Emily Wilson | The Iliad

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In conversation with Sheila Murnaghan, chair of the classics department at the University of Pennsylvania
“A cultural landmark” (The Guardian), Emily Wilson’s 2017 translation of The Odyssey was hailed for its fresh and unpretentious rendition of the classical poem in modern parlance. A professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Wilson has also published translations of the works of Sophocles, Euripides, and Seneca, and is the author of books on the death of Socrates and the life of Seneca. She is the recipient of fellowships from the American Academy in Rome, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation. In her latest work, Wilson presents a grounded yet galloping translation of The Iliad, Homer’s other epic work and one of history’s most revered war poems.
Recorded September 26, 2023
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The views expressed by the authors and moderators are strictly their own and do not represent the opinions of the Free Library of Philadelphia or its employees.

[@zatannaluvr5427]

Her response to people calling Achilles or Agamemnon petty or petulant was brilliant! Just like she says, it's easy to say that if you read a plot summary of the book, but once you immerse yourself in the poem, Agamemnon's disrespect of Achilles is monumental, and the readers can't help but be sympathetic to Achilles' frustrations. Just that one response made me think of the poem in a different light, and illuminates Wilson's intelligence!

[@carolinek.mackenzie8607]

Wonderful - thank you so much for sharing. It is great to hear Homeric Greek read aloud as it should be! Fascinating insights into this fabulous new translation. Congratulations! Very much looking forward to discussing this with my students.

[@yashin1669]

Amazing. We are so lucky not only to have your translation but all the talks you give to illuminate your translation

[@toinsola]

Great lecture.

[@whitepanties2751]

Emily Wilson's Odyssey is by far the most natural sounding translation in English, making all others I have looked at seem stilted by comparison. I have just received a copy of her newly published Iliad and her Introduction is extremely interesting and thought provoking, and what I have so far read of the translation itself is at least as good as her Odyssey, although the poem's almost relentless focus on violence, the vanity of aristocratic men, and arguments between them over the ownership of slaves, whose own points of view are only rarely heard, may not appeal to everyone. Professor Wilson was even kind enough to reply very promptly to an email I sent her under my real name at her University in Pennsylvania, answering some queries I had about her translation of the Odyssey, although she does not know me from Adam and Eve, and I expect had many more important things claiming her attention. Any mild criticisms I may make in this or my previous comments on this video should be read in that light. She does love her melodramatic (she has actually called it 'ham acting') readings from her translations, doesn't she? In another video on KZbin she reads part of her translation of Book 9 of the Odyssey dressed up as a Long John Silver style 18th Century pirate, complete with eye-patch. I admire her enthusiasm. Dressing up to recite Homer was something that people actually did in Ancient times. I read recently in AE Stallings' review of Professor Wilson's 'Iliad' in the Spectator that the custom was to wear a deep blue crown to recite the Odyssey (representing the colour of the sea), and a red crown (representing blood!) to recite the Iliad. Even so, it is a relief that they chose professional actresses to read the translations for the Audiobook versions. The 'Iliad' is read by the black American singer and actress (mainly theatre) Audra Macdonald, and very good she is, to judge by the extract available to listen to on Amazon, although I don't know if the Audiobook includes any of the interesting 65 page Introduction and translators note included in the book version, and I am sure it does not include the more than 140 pages of explanatory notes, summaries, genealogies and glossary at the end.

[@whitepanties2751]

Since posting the above review I have learned that the Audiobook of Emily W's Iliad does include her full Introduction.

[@whitepanties2751]

7.00 Achilles: 'Fought my way through many bloody days struggling with men to rob them of their women. Near fertile Troy I looted and destroyed twelve towns by ship, eleven more on foot. From every one of them I seized a hoard of marvellous treasure and I brought it all back and gave it all to Agamemnon! He stayed behind, beside his quick ships, taking everything.' Shows how distant the values of 3,000 years ago were from ours, as I suppose we should expect. Emily Wilson's translation brings out the lawless brutality of it, 'struggling with men to rob them of their women', when other translators say things like 'contend with men for the sake of their wives'; 'looted and destroyed twelve towns' when most translators use the English word 'sack" implying putting loot into a sack, while the Greek word does actually imply destruction as well as plunder. What a trail of death, devastation, screams, weeping and rape Achilles must be leaving behind him, for which he is considered a hero! In his argument with Agamemnon over possession of the beautiful young slave woman Briseis, Achilles feels strongly that he is the wronged party, having personally killed Briseis's husband and brothers, seized her as a slave and led the Greeks to destroy her native town and kill or enslave everyone in it, that makes Briseis 'rightfully' his property.

[@quantumfizzics9265]

After hearing this I'm wandering why she doesn't narrate her own audiobook for her translation lol

[@yvonne530]

The works of the great poet, Homer, are filled with words that not only survive in Albanian but continue to be used. From Homer, you can get not only words but also phrases that possess all the signs of a typical Albanian expression. If someone were to interpret Homer from the Albanian language perspective, much light would be shed on the works of that famous poet. Between Homeric and Albanian sentences, there is a striking resemblance in expression, phraseology, and sentence structure. A study of this nature would help interpret Homer, since the Albanian language is older than that of Greece (Science Magazine 2023), much can be learned about the influence of this [Albanian] on Homeric and later Greek. Title: Unconquerable Albania Author : Christ Anton Lepon Publisher: Chicago, Albanian Liberation Committee, 1944 Zeus was a Pelasgian, not a Helen. After Illyad the language of Gods was Gheg - North Albanian Dialect. (Herodotus)

[@Laocoon283]

2:48 yo wtf 😂😂

[@itsthepinstripes]

😭

[@Non_auro_sed_ferro_recuperanda]

😂😂

[@chrisarabatzis4152]

Fun Fact - every time Homer mention a character putting on armour, that person dies

[@whitepanties2751]

36.00 [Book 23 of Iliad] 'Even once he's had very lavish funeral games [for Patroclus] in which everyone's a winner, unlike in the war' Well, not everyone. Patroclus is still dead. Also, the captured woman who is given to one of the Greek competitors part of the first prize in the chariot race, and the other captured woman who is offered as the second prize in the wrestling contest probably do not feel like winners.

[@BreezeTalk]

Yay, the roots of English

[@LS-qq4zc]

The questioner says Um constantly and it is annoying as is her rambling approach to questioning. No translation is ever perfect because choices have to be made at every step and these choices will not please everyone. What Dr Wilson has done is to choose one cohesive coherent approach. So by choosing one approach, other approaches are necessarily excluded, and it is a pointless exercise to criticise her for not doing what she did not set out to do. She cannot please everyone in one translation. I have the book and for me she has made the Iliad much more accessible by providing a modern straightforward readable text. Of course other more poetic approaches exist (which I may read for contrast) but that does not negate her achievement.

[@whitepanties2751]

4.50 'the woman that he has been enslaving' unnecessarily clumsy and long winded way to say 'his slave woman' or 'the woman he made his slave'. Here Professor Wilson is making a cumbersome attempt to conform to the silly but politically correct fashion that took over in academia a few years ago, whereby we are not supposed to say slave, owner or master but have to say 'enslaved people' and 'enslavers'. The latter terms are not only more cumbersome but lose part of the meaning, by lumping together the two different situations of owning a slave, which may be the result of purchase or inheritance, and actively turning someone who was once free into a slave. Even if one can argue that there is little difference in the morality of the situation, they are as different in what is involved as theft and receiving stolen goods. The argument is that, supposedly, to use words like master and slave somehow endorses slavery and denies the humanity of slaves. That argument would have baffled former slaves turned anti-slavery campaigners like Frederick Douglass in the 19th Century and Oulaudah Equiano in the 18th Century, who must personally have understood the realities of slavery better than we ever can. They certainly did not endorse the institution of slavery, and knew very well that slaves were human beings, yet they had no problem with using words like master, owner and slave.

[@matthewbbenton]

Speaking of long-winded…

[@whitepanties2751]

Fair comment, but as I was advancing a case that some may disagree with I wanted to put the arguments.

[@BreezeTalk]

Very loud in my earphones.

[@SmithMrCorona]

I love academic lectures, but man, do I hate all of the butt sniffing that goes on before the talk begins.

[@FaisalSalahuddindenver]

I am grateful for Ms. Wilson's work. I am stunned she claims that Pope's translation has little to do with the Greek original. That is not a claim that she can defend with compelling evidence because it's not true. I read Ms. Wilson's translation and found it boring.

[@FaisalSalahuddindenver]

@@ericjackson-nq4hp it sounds like Wilson’s translation is the only translation you’ve read. Yeah her translation is boring when compared with other translations, specifically Pope’s translation or the Rouse translation. And as for whether English is my second language - I’ve been an American lawyer for 20 years and I’ve tried 70 cases to verdict. Maybe it’s your English that’s basic and maybe that’s why you’re not bored with her translation.

[@zakattack8624]

***Dr. Wilson. Please recognize ones' titles that they have earned.

[@Non_auro_sed_ferro_recuperanda]

​@@FaisalSalahuddindenver Whose translation is the best? I've seen Lattimore’s translation mentioned...

[@speedracer2841]

Emily Wilson is a great translator; but she's no actor. She should not try to make voices. It diverts one's attention.

[@BUSeixas11]

I really enjoyed her dramatic reading of the poems! She has a powerful voice.

[@Laocoon283]

That shit was mental lol

[@andreastoeckel458]

As much as I adore The Odyssey and The Illad, her presence is kind of boring bith here and at NYPLive

[@dwanderful1]

Overlu dramatic yelling

[@cocoacrispy7802]

No discussion of the Iliad is entirely useless, I suppose, but this comes close. Cringe.😕😕