A recent translation of The Odyssey by Homer went viral because the translator, Emily Wilson, attempted to modernize the epic poem and turn it into woke content.
All attempts to ‘modernize’ classic texts are misguided. If Homer (or the Bible, or Bunyan, or whatever) were just saying what someone today is saying, there wouldn’t be a reason to read them in the first place.
No, that was Maria Dahvana Headley, a parodist masquerading as a translator. I agree with everything this post said about Emily Wilson, but at least she knows her subject.
Ornamentation and beauty are not the same. Fagles, Fitzgerald, and the others chose to expand and embellish the Greek, whereas Wilson chose to try to match the number of English lines with the number of Greek lines. There is always something in the original that is lost in a translation, which is why two translations that approach the text from different sides can both be valuable. The Odyssey is a multi-faceted text and a piece of great literature, which means the original text is perfectly capable of containing the seemingly unreconcilable aspects of different translations.
That comment has some legitimacy; translation of an epic poem should be both faithful and beautiful. She fails in the latter but perhaps succeeds in the former.
An article that was attempting to do more than just sling partisan mud at Emily Wilson's translations would have (a) pointed out that the chart comparing various translations was created by Wilson herself (a mendacity that seems to have been inherited from the Ascend post), and (b) linked to her Substack (https://open.substack.com/pub/emily613/p/translating-the-beginning-of-the?r=16q2f&utm_medium=ios) where she went through the chart line by line, comparing her choices to those of the other translators *with reference to the original Greek*. Ascend's and Stitvers critiques are useless. They are based entirely on "vibe" and ideological preferences rather than the fidelity of the translation itself (not too different from the joke about, "if the King James Version was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me"). At least Klavan makes some gestures to the Greek and tries to show how her translation choices resonate in Greek culture versus our own.
I’m still going to read it myself before I make an opinion. The only thing I will say before I read is, is that the authors ‘looks’ have nothing to do with the writing.
… So y’all missed the Penguin Classics translation of the Gita… Which is… Well over a decade old now. Cool. Cool. Cool. And the newest Beowulf translation? I’m a translation nut, give me time to check my stacks, I can do this all day.
All attempts to ‘modernize’ classic texts are misguided. If Homer (or the Bible, or Bunyan, or whatever) were just saying what someone today is saying, there wouldn’t be a reason to read them in the first place.
Isn't she the one who translated Beowulf's opening "Hwæt!" as "Bro!"?
Yeah, I'll pass.
No, that was Maria Dahvana Headley, a parodist masquerading as a translator. I agree with everything this post said about Emily Wilson, but at least she knows her subject.
You can see how I might be confused
I have the Robert Fitzgerald and love it. All his translations are fantastic. And readable
Does the Wilson book come with a set of crayons, or does the reader have to buy her own?
Try comparing her translation to the original Greek and not other English translations.
Ornamentation and beauty are not the same. Fagles, Fitzgerald, and the others chose to expand and embellish the Greek, whereas Wilson chose to try to match the number of English lines with the number of Greek lines. There is always something in the original that is lost in a translation, which is why two translations that approach the text from different sides can both be valuable. The Odyssey is a multi-faceted text and a piece of great literature, which means the original text is perfectly capable of containing the seemingly unreconcilable aspects of different translations.
That comment has some legitimacy; translation of an epic poem should be both faithful and beautiful. She fails in the latter but perhaps succeeds in the former.
I'm gonna go ahead and assume most people reading this article, including myself, don't read Greek, so I don't think there's much point to that
Apparently, she should have spent more time learning the ancient fragrances of Homer? That’s a big deal, I hear. You know, smells!
She looks exactly as you’d expect. These people are blind to how cliched they are.
An article that was attempting to do more than just sling partisan mud at Emily Wilson's translations would have (a) pointed out that the chart comparing various translations was created by Wilson herself (a mendacity that seems to have been inherited from the Ascend post), and (b) linked to her Substack (https://open.substack.com/pub/emily613/p/translating-the-beginning-of-the?r=16q2f&utm_medium=ios) where she went through the chart line by line, comparing her choices to those of the other translators *with reference to the original Greek*. Ascend's and Stitvers critiques are useless. They are based entirely on "vibe" and ideological preferences rather than the fidelity of the translation itself (not too different from the joke about, "if the King James Version was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me"). At least Klavan makes some gestures to the Greek and tries to show how her translation choices resonate in Greek culture versus our own.
If you're looking for great classic works, you could do worse than to look at the Harvard Classics.
I’m still going to read it myself before I make an opinion. The only thing I will say before I read is, is that the authors ‘looks’ have nothing to do with the writing.
… So y’all missed the Penguin Classics translation of the Gita… Which is… Well over a decade old now. Cool. Cool. Cool. And the newest Beowulf translation? I’m a translation nut, give me time to check my stacks, I can do this all day.
"Emily"
In contrast, her substack post explaining how she chose the word 'complicated' was endlessly long.
I hadn't read what she wrote and took her for an overly wordy translator. That translation is a joke.
She's appropriating Greek culture!
I took one look at her and knew it would be tripe. Into the rubbish bin it goes.
Fantasic. I loved it in college.