Emily Wilson

speaker

468 appearances 2 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 1 Aug

Emily Wilson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.

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Fresh Air · Best Of: ‘Odyssey’ translator Emily Wilson / Actor Jon Bernthal · 1 Aug 2026 podcast

So in order to create the same effect, I use the meter that's traditional in English, which is iambic pentameter. matched

rather than using free verse or prose, which is what most modern translators do. matched

And then similarly, Homeric poetry is marked by other sound patterns such as alliteration and assonance. matched

So again, I mean, if you're translating an ad or a court deposition, you may not need to think about the sound effects in quite the same way as I think you do need to think about the sound effects if you're translating a poem, especially one that's designed for oral performance. matched

Over 12,000, yes. matched

So that was another thing that I thought on reflection about my experience in teaching the Odyssey in many different translations was that, as you said before, translation is very difficult. matched

There's never a one-to-one equivalent of this word in archaic Greek means exactly the same as this word in contemporary English. matched

So you're always thinking, maybe there were 10 different words I could use there. matched

So the temptation is always to expand on the original, to use three or four words where the original might use only one. matched

But then, of course, you're also... matched

betraying something that's essential also to the experience of the original, which is its pacing. matched

And the rapidity, the propulsive quality of, please tell me more, tell me more, keep going, is very much part of the experience of Homer in Greek. matched

And I felt was diluted by the verbose quality of quite a lot of existing translations. matched

So in the book, I discuss at great length the challenges of translating what's called the proem of the Odyssey, which is the first few lines of the poem. matched

So maybe we can focus on that. matched

Andra moi ennepe musa, polutropon, hos mala pola plankthe, epetroies hieron toliethrone perse. matched

Polon d'antropon didenastia kaino enegno, pola doken ponto pathanalgea hon katathumo, arnumenos hen tepsuken kain noston hetairon. matched

Alut hos hetauruseuruseto, hiemenos per, matched

Auteu gar sveteresina tasthalia sinolonto, nepioi hoi katabu superionos he elioio estion, autar hotoisin aveleta nostimon emar. matched

Tun hamathen gethe a, thugater dios, epe cae hemin. matched

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