In their original forms, orally spoken and artfully performed, the Homeric works of the ancient world were meant to be enjoyed. Emily Wilson, the first woman to publish a translation of Homer’s Odyssey, makes this the principal goal of her own translation piece. In a lecture given at Dartmouth, Wilson passionately explains the goals behind this five year translation project.
With so many translations already available of Homer’s Odyssey, Wilson must answer the question of validity in creating another English version to add to our bookshelves. To this, the overarching theme throughout her lecture is that works like The Odyssey, in their classical forms, were brilliantly performed and widely loved; so they should keep this sentiment even in modern translations. Wilson expresses that she attempts to preserve this sentiment by keeping the language and vocabulary accessible and modern, that reading this work shouldn’t be like “chewing through kale”— the text shouldn’t be painful to read and shouldn’t feel foreign or archaic. Aside from diction choices, Wilson also contributes the lack in archaism of her piece to her decision of putting the work into iambic pentameter. Juxtaposing this with examples of the other metric forms used in alternate translation pieces, Wilson is able to highlight how this decision in meter allows the piece to feel more familiar and less foreign while still maintaining the performative effect that the ancient Greek text had.
Again and again, Wilson skillfully explains each of the decisions she has made in crafting the final, critically acclaimed product. She supports her translation choices by comparing them to fragments of other popular translations over time, and by walking us through what the greek itself is simply telling us. Another main element that ties into this goal of making the piece enjoyable, she explains, comes from the focus on translating the details of point of view and narration in the epic. A major fault in the modern western canon is over idolizing the heroes and plots within the story, and this can come from missteps in translations. The best example of this in modern translations of the Odyssey, as pointed out by Wilson, is the word “servant” in place of “slave”. Modern readers don’t want to think of Odysseus, the hero and villain crusher, as a slave owner. But we lose sight of the realities of Homeric society if we allow such errors in translation to take place. Wilson aims to accurately translate the details of the beauty and brutality within the piece, in hopes that the English may better mirror the complexity of the Greek.
The Hoffman Lecture at Dartmouth gives us a peek into the mind of a great female translator. Wilson brilliantly explains each of her stylistic choices and guiltlessly displays her pride in the final product she has produced. She talks about the work with respect; as if it’s alive, always changing, and needing to be questioned and reinterpreted. Her goal of making such a well-loved classical piece of art accessible and equally loved in the modern day, is admirable. Wilson acknowledges that there is no correct way to translate the original Greek text, that each translator must deal with the lies and interpretations their work will inevitably be intertwined with. But translations that go to such great lengths to create familiarity while still maintaining the beauty of details, messages, and language of the ancient texts deserve to be celebrated. Wilson embodies her argument in one powerful punch when she states that making these translation pieces feel foreign is the best way to get people to read less translation pieces. Works like the Odyssey were adored by everyone in the ancient world, and thanks to translators like Emily Wilson, they will continue to be so in the modern world too.