Emily Wilson's The Odyssey - A Critical Review (Updated)

Clear, but missing the song - and a third of the text. Yet.... Read to the end! Insights from Mary Beard and Daniel Mendelsohn

I posted this review on Medium on February 7th, 2024. I now have my own blog here, so I have deleted the original review and updated it to take into account comments about Wilson's translation by classics scholar Daniel Mendelsohn in his own recent translation of The Odyssey. This is now the latest and canonical version of my essay.

I am reposting this updated book review as I believe that underlying cultural and literary issues here are important and ongoing. Some books are undervalued by their historical moment; others suffer the opposite fate. One hopes that time finds the right level. Some people were excited to like Wilson's book because they were happy to see the first woman translate the Odyssey. Certainly, having a woman translate the Odyssey is a good thing, and hopefully, it will soon be a normal occurrence.  But this, in and of itself, does not make the book even a tiny bit better or worse. In fact, one of my favourite translators of Homer happens to also be a woman, and she did her translation before Wilson. More about that below.

Confronting or Being Confronted by the Classics?

In her fine, if badly-named book, Confronting the Classics (probably named by some very clever marketing drudge), Mary Beard does not. No, rather, she educates those who try to use the classics for this or that agenda and shows either that the complexity of the past is more nuanced than their use of it would suggest or that we know so little about the past on this issue that their work is mostly fiction. A more interesting, provocative, but also incorrect title would have been: Being Confronted by the Classics. We are all certain that our particular batch of values and ways of seeing are absolutely right and that we are prepared to bludgeon past cultures with them as with an axe. It is easy enough. The Ancients can’t defend themselves, unless we read closely.

A more challenging proposition is to set aside our own presuppositions and examine what past cultures may have to teach us — about form, truth, or ways of being and doing. After all, many of our cultures today are so broken into pieces with each piece certain that it owns the truth and desperately fighting every other piece, that it might be useful to bow before a great unity, for at least a moment, to understand what held the thing together.

This leads me to a few comments on The Odyssey, translated by Emily Wilson. First, one must commend someone who not only learned Ancient Greek well enough to translate it but also had the extraordinary tenacity and ambition to translate both The Odyssey and The Iliad. I cannot offer a review of the entire book, as I have only read the introduction and the beginning of the translation. There, I stopped, unable to continue, twice. I will, no doubt, try again.

In Wilson’s Introduction, she explains that the Odyssey is “epic in scope, over twelve thousand lines long…elevated in style, composed entirely in a regular poetic rhythm, a six-beat line (dactylic hexameter), and its vocabulary was not that used by ordinary Greeks in everyday life, in any time or place.” She also notes that “the language contains a strange mixture of words from different periods of time” and different dialects. And some words were “incomprehensible to Greeks of the classical period.”

She continues, “The style is, from a modern perspective, strange…” What she does not say, unless I missed it, is that this strangeness is not merely style but substance, meaning we have a culture that is profoundly different than our own, with different values, categories of life and thought, ways of being. Thus, we either engage this difference or reduce everything to people and events “just like us.” The danger, of course, is if we reduce the story in style and form to being people “just like us,” who happen to have some nasty values that need correcting (even if true), we miss all the reasons that “Homer’s” works were like a quasi-secular Bible to the Ancient Greeks, and why Plato, even if he wanted to banish some passages, greatly honoured Homer.

Wilson says, “In some ways, the story told….is small and ordinary.” Needless to say, most people disagree with this assessment. A BBC article from 2018 (The Greatest Tale Ever Told? May 22/18, Natalie Haynes) provides the results of a poll conducted by the BBC, with the following headline quote: “Homer’s Odyssey has topped our poll of 100 Stories that Shaped the World. Natalie Haynes looks at why the epic poem has survived for millennia.”

It is true that The Odyssey is an adventure story and does not plunge to the depths or rise to the psychological complexity of The Brothers Karamazov, or offer the exquisite, if occasionally long-winded, interior journey of Marcel Proust. Yet, on its own terms, and evidently those of many people today, the Odyssey is not “small….and ordinary,” but great and wondrous. This happens to be my view as well.

Working with The Past

In working with the past, there are always two often reconcilable forms of judgment: What was it like back then? And: Do I like those values for my society right now? Perhaps the greatest books/critics struggle towards the first question, leaving aside the much easier second for others. Yet, it is also legitimate to wonder or critically examine a past society’s values as if they were being advanced today. The danger of the second form of inquiry is that we can bury the past and its complexity under our own moralizing from our current values, not just in our editorial comments, but in the translation itself. Perhaps this is always done, more or less, better or worse. One must always hope that the past is not buried by the interpretation. This is why, for example, Allan Bloom, in his translation of The Republic, was determined to find the exact or as exact as possible word in English for the Greek, even at the risk of a lack of surface smoothness or prettiness.

I wonder if Ms. Wilson has successfully worked her thought back into understanding that time. Let the following quote serve as an example. After acknowledging the obvious, that Odysseus is the “hero” of his own story, she notes that The Odyssey “raises important questions about the moral qualities of this liar, pirate, colonizer, deceiver and thief….” And it goes on. In fact, to the Ancient Greeks and Homer, Odysseus’ strategies and manipulations were marvelous, something to admire and emulate, if possible. The judgments she makes above are our own judgments about his morality, yet we, today, also at times lie, deceive, and steal. Also, Wilson seems to miss or devalue all the great qualities of Odysseus — the positive side of the ledger, so to speak: his intelligence, practical wisdom, charm, immense resourcefulness, and determination. Whether it is in war or a verbal battle in the Legislature, he is a man I’d want on my side.

To be sure, his morality at times is questionable, but people who do great things rarely have a morality as pure as virgin snow.

Odysseus, Just Another Colonizer?

I want to examine Wilson’s quote a little deeper. Let’s take Wilson’s so easy use of the word one hears so often today: colonizer. If one looks up the word, it refers to taking control of a place and settling there. It was commonly done throughout history by all peoples, not only the evil Europeans but also in Africa and Asia, by Indigenous people, really, everyone who could get away with it. Awful stuff, but also true. One can read Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire with profit to see the terrible catalogue of power and conquest among many peoples, not only in what we now call Europe. The Romans won until they weakened, and then others won.

In the past, one Greek city-state or indigenous tribe might attack a neighbouring group. That was fair game. Today, at our best, we see no one as “other,” and such attacks of neighbours are repellent. Despite this, one sees such struggles for more territory today all over the globe.

The word “colonizer” is probably not appropriate for Odysseus, as he was shamed into, or decided to take part in, something in many ways much stupider and worse: being part of a vast armada fighting over one person and, no doubt, booty as well. Furthermore, the goal never became the settlement of Troy, but its destruction. That is very bad, too, but different and, tragically, all too common. But clarity and precision matter.

In summary, overemphasizing our values blocks us from ever understanding Ancient Greece, Homer, and epic values. Their spirit of ARETÉ (‘αρετη) or excellence has much to teach an age that loves relentless moralizing, is all too often content with mediocrity and ignorance, and relentlessly tries to slice and dice the human being into this or that group, and claim some are better or worse. Most of us are a bad lot most of the time, irrespective of our social group. That is why constitutions are so useful when followed.

Whither the Song?

Let me comment briefly on the translation, what I read before I stopped. After all, the quality of the translation and writing is all. If one looks to the top of this review, one will be reminded of the qualities and complexity of Homer’s poetry. Let’s keep that firmly in mind. In her Introduction, Ms. Wilson explains that she used iambic pentameter. I find the quality of the writing disappointing. It is too simple, overly simple, uninteresting, and devoid of the quality of song. It has technical clarity, which is a strength, but not a great one. It does not sing. In this, it mirrors our age. We do not sing; we analyze, but to analyze is already to be apart from life, a sort of walking, talking concept machine, not so far from what we will soon become, an AI machine. To be clear, this rhetoric here is attacking our time, not Ms. Wilson.

Let me compare the beginning few lines of The Odyssey by Wilson to two other translations. First, Lattimore:

Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways who was driven far journeys, after he had sacked Troy’s sacred citadel. Many were they whose cities he saw, whose minds he learned of, many the pains he suffered in his spirit on the wide sea, struggling for his own life and the homecoming of his companions.

Robert Fagle’s version of the same lines:

Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy. Many cities of men he saw and learned their minds, many pains he suffered, heartsick on the open sea, fighting to save his life and bring his companions home.

Here is the most recent version, by Daniel Mendelsohn:

Tell me the tale of a man, muse, who had so many roundabout ways

To wander, driven off course, after sacking Troy's hallowed keep;

Many the peoples who cities he saw and whose ways of thinking he learned,

Many the toils he suffered at sea, anguish in his heart

As he struggled to safeguard his life and the homecoming of his companions.

Here is Wilson’s version:

Tell me about a complicated man. Muse, tell me how he wandered and was lost when he had wrecked the holy town of Troy, and where he went, and who he met, the pain he suffered in the storms at sea, and how he worked to save his life and bring his men back home.

One sees Wilson’s strong virtue here of clear writing. But it is without poetry, and certainly without epic poetry. The epic has fled, at least these lines, along with complexity. As to the rest of the work, others will have to say. Furthermore, in Ancient Greek, the idea of “homecoming” is essential, but it is missing in Watson’s translation, as it is also in Fagles.’

Technical Trouble?

Finally, I also wonder about the technical accuracy of the translation. I am not competent to judge this, but let me note, for example, the curious passage on the first page. We have the following lines in Wilson below the quote I have above. After stating that all of the others who fought at Troy were at home, she writes:

All the other Greeks who had survived the brutal sack of Troy sailed safely home to their own wives — except this man alone. Calypso, a great Goddess,had trapped him…

Here are the same lines by Lattimore:

This one alone, longing for his wife and his homecoming, was detained by the Queenly nymph Kalypso….

And in Fagles:

But this one man alone….his heart set on his wife and his return — Calypso, the bewitching nymph, the lustrous Goddess…

Mendelsohn:

Now all of the other men - those who'd fled looming destruction -

Were home again, escaped from the war or saved from the depths of the sea,

Except for him. Though he yearned to come home, though he yearned for his wife,

While studying these passages for a project of my own, I noticed, by accident, two differences between Wilson and the others:

Firstly, in Wilson, the words “this man alone” refer to the fact that Odysseus is the only one who does not return to his own wife. I.e., he has a Goddess for a mistress. (Which of us men could resist a Goddess, then, or now?) This struck me as curious, almost pejorative. Yet, as Homer well knows, he is much worse, or better (to the Ancient Greeks), a sacker of cities. Why should Homer judge him in this way?

A second difference is that Odysseus, in Lattimore, is “longing for his wife and his homecoming.” In Fagle’s, Odysseus “has his heart set on his wife and his return.” One finds the same idea in Mendelsohn. But this is all missing from Wilson. I wondered why.

I checked the leading French translation of the Odyssey, by Philippe Jaccottet. He also does not have the longing for wife and homecoming, like Wilson. I then checked the translation from the University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center:

Then all the others indeed, whoever had escaped sheer destruction, were at home having escaped the war and also the sea. But him alone, longing for his return and also his wife, the queenly nymph, Calypso…

I lack the competence to make any firm conclusions here. I will merely note the discrepancies. Perhaps this is a normal difference in translations that is acceptable, or, in fact, Wilson and Jaccottet have the more accurate version. Perhaps a classicist will clarify this. Or perhaps, Wilson is missing something important. I cannot say. It is odd, though, I can say that much.

The Mirrored Gaze

Wilson has succeeded fairly well in such an enormous task. And Wilson is so very clear, a great virtue of our historical moment. Nietzsche said somewhere that we are all a product of our own time, though the best of us can, at times, escape these low ceilings or caves [ low ceilings/caves is me, not him]. And the greats of the past, those marvelous works that interrogate us and our own certainties, can help — unless the translation has ironed out all the complexity and difference and left us gazing at ourselves as if in a mirror darkly lit.

A good example of someone who has produced a fine work of song, that shows us distant but all too human vistas, even in our low time, is Caroline Alexander, whose wonderful Iliad — published before Emily Wilson’s Odyssey — sings. In this, my own view happens to agree with the great classicist, Gregory Nagy, which pleases me very much.

Addition: Daniel Mendelsohn on Emily Watson's Translation

For a full version of Mendelsohn's analysis, I urge the reader to consult his version of the Odyssey in the section on translation, beginning at page 45. But the gist of Wilson's trouble, according to Mendelsohn, can be said easily. Most recent translations used a poetic form known as Blank Verse, which has a long history in English literature. It is iambic pentameter verse. This means that there are five units of sound in each line (pentameter), and each unit (with some variations) has a lighter stress, then a heavier one, like: "the boughs that shook all day are on the ground." The result is that each line has 10 syllables of sound, give or take.

The challenge for translators from Ancient Greek is that, as used by Homer, the language employs a verse form called the dactylic hexameter. Here, there are 6 units, but each unit has 3 rather than 2 distinct sounds, except for the last one. The result is that each line has 17 syllables.

Wilson used blank verse, as many others have done. She also committed to a line-for-line translation of the ancient Greek. Other translators did not do this; they took up to 2 lines of blank verse for every line of Homer to achieve speed and subtlety. Each line in Wilson's translation has about 10 syllables, whereas the Ancient Greek has 17. The structural difficulty is plain to see: each line loses 7 of the 17 syllables, and that is a lot, almost 40% of the syllables each line are missing. It may be that English needs fewer syllables to say the same thing, but Mendelsohn shows that time and time again, Wilson sacrifices nuance and complexity to meet her objectives.

In short, Wilson's version reads fast because it has been simplified. We are not talking about "finding the essential," but oversimplification, losing complexity and nuance.

The Road to Parnassus is Hard

Of course, no one is perfect. Mendelsohn's theory about what he is doing is perfect, and I suspect that he brought over into English as much of the Greek as anyone could do. but I find his verse less taut than Lattimore's, and less clean in its movement than Wilson's. While it does move towards song, I am not sure it gets there. One ought to compare his translation to that of Caroline Alexander's Iliad, which seems to my ear the best writing in Homer translation in recent times. Fagles, who I like, seems a little too loose with the form, and at times falls into cliché. I recently read Stanley Lombardo's version, which has a strong, primordial poetic feel, but it still slips into cliché, which is jarring. Alexander Pope's version is reputed to have great poetic beauty, but it is not entirely accurate, and may seem too rhetorical for our time.

It is almost impossible to win with a translation of the Odyssey. To equal or get anywhere near it, your translator must be a poet as good as "Homer” or Shakespeare, and have the Ancient Greek skills of a top scholar. The people who have both throughout history could probably fit in an old-fashioned telephone booth! To get a sense of how good writing can get, open any page of Shakespeare's plays, say Hamlet. It is startling and stunning just how good it is. It is true that the Greek writing genius sticks much closer to plain fact, yet it must read very well in Greek, perhaps because it was originally sung.

When you cut the opposition down to size with necessarily critical comments and do not focus only on Wilson's limitations, you realize that the translation has its strengths, particularly for students. After a first pass with Wilson, the serious ones can find a version that better captures the language's greatness and subtlety, as well as Homer's heroic grandeur, by reading Mendelsohn or someone else. I wish Caroline Alexander had translated the Odyssey. Perhaps she will.

One day, a friend of mine, who is Greek, read the first few paragraphs of Fagles, which was open on my desk. She said, "Oh my God, normally, it is so moving, but not here." I was stunned, as Fagles is one of our more moving translations. I guess those who love Homer, that holy band of brothers and sisters, had better learn the Greek to read it themselves.

Robert Girvan has written a history, is a poet, and has had a poem win a "Judge's Choice" award in a national poetry contest. He would love to enter the lists to translate Homer, but his Ancient Greek needs a lot of work first.