Following the last podcast / interview with Jireh Gardo about the pitfalls of Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself in correspondence with the Dr Richard Whitaker, the author of Homer’s Odyssey Three Ways: Recent Translations by Verity, Wilson, and Green. This was the paper that provided the foundation of the core criticisms of Wilson’s translation. In our conversation, it felt like there was more to say about this topic.
It’s important to note that “this topic” is not the continued dismissal of Emily Wilson, but the broader topic of translation and artistic license in bringing ancient texts to a modern audience.
This conversation also took place after the release of Christopher Nolan’s movie. Noted in our conversation above (and despite Emily Wilson’s criticisms of Nolan’s approach), Nolan’s rendition of the Odyssey finds a common thread with Wilson’s in that both are less concerned with presenting the poem in an original context and more interested in leveraging the poem to tell a story the authors are more interested in presenting.
The fault with Wilson is in presenting her version of The Odyssey as a straight academic presentation rather than conceding that the original text has been altered, not only to fit modern language but to fit a certain progressive academic sensibility. There is nothing particularly wrong with this, as long as it is presented to the audience as such. The problem is really in the framing. There is value in presenting an Odysseus more properly in the frame of ancient Greek sensibilities. It informs our budding artists and writers who can take that story and reframe it to their own narrative purposes.
We got to talk about several re-tellings of The Odyssey including Nolan’s movie, James Joyce’s Ulysses, the Gen-Z indie composition Epic: The Musical (rendered lovingly by fans into a sort-of-movie on YouTube), and the Coen brothers’ hilarious O Brother, Where Art Thou.
All in all, this was a very fun and enlightening conversation and I hope everyone enjoys it as much as I did.
