Dr Emily Wilson @EmilyRCWilson Twitter profile

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

6 years

Collected tweet threads here:

@EmilyRCWilson Scholia — Emily Wilson

www.emilyrcwilson.com

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

Sometimes I wonder bleakly whether my work has any real "impact" beyond the academy. But I got an email from a company planning to manufacture A DEODORANT INSPIRED BY MY HOMERIC TRANSLATIONS. My life has not lacked purpose.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

I decided not to thank this cat, Pumpkin, in the acknowledgments to my Iliad translation, because honestly, she was not at all helpful.

Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

4 years

Rage, stubbornness and need to be respected loom large in the Iliad, and also on top of it. She is furious because I tried to move her.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

When my Odyssey translation came out, almost every headline said, EMILY WILSON IS A WOMAN!!! I spent the next 5-6 years trying to explain why that might not be the ideal headline, and might not say very much about my work.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

7 years

Everyone knows the story of the Sirens from the Odyssey. They're the singers who tempt all those who sail past to listen to them forever, forgetful of their families. Odysseus, instructed by Circe, has himself bound to the mast so he can listen to their song.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 month

Broke: experiencing the Iliad by speed-listening to a dated prose translation of the Odyssey Woke/Bespoke: experiencing the Iliad by listening to Audra Macdonald’s wonderful reading of my verse translation of the actual Iliad, at normal speed

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

5 years

I put "NOT the first woman to publish a translation of the Odyssey" on my twitter-bio, after seeing it asserted for the gazillionth time. Here is why.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

I am proud of all the verse translations I have published so far. I think the Iliad is my best work. They are all different. I love the originals of all these texts so much. I hope my translations bring them alive anew.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

This is the glorious cover design for my forthcoming Iliad translation, featuring Victory. Everybody wants to be a winner. (, )

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

This generous review of my Iliad translation by Rowan Williams gets extra points from me bc it doesn't mention my gender at all, or get into fake controversies even to dismiss them. Instead, it takes the poem and the work of translation seriously.

The New Statesman

@NewStatesman

1 year

This translation of the Iliad reveals a bleak vision of the self-interest and savagery of humankind, writes Rowan Williams.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

When people ask me about the Eternal Relevance of the Iliad, I sometimes say: read it because it's not relevant. Human experience is so much bigger than here and now. But sometimes I wish this great poem about the horrors and loss of war would stop being so damn relevant.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

2 years

I’ve been doing these translations of the Homeric poems for over ten years now — since the start of 2012. What a decade. This cat has been with me for all 48 books.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

People sometimes talk about "feeling seen" as if it were definitely good. The Odyssey is, among 10,000 other things, a poem about the joys of being in hiding, or being in disguise, or being unseen, unrecognized, hidden, or being somebody else.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

6 years

The Odyssey is about what 20 years does -- to a man, a boy, a dog, a pig, a slave, a woman, a household, a weapon, a community, a marriage, a goddess, a tree, a poem, a father, a mother. How long does it take to come home from a war? Will we ever be who we were?

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

2 years

It feels bittersweet to be at the end of my eleven-year labor of love, creating verse translations of the Homeric epics. I'm working through Iliad proofs, and full of gratitude that I have had this magical opportunity, to work so closely for so long with these sublime poems.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

This example shows two of my main goals in re-translating Homer. 1. To use regular meter, because most C20-C21 English translations don't. 2. To echo the metaphors in the original, e.g. ὠκύμορος here: Achilles' death-doom runs as fast as his feet.

Aaron Gwyn

@AmericanGwyn

1 year

A few more morsels from this Emily Wilson translation of The Iliad: Thetis to her soon-to-die son, Achilles: “Your death runs fast behind you.” Fagles renders that line: “Doomed to a short life, you have so little time.”

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

2 years

A classic translator's dilemma, which presumably applies for any language pair: what to do about the fact that languages individuate the world differently. One language makes a distinction where another makes none.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

2 years

I went to Troy. Yes, I did cry. It is extraordinary both how much is there, and how little. The scale is so small, yet so many layers of history and stories. Also the wind still blows across the plain, and the hungry dogs and birds still wait for their next meal.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

It doesn't sound good to say, "I'm annoyed by E. Wilson because she's a woman and she's getting more attention than me". So instead you say, "Wilson imposes her Feminist Agenda on Homer" -- even if that means making totally false claims about me or Homer or both.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

11 months

Thrilled to see that the Iliad, in my iambic pentameter translation, is a Time Book of the Year, along with 99 other tempting books. I hope Homer is happy about it too.

TIME

@TIME

11 months

It’s that time of year. Here is TIME’s official list of the 100 must-read books of 2023, featuring something for every reader, from Prince Harry’s Spare to James McBride’s The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store to Jesmyn Ward’s Let Us Descend

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

5 years

For people who have asked: yes, I am working on a translation of the Iliad. It's in progress. It will take more time than swift-footed little-whiler Achilles has left to live when the poem begins -- but less than long-enduring Odysseus takes to get home (I hope).

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

11 months

One of the most beautiful of many sublime similes in the Iliad is the moment at the end of book 8 when the Trojans, awaiting a great victory in battle the following day, light watch-fires all over the plain --

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

2 years

I have spent the last ten years at home or in the library, contemplating Ithaca and Troy. Next week, gods willing, I am going to see those places for the first time.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

5 years

If you are, for any reason, in the mood for a long poem about the abuse of power, I'd like to recommend Ovid's Metamorphoses.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

7 years

Secondly, the Sirens in Homer aren't sexy. e.g. we learn nothing even about their hair -- in contrast to other divine temptresses. The seduction they offer is cognitive: they claim to know everything about the war in Troy, and everything on earth. They tell the names of pain.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

It's interesting that some people equate "vivid", "engaging", or "emotional" with "modern". I am not interested in making ancient literature sound modern. I want to make you feel its strangeness and its humanity.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

There will be a magnificent audiobook of my translation of the Iliad. I can't yet reveal the name of the reader, but the person is a multi-award-winning, super talented performer with an amazing voice. Recommended listening, for CEO billionaires and regular folks alike.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

11 months

I realize there are people who object not to any specific word choice in my Homeric translations, but to the whole project of making Homeric poetry comprehensible in English - as if it's supposed to be ineffable and opaque, like a magic spell. An interesting form of gate-keeping.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

6 years

Why and how is translation so hard? Here's a little non-comparative case study to help make the process more visible. 9 words from the very start of the Odyssey, lines 1-2: ὃς μάλα πολλὰ / πλάγχθη, ἐπεὶ Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσεν. Syntactically easy.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

I know everyone, including me, is totally sick of Discourse, & eager to go back to reading actual Homer instead. Before we do that, I want to mention that the word ἀνδρεία is nowhere in Homer, and ἀρετή in Homer is used of female beauty, inter alia. Just fyi.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

5 years

There was a young man called Telemachus who was bullied and in a dilemma 'cause he missed his lost dad and his mom made him mad and he almost got killed by Eurymachus.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

6 years

Proofreading. Here is my favorite line from my introduction on characters in ancient tragedy: They “almost never eat or drink anything, unless it is poison or a family member”.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

6 years

Claire Danes reading my translation of the Odyssey can now be preordered on Audible. Out in November, like the paperback.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

I am grateful for this profile of Homer and me by Judith Thurman in the @NewYorker . I hope Homer, whom I live to serve, is happy with it.

How Emily Wilson Made Homer Modern

Her vitally urgent translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey strip away the “tarnish of centuries.”

www.newyorker.com

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

4 years

Reading big real books, not the news, can be restorative in difficult times. Especially reading out loud. I am planning to make 24 little 2-minute videos of me reading a tiny passage of the Odyssey in my translation every day for 24 days. Join the journey! Starting Friday.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

6 years

One of the most famous and heart-breaking moments in the Odyssey is about Argos the dog, who has waited 20 years for his old master and is lying neglected, in the dung. He hears O's voice again, pricks up his ears, and then dies.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

7 years

Mouths (of giants, whirlpools, cyclopses and men) keep eating the wrong things, and mouths (of goddesses, men, witches, singers and shades) speak and sing to enable or thwart the onward journey. Not lips, which can be pretty and kissable. Mouths are powerful and dangerous.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

If you can't read the original poem, and/or can't hear English prosody, and/or have read just one sentence from a not-yet-published translation of an epic: are you ready to express an opinion? Of course you are! Bless you, and thank you for your interest in my work.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

5 years

This is a symptom of English-speakers' blindness to, and lack of interest in, anything that isn't in English: as if it doesn't exist unless it's English. Ugh.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

5 years

But... I don't want to be Smurfette. I don't want to be made to represent THE WOMAN'S PERSPECTIVE, as if there were only one woman in the universe, or even among classicists, or even among Homerists. I don't want to erase other women's work.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

4 years

I am reading The Wizard of Earthsea to my younger kids. I read the Earthsea books dozens of times as a child. I realize now that LeGuin's language helped me in my Odyssey translation: concrete-magical Anglo-Saxon words evoking a seafaring world of adventure & revelation.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

3 years

Iliad translation update: I have now been working on it for a little over three years, and I am just starting, I hope, to figure out how to do it.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

Most features of my personal identity and biography are largely irrelevant for my work as a scholar and translator, beyond that I'm a serious scholar & translator. I've been reading and thinking about ancient texts for over 35 years. I love Homer. I love truth.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

I wrote about approaches to translating the Iliad in English, with a few different versions of the heartbreaking last meeting of Hector and Andromache.

New York Times Books

@nytimesbooks

1 year

The first complete translation of the “Iliad” into English, by the playwright and erstwhile soldier George Chapman in 1611, created a staunch, fatalistic version of Hector, reflecting the poet’s interest in Stoicism.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

MY ILIAD TRANSLATION IS AVAILABLE AS AUDIOBOOK, READ BY AUDRA MCDONALD! AN EPIC OF RAGE, GRIEF AND HEROISM, READ BY A SUPERSTAR.

The Iliad

Check out this great listen on Audible.com. 2024 Audie Award Winner for Literary Fiction & Classics When Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey appeared in 2017―rendering the ancient poem in...

www.audible.com

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

6 years

So that you can all feel my pain, here are a few more reasons why it's more or less impossible to translate Homer into English in a satisfactory way.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

The Homeric poems are the culmination of a long oral tradition. In antiquity, they were most often experienced in oral performance. Unlike most modern English versions, my translations use regular meter, to honor that poetic legacy and invite reading out loud.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

As I embark on the final round of Iliad proofs, I have been warned that I MUST NOT change any more "perfectly good words". I have driven everyone crazy with it already. "Changing perfectly good words" is a wonderful definition of what translators do all day.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

Here are some photos of inside of my Iliad translation, so you can see one of the fantastic maps! And the various other elements, such as notes, glossary, etc.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

9 months

The paperback of my Iliad translation is due out in August, gods willing. I hope it will be ready to use for fall classes if desired. I am also working on the Norton Critical Edition, which will have further readings, ancient and modern, and short bibliography.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

In 1929, my grandmother won the Cambridge Chancellors Medal for a poem — ofc submitted anonymously- that the judges liked because it was “the most masculine”. I wonder what the reception of my translations would be, if I’d published as George Eliot.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

2 months

The paperback of my Iliad translation will be out tomorrow, August 6th 2024, and it's already available in some indie bookstores (pic from Napa Valley, with other tempting books). Some reviews here: ...

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

5 years

It's a big problem that only women writers/ translators/ scholars are imagined to have a gender. Nobody ever asked any male translators of Homer about their supposed interest in MALE characters, or told them it must have been a great challenge for a MAN to translate an epic...

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

I am very honored by the many lovely serious reviews of my Iliad translation from people who have spent many years reading the original poem and questions of translation - eg from Emily Greenwood, Edith Hall, Alicia Stallings, Johanna Hannink, Dan Walden, Natalie Haynes.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

I've now started listening to Audra McDonald's performance of my Iliad translation, and can confirm: it is FIRE 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥. Her voice is incredible and she gives it her all. Enthralling.

Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

MY ILIAD TRANSLATION IS AVAILABLE AS AUDIOBOOK, READ BY AUDRA MCDONALD! AN EPIC OF RAGE, GRIEF AND HEROISM, READ BY A SUPERSTAR.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

Here is a lovely story I heard at the weekend, about how to be a good literature teacher. Offered as a palate cleanser from the state of discourse on this site.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

4 months

Me: writes long appreciative essay in praise of Anne Carson's charming strangeness, humor, curiosity and courage. Includes a light sprinkling of nuance. Twitter: OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE THE BEEF, WOO-HOO, CAT-FIGHT!

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

11 months

Love this. On Saturday, the very angry Achilles held a funeral and killed 12 Trojan children and stayed up late drinking and crying, and then organized many sporting events. Then he was not angry any more. On Sunday he had 1 nice dinner with his enemy‘s father.

Pete Simon

@Pete__Simon

11 months

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

Remember all your strength and all your courage. Today you meet dark death, which dims men’s names.

W. W. Norton UK

@wwnortonUK

1 year

‘A triumph’ THE SPECTATOR ‘Vitally important’ THE NEW YORKER ‘Runs as swift as a bloody river’ THE GUARDIAN ‘Beautiful, fluent, memorable’ THE NEW STATESMAN @EmilyRCWilson 's landmark new translation of Homer's ILIAD is out now. Read more about it here:

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

Now that my Iliad translation is out, almost every headline says, EMILY WILSON MODERNIZES (by, er, checks notes, using regular iambic pentameter and words like "wrath"). I'm so ready for a many years of interesting public conversation about what "modernizing" might mean.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

The eminent professor was my mother.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

4 months

I wrote about foxy Anne Carson.

The Myths of Anne Carson

Throughout her long and prolific career, Carson has specialized in unexpected juxtapositions between modern life and ancient times, contemporary art and the literature of the past.

www.thenation.com

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

4 years

One of the great subjects of the Iliad is the terrible vulnerability (wound ability: vulnus=wound) of the mortal human body. No matter how much armor we wear, there are weapons sharp enough and fast enough to pierce through to our skin and beyond. We don't stay whole for long.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

The Iliad: come for the eyeball-popping gorefests, stay for the lyricism and empathy.

THE ILIAD | Kirkus Reviews

A bloody tale of ancient war and grief comes to vibrant life in modern-day English.

www.kirkusreviews.com

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

6 years

"I sense some evil coming for you all, who sit here in Odysseus' house, tormenting and oppressing other people. Not one of you will get away". Odyssey 20. 368-70: The prophet tells the abusers and bullies in charge of the house that their days are numbered.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

5 years

It's factually not true. Many women have published translations of the Odyssey (and Iliad) into modern languages: French, Italian, Turkish, Greek, Dutch, etc.. Anne Dacier did it into French prose 400 years ago.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

I put off going to Ithaca for many years, for many reasons, although the idea of this place was always so central to my imagination. I thought it would be, inevitably, a disappointment, or nothing much.

Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

Magical Polis Beach, on Ithaka. I am very grateful that I was able to visit this holy place.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

In case it's useful for anyone: my website has a complete name-pronunciation guide for the Odyssey -- new and updated, now with more cats: The gazillion names in the Iliad will be added soon.

Pronunciation Guide — Emily Wilson

www.emilyrcwilson.com

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

The Iliad is so profound about emotions and the body. Anger is sweeter than honey. Mourners consume their pain. Thank you for reading, @KitchenBee ! Your book is also wonderful on food and feelings.

Bee Wilson

@KitchenBee

1 year

It’s been 30years since I read The Iliad (Rieu, Penguin Classics) and other than vague memories of sacrificial meats, I’d forgotten how many details were about hunger/appetite & how grief kills the desire to eat. My sister @EmilyRCWilson ’s translation makes it all so vivid & real

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

5 years

Thank you so much to everyone who has sent kind words about the @macfound fellowship. It is a huge, unbelievable honor. I'm thrilled to be in the company of so many brilliant writers, scholars, artists and thinkers.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

8 months

"Nobody has ever told me my translations of Seneca are “feminist” or offer a “female perspective”—because nobody cares about Seneca, haha."

Asymptote Journal

@asymptotejrnl

8 months

Embracing the rare spotlight in mainstream English media almost never afforded translators, Emily Wilson discusses her groundbreaking translation of Homer and its place in the constellation of existing English Odyssies. Find our exclusive interview here:

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

7 years

To answer your questions: Audible owns the rights, so yes, I hope there will be an audio-book of my Odyssey translation eventually. Yes, I am doing the Iliad, but please be patient; it will take many years. I am very sorry, I will post more kitten pictures soon.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

I'm grateful that my Iliad translation has had such generous positive coverage in serious media across the political spectrum. Thank you.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

7 years

Wilson: "Now stop your ship and listen to our voices. All those who pass this way hear honeyed song poured from our mouths. The music brings them joy, and they go on their way with greater knowledge". I don't change my regular iambic pentameter.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

5 months

I'm grateful my Iliad translation was long-listed for the PEN America poetry in translation award. If it wins, I will donate the prize money to . PEN America has not responded adequately to the horrific crisis in Gaza.

Home - We Are Not Numbers

wearenotnumbers.org

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

If you want a Modernist translation of Homer, I suggest Fitzgerald. He uses free verse with a strong iambic undertow, like Eliot's Wasteland, and like Eliot, he includes a lot of clever allusions to earlier English verse.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

6 years

Emily Wilson’s translation of the ‘Odyssey’ replaces Lattimore’s on Literature Humanities syllabus

One of the oldest books on the Literature Humanities syllabus is now also the newest. Less than a year after it was published, Emily Wilson’s innovative translation of Homer’s epic poem the “Odyssey”...

www.columbiaspectator.com

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

I'm thrilled that Wilson/Homer Iliad is at #4 on the LATimes fiction bestseller list. Many people want to read this gripping ancient poem. Yay, Homer! Yay, translated literature! Yay, metrical narrative verse!

The week's bestselling books, October 8

Southern California Independent Bookstore Bestsellers list Sunday, October 8

www.latimes.com

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

I received a box of books! In my excitement I failed to show the beautiful maps drawn by Adrian Kitzinger. Book also has: long introduction (you can skip as needed), translator’s note, end notes, glossary with pronunciations, and genealogies. & ofc: hippocamps throughout.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

4 years

Rage, stubbornness and need to be respected loom large in the Iliad, and also on top of it. She is furious because I tried to move her.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

4 years

I read part of my in-progress Iliad to my 10 and 11 year olds. They understood it perfectly; they said, "The characters in this are all show-offs".

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

Magical Polis Beach, on Ithaka. I am very grateful that I was able to visit this holy place.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

9 months

People often ask me how to learn Homeric Greek, if you don't have access to college classes. Here are some great online resources for self-study beginners, from emerita classicist @OnlineCrsLady ,

Greek.LauraGibbs.net

Greek inscription from Curetes Street, Ephesus

sites.google.com

Laura Gibbs

@OnlineCrsLady

9 months

I've got a real-live Greek student here & we're starting tomorrow, using Schoder & Horrigan's Reading Course in Homeric Greek; she's a beginner. I've prepped notes for Lessons 1-5 (alphabet etc.) with supplementary materials, perhaps of use to others: 1/2

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

Many thanks to @edithmayhall for this wonderful review. "her command of ancient Greek vocabulary, dialects, metres and even the manuscript tradition lends authority to every aesthetic decision she has made."

The Iliad by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson review – a bravura feat

Six years on from her translation of the Odyssey, Wilson revels in the clarity and emotional clout of Homer’s battlefield epic

www.theguardian.com

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

If only we could all approach all our conversations, about literature or history or life, like that -- with empty cups ready to be filled, with honesty and with patience, with attentiveness, curiosity, kindness and respect.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

6 years

The Odyssey is a classic not because it’s a duty read, but because it really does have a lot to say to us now.

Poetry Translation Centre

@PoetryTranslate

6 years

Emily Wilson talks about translating ‘The Odyssey’ I had a clear notion of what I wanted to do, and I’ve done verse translations before; I knew I could do it. But it was a very big job. Read more:

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

I want to live in two worlds at once, and to use the power of truth to unleash the magic of ancient songs.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

2 years

I was revising my version of Iliad 16 today, intending to focus primarily on sound & meter, some fairly technical tweaks - and found myself sobbing. I don't often cry when reading. But the Iliad is different. I have been reading it in Gk for decades and it does not get old.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 month

It's funny how many Eurymachus types pop up here to assert that my work must be bad because of my appearance (sic). It's almost as if they haven't learnt an important lesson from the Odyssey: you can't judge by looks. Beggars, strangers or even women can be gods or heroes.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

But no! Eminent Professor, with excitement and warmth: "How wonderful! I've never had the chance to talk to anyone who had only read Act I! What do you think will happen?" They dug into a detailed close reading of Act I. Kid got into the college, and did great.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

7 years

I wanted the Sirens to sound seductive, but in aural and cognitive ways. I tried to echo some of the alliterating sibilants in the original -- a bit like Kaa in Jungle Book, "Trust in Me". NB: it's the mouth, not the lips, that matters in most of Odysseus' troubles at sea.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

2 months

I'm always so grateful to get letters from strangers about my translations. This today: "I first read the poem many decades ago in high school, and was clueless. I've tried several times since, but could never get close to it, until now. You've made the book alive for me."

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

5 years

The English-speaking media focus on the "FIRST WOMAN!" headline was good in that it drew much-needed attention to the fact that classicists, poets, translators & historians aren't all elderly men, & that all interpretative work is informed, not determined, by social identities.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

7 years

The Loeb (again, said to be the "literal" prose version) translates στομάτων as "lips". The word means "mouths". It does not mean "lips". It just doesn't. There's no reason I can think of to turn a mouth into lips, UNLESS you want to make sure the Sirens sound sexy.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

4 years

I edited my profile because we have a new family member.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

Next time there's a positive review of my Iliad, I need to post, "Devastated by this convincing attack on my woke agenda. Now see error of ways. Will abjure this rough magic and drown my books. Deepest apologies all those whose feelings have been hurt by my existence."

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

2 years

Everyone is always seething with red-hot rage. Everyone is always broken by overwhelming grief.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

1 year

Signing! I did not really appreciate Walter Benjamin in grad school (put off by Yale hype), and I still think he was wrong about a lot, not least translation. But I do understand that people want aura in our age of mechanical reproduction. I’m doing my best to provide.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

6 years

The Homeric poems are very ancient and very alien and very formulaic. They are also vivid, direct, gripping, beautiful, enjoyable, ethically and psychologically complex works of narrative and poetic art. Translators have to choose which matters most: to alienate, or to engage.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

2 years

What I enjoy most about the reception of the beginning of my Odyssey translation is how often it's misquoted. People don't realize it's iambic pentameter, if they don't read past the first line or two. So they misquote it so it doesn't scan.

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Dr Emily Wilson

@EmilyRCWilson

7 years

Great Platonic discussion with 7 year old this morning about whether numbers are real, and if so, whether they are more or less real than other non-material things, like kindness or truth. Solved most of western metaphysics in a few minutes before the school bus arrived.

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