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 · last 12 months

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

I love to perform. matched

I mean, I want to try to channel the experience of being a rhapsode. matched

And of course, there's overlap between being the kind of archaic Greek poetry performer who would learn bits of Homer by heart and perform them and being a translator that I'm trying to channel the experience of the original and then convey it for new audiences or listeners. matched

Yeah. matched

So I'll read the Robert Fagel's translation in free verse because that was, I think, is still a very popular translation. matched

So I think it's worth continuing to talk about because it's a translation that many people read. matched

Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns, driven time and again off course once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy. matched

Many cities of men he saw and learned their minds, many pains he suffered, heartsick on the open sea, fighting to save his life and bring his comrades home. matched

but he could not save them from disaster, hard as he strove. matched

The recklessness of their own ways destroyed them all. matched

The blind fools, they devoured the cattle of the sun, and the sun god blotted out the day of their return. matched

Launch out on his story, muse, daunter of Zeus. matched

Start from where you will. matched

Sing for our time, too. matched

So I think there are lots of very interesting choices, and I'll just pick up on a couple. matched

One is the choice to repeat the word sing. matched

When the original verb in the start of the Odyssey, in contrast to the Iliad, where the verb invoking the muse is sing, aida, in the Odyssey it's tel, it's epo, en nepeh. matched

So it starts in a way at a more casual or more ordinary level as we're building up towards what is in some ways a more domestic story than that of the Iliad. matched

So I think there's something quite striking about choosing to translate a tell verb with a sing verb. matched

So there's a grandiosity to the language. matched

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