The epic of the odyssey through Emily Wilson's translation

Welcome! I'm so excited to explore this incredible translation with you. Emily Wilson's 2017 translation of the Odyssey is a true cultural landmark—it is actually the first complete English translation of the epic poem published by a woman.

Before we dive into how she shook up the classics world, I would love to know a bit about your background with this epic. Have you read the Odyssey before (perhaps in school or another translation), or is this your very first voyage into Homer's world?

I've read it before in a different translation.

It is wonderful that you have read it before. Having another version in your mind will make exploring this one so much more fascinating, as you will immediately spot how different the "flavor" of her language is.

A Landmark in Translation

To understand why Emily Wilson's translation made such massive waves in 2017, we have to look at the historical context. For nearly four hundred years, the English translations of Homer’s epic were exclusively published by men. From in the seventeenth century to Alexander Pope in the eighteenth, and modern giants like Robert Fagles in the 1990s, the English voice of Homer was a male-dominated lineage.

When Wilson, a professor of classics at the University of Pennsylvania, published her translation, she became the first woman to publish a complete English translation of the Odyssey. This wasn't just a biographical milestone; it brought a fresh set of eyes to assumptions that translators had made for centuries about gender, power, and class in the ancient world.

Before we look at specific words she translated differently, let's talk about the style of the poetry itself. Wilson made a highly unusual, strict rule for her translation: she matched Homer's original line count exactly. The Greek original has exactly 12,110 lines, and so does her English version. To do this while keeping the poem fast-paced, she rejected the grand, slow-moving style of traditional translations. Instead, she translated the epic into a very natural, swift .

How does matching the exact line count affect the pace?

Matching the original line count acts like a natural speed limiter. Traditional translators often expand one line of Greek into two or three lines of English to squeeze in extra details, which slows down the storytelling and makes the plot feel like it is wading through thick mud.

By forcing herself to stick to a strict 1-to-1 ratio, Wilson had to keep her language incredibly lean and direct. She could not afford to indulge in decorative adjectives or filler words. The result is a narrative that drives forward with the same relentless momentum as a modern page-turner.

The Heavy, Grand Style of the Past

To see this in action, we can compare her approach to older, traditional translations like the famous eighteenth-century version by . Pope believed that epic poetry must always sound grand, ornate, and rhetorically elevated to command respect.

Because of this belief, traditional translators heavily padded their verses with archaic, high-flown language, which made the characters sound like they were delivering grand courtroom speeches rather than speaking to each other. Wilson stripped all of that extra weight away to let the story move quickly.

Let's continue to Wilson's specific stylistic choices.

Let's dive straight into how Emily Wilson brought her distinct philosophy to life. Rather than attempting to sound like a dusty textbook, she crafted a version that is highly readable, modern, and completely stripped of fake antiquity.

Stretching the Language vs. Telling the Story

For centuries, English translators of the Odyssey assumed that because the poem is ancient, the translation must sound ancient. They relied heavily on what is called , which is a kind of artificial, stiff language that nobody has ever actually spoken. You might recognize it from older translations that use words like "lo," "hark," or complex, inverted sentence structures.

Wilson chose a completely different path. She prioritized naturalism and clarity, choosing words that are simple and plain. This doesn't mean she dumbed the poem down; rather, she realized that Homer's original Greek was actually quite clear, musical, and direct to its original audience. By choosing and clear vocabulary, she made the characters sound like real people dealing with high-stakes situations, rather than actors in an over-the-top melodrama.