That's wonderful, thank you for sharing it.
03.03.2026 19:59
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That's wonderful, thank you for sharing it.
Here's 15 minutes of an extraordinary new opera-in-progress based on (my version of) the Odyssey, composed by Tom Smail, libretto by Isabella Bywater - performed and discussed (with Alicia Stallings) at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens. www.ascsa.edu.gr/events/detai...
This webinar, on Feb 27th 7pm ET, is primarily for high schoolers and their teachers to ask questions about Homer and translation - but everyone of any age is welcome, including non-high-schoolers. Registration details below. Free. You can post a question ahead of time, or during the event.
Yes, but very slowly!
Thank you! I love Homer and translation, so it's fine! But yes, I have worked on and written about many other things.
Tonight, February 17. IRL in Princeton Public Library, and livestream. It will be epic!
Yes, it's Nike.
I'll be talking to Sophie Gee and Pascale Toscano at the Princeton Public Library, February 17th. princetonlibrary.libnet.info/event/15677477
On Feb 27th, 7pm ET, I'll do a public webinar Q and A, designed primarily for high school students and their teachers who may be using my translations of the Odyssey or Iliad in class. You can register here: www.emilyrcwilson.com/resources-fo...
On Feb 27th, 7pm ET, I'll do a public webinar Q and A, designed primarily for high school students and their teachers who may be using my translations of the Odyssey or Iliad in class. You can register here: www.emilyrcwilson.com/resources-fo...
It's funny that they're surprised, since epic poetry is my main public brand! I've loved Lucretius since I first read him with Oliver Lyne when I was 18 - I wrote my graduate application writing sample on DRN. But simplifications are the cost of headline-ification. I hope you're doing well!
"It is not surprising that women writers who are attracted
to Sappho simply because they want to celebrate her gender should produce pretty turgid results. Unmitigated panegyric is seldom fun to read, and sentimentality, even vaguely feminist sentimentality, does not age well."
Here is one rare exception: a couple of sentences from a piece I wrote about Sappho in 2004 for the LRB. I find it funny to look back to, because it doesn't fit easily into the usual media-constructed image of "Emily Wilson". I was sometimes too snarky in my callow youth.
I had written/ published very little that had anything whatsoever to do with gender, until my translation of the Odyssey came out in 2017, and all of a sudden, I was assumed to be obsessed with nothing else.
I think it's more enjoyable not to limit the options by insisting that it has to be either birds or arrows, or some other winged/ feathered creature. Words are the things with feathers/ that fly from soul to soul...
Elsewhere in Homer, "winged" is used of arrows, which are feathered - but of course words aren't necessarily much like weapons, and it could also suggest birds on the wing. Words fly fast, like birds or arrows, they're light like feathers, and they hit the listener's ear.
It's debatable, and I don't think one should be too dogmatic about it, because there's not a lot of good evidence for how it was understood in antiquity. "epea pteroenta" are literally "winged words". Eustathius suggests it's about swiftness, and implies a metaphor of the words as bird-like.
Definitely. For instance (as per Richard Martin et al), Achilles talks like a poet - and he's born of both divine and mortal parents. Conversely, multiple, poly Odysseus is also in some ways single-minded; the epithet "polytlas", much-enduring/ resilient/ patient, speaks to that goal-oriented focus.
Beautiful story!
Wonderful! It’s made for reading aloud!
I would love to one day.
On Sunday Nov 16th I'll be in NYC to celebrate the brilliant memoir on the profound theme of kitchen objects by my brilliant sister, Bee Wilson. All welcome! Bring a favorite kitchen item! I will be bringing the Legendary Toast Rack. www.eventbrite.com/e/bee-wilson...
One of many interesting common threads: All three of us talked about Matthew Arnold and the challenges of recreating the nobility/ rapidity/ plainness/ musicality of Homeric poetry in English. Caroline and I both talked about our inner Achilles.
Last week I got to spend the day with two fellow translators of Homer: Caroline Alexander and Richard Whitaker. Many thanks to David van Schoor and the Center for Hellenic Studies for organizing. It was such a joy to meet them both!
Thank you so much. This is beautiful. Homer has been making people cry for 3000 years and it is inspiring to hear of new instances.
In my British childhood I never dreamed I would one day get to live among these majestic beings.
NYC, 92st Y: The Aeneid, with translators Scott McGill and Susannah Wright. www.92ny.org/event/scott-...
freelibraryfoundation.org/events/the-a...
Philadelphia FREE LIBRARY, October 14: THE AENEID.
My essay collection focused on ancient literature and translation will be available for pre-order in the UK in October.