2019 Hoffman Lecture - Translating the Odyssey Again: How and Why
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- Опубліковано 13 жов 2024
- 2019 Hoffman Lecture - Translating the Odyssey Again: How and Why
Given by Emily Wilson, Professor of Classical Studies and Chair of the Program in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory at the University of Pennsylvania.
Why translate the Odyssey into English yet again, when there have already been almost seventy translations into our language? Prof. Wilson will discuss her working process and goals with this project, from questions of verse form and meter, pacing, style, word choice to narrative perspective, focalization and point of view. She will discuss her vision of this complex, magical, moving and absorbing text about identity, hospitality and the meanings of home.
Emily Wilson is a Professor of Classical Studies and Chair of the Program in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory at the University of Pennsylvania. She grew up in Oxford, UK, and has a BA in Classics (Lit. Hum) from Balliol College Oxford and an M. Phil. in English literature from Corpus Christi College Oxford, and a Ph.D. in Classics and Comparative Literature from Yale. Her books include a study of tragedy and “overliving”, a book on the death of Socrates and its various cultural receptions, and a literary biography of Seneca. Her verse translations include Six Tragedies of Seneca, four tragedies of Euripides, and a forthcoming translation of Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannos, as well as The Odyssey; she is working on a new translation of the Iliad.
Sponsored by the Comparative Literature Program, Classics Department, The Leslie Center for the Humanities and The Humanities Sequence.
I just finished reading Dr. Wilson's translation of The Odyssey, and it's quite a treat to see her lecture on the subject. If, by chance, you read this comment Dr. Wilson, thank you for your work.
Reading this for a second time in Hampton, NH; also listening to Claire Danes reading it.
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)
Starts at 12:42
Thank you!
Interesting lecture. I shall read Dr Wilson's translation. I think she over does the silly voices for the characters when reads from the poem though.
Also at times I think a trendy liberal bias, probably the norm in the academic environment in which she works, shows through. I am not sure previous translators of the story of Polyphemus the Cyclops were really seeing it in terms of 'Colonialism' and attitudes to 'natives'. I think Polyphemus is basically a scary monster who eats people, although Homer can see that even scary man-eating monsters can suffer if their dinner fights back and blinds them. I do not know whether Homer's pre-Christian Greek audience, to whom the ideal was not 'love your enemies' but 'do good to your friends and harm to your enemies', would have felt sorry for Polyphemus or have relished his suffering.
Nor do I think this story is a general expression of a 'Colonial' attitude that 'natives' are primitive and dangerous. Odysseus visits many lands he has not been to before. In some he encounters hospitable people, in some he encounters enemies and dangers, in some he encounters strange magical things. Landing on the Cyclops' island not knowing who or what he will find there and in this case walking into danger probably just expresses the nervousness of voyaging into the unknown.
On the hanging of the 12 slave women who have lain with the suitors, I think she is right to point out that many translations are misleading in calling them 'maids', 'servants' or even 'housekeepers' when they are actually slaves.
However, I think she misunderstands when she says they are hanged for having been raped by the suitors, which would be a cruel double punishment.
There are, frankly, 108 horney bachelors living in Odysseus' house unable to marry Penelope so, being men, wanting some other outlet for their sexual urges. In the same house are 50 slave women expected to remain faithful to a master who has been away for 20 years. With twice as many men as women, the women are likely to be exposed both to sexual pressure and sexual temptation.
Perhaps not too surprisingly there are references both to sexual coercion and to willing sexual relations, in the latter case associated with an insolent attitude by the slave women to Penelope and Eurycleia. The implication is that of the 50 slave women in Odysseus' house, some are forced by the suitors and some sleep with them willingly, and that it is the latter who are punished by hanging.
In Book 22 Odysseus accuses the suitors of having raped slaves (maids in some translations) of his and in Book 16 suitors are described dragging slave women along the corridors, implying that the women are reluctant and resisting and are going to be raped.
On the other hand in Book 22 Odysseus angrily observes slave women giggling as they leave the hall with some of the suitors they are going to sleep with, with no suggestion of coercion. We are also told that the slave woman Manetho is willingly having sexual relations with one of the suitors and that this has made her sufficiently proud that she has become disobedient and disrespectful to Penelope, although Penelope always treated her well. In Book 22 the old nurse Eurycleia tells Odysseus that in his absence 12 slave women in the house (probably the same 12 who are hanged soon after, Manetho probably one of them) have treated both her and Penelope contemptuously.
This implies that they are giving themselves airs and graces while they are enjoying the attentions of lovers among the suitors and losing respect for Odysseus' family while they are being unfaithful to Odysseus and getting away with it. If on the contrary they were being raped by the suitors one would expect them to become cowed and fearful and possibly looking to Penelope to protect them, rather than brash and wilful.
In our society in the age of Human Rights and feminism the slave women would not have been hanged for that, indeed they would not have been slaves in the first place, but by the standards of Homer's time they would.
Which translation do you recommend?
To mehran: I have bought, still own and have read, no, studied in whole, the three current competing translations. I started with Wilson, light, airy, swift, then tackled Lattimore, slower, more thoughtful, and respectful of Homer's nuances, and finally Fagles, exciting, flamboyant and modern. They're all strikingly different, and each translator injects his/her personal experience, temperement, and preferences. Each one has its merits, with different appeals to different readers. Another advantage of having access to all three versions is being able to compare the difficult, ambiguous passages, and the learned introductions and notes to each edition by the best experts in the field. This would be my best recommendation. Get the three translations together for their different perspectives on Homer.
Because of my own scholarly background and interest in the Ancient Greek culture and civilization, I prefer the Lattimore translation for its priority to render as much as possible of the Greek flavor of Homer's text, including his respect to the Greek authenticity of the names over any Latinization. Another invaluable advantage of the Lattimore translation is that the understanding of the text can be thoroughly deepened with the help of the Commentary by Peter Jones, "HOMER'S ODYSSEY - A commentary based on the English translation of Richmond Lattimore" (240 p., Bristol Classical Press, 1988), which I now find indispensable for a full appreciation of Homer. And last but not least, as I always seek a great text to be presented as a great physical book, the Harper & Row edition comes as a solid high-quality hardcover, with high-quality, heavy paper, a large print with generous margins, sections that are threaded before glued to the spine, protected with stiff boards, and wrapped in a beautiful cover with a striking title. All together, a magnificent edition that gives an impressive physicality to an extraordinary text. No other current edition comes close to this masterpiece.
For a new reader who is not encumbered by scholarly education and cultural ambitions, Fagles is a wonderful vivid entry to a great modern adventure novel. If you want to read for the sheer excitement of the story seen and felt through modern eyes and mind, Fagles would be my choice. It wonderfully captures the interest of an average, preferably youngish, reader. Wilson is a special, highly learned choice, and she explains herself her priorities and strict limitations, and her personal reasons why to prefer her version. Reading Wilson, you're getting a fresh, easy reading, but don't believe that you are communicating with the obsessively analytical and emotional mind of Homer or the rough, combative life of the proud, complex and resourceful Ancient Greeks.
To Legal Vampire. Entirely agree with you. With all her best efforts, Wilson cannot escape the Christian inspiration and perspectives of the modern feminist worldview and values. She finds it impossible to reconnect with the world of the Ancient Greeks, who were primarily aristocratic chieftains who settled into their dukedoms and reigned as supreme macho lords of their domains. Reading Homer through the mind of a modern feminist encumbered with all her ideological baggage and Christian connotations makes it literally impossible to reconnect with an essentially warrior civilization that has been annihilated by the early Christians.
Encountering Odysseus as an enthusiastic 2022 newcomer to Homer, we are in the position of an an amateur anthropologist meeting with a new civilization, not even familiar with the natives' language, and forced to resort to translators. With Wilson we often get the impression that she is not just translating Homer and asking the Ancient Greeks questions in their own language, but judging them.
I think the real issue is the translator's purposeful misinterpretation of the text in order to appeal to a new-age audience. You did an amazing job in pointing out the absurdity of her insinuations. Thank you for that.
As an aside, did you catch how she refers to Telemachus as a "man child?" It seems she has contempt for the story and characters.
Written by a middle aged white male about a middle aged white male .?
Unfortunately since it's a " Classic " Dr Wilson is unable to have it dismissed
from the Canon so is reduced to wittering about Xenophobia , racism ,
slavery etc. At least we were spared the feminist reinterpretation .
Dear god, we need to keep femcels from the classics.
???
What a joke. If anyone here wants a good translation for beginners please check out Stanley Lombardo. Don't let ideologues like Emily Wilson taint the Classics. She is dishonoring Homer.
I don't know Greek, but I thought AT Murray's prose translations of the Iliad and Odyssey did a good job of conveying the intent of the original text, while still being easily readable.
What's strange is how modern ideologues love to project their own modern worldviews on classics. It reminds me of Tolkien said, "Evil cannot create, it can only corrupt."
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Listen to my lecture and be more persuaded to be a socialist....
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