enjoyed her translation immensely but often felt myself deeply moved by her stark and honest language in scenes of deep emotion. She lets meaning trickle in, sparingly using her words in favour of making space for the silence and the shape of the emotion.
This made him want to cry. He held his love,
his faithful wife, and wept. As welcome as
the land to swimmers, when Poseidon wrecks
their ship at sea and breaks it with great waves
and driving winds; a few escape the sea
and reach the shore, their skin all caked with brine.
Grateful to be alive, they crawl to land.
So glad she was to see her own dear husband,
and her white arms would not let go his neck.
This is my Odyssey – free of the bullshit, the froth, the gravitas and the spin. Complicated, human, and raw.
