Emily Wilson, the Odyssey and Why Epics Matter
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Music If there's one thing we can say about the secret life of books, it's that we like to think we stay ahead of the curve. So here is a fascinating live conversation that was recorded back in February 2026 in the Princeton Public Library in Princeton, New Jersey. It was a very special event, including the woman of the hour, Professor Emily Wilson, who's probably at the moment the most celebrated translator in the world with the release of Christopher Nolan's Odyssey film starring Matt Damon. Emily has translated both Iliad and The Odyssey to great acclaim, and her uncensored comments on Nolan's adaptation have been raging across the internet. When we recorded this conversation, we didn't know how the film was going to go, nor did Emily, but we did know that it was going to put Homer and the importance of epics back on the map.
So I was joined by Emily and also by my friend and academic colleague Pasquale Toscano, who is an expert on epic poetry in the Renaissance period in England. What you're about to hear is a gripping discussion about why epics matter now, what's really interesting and enduringly important about the form, and my implication, what the Nolan Damon version has missed out on. We've kept the edit of this conversation light because we want to keep the feel and the mood in the room. As a result, the sound is not so great for some of the time, and there's some rustling and background noise and some unevenness that you'll hear in the voices. So indulge us, forgive us, and please enjoy this truly fascinating discussion.
So, welcome to Princeton.
Thank you.
I came up with this idea for this evening, which I can already tell is going to be a huge success, with Pascual Toscano, who is my friend and my one-time student, but that is long in the past. And we wanted to have a conversation with the great Emily Wilson about why epic still really matters today. And now when Pasquale and I came up with this idea, we thought that the answer was going to be that it's this huge, capacious, sprawling form that is a way in which to reflect either overtly or obliquely on the politics and the political leadership of the time in which an epic has been written. And so it felt, and since epics frequently reflect upon matters of authoritarianism and repression in various states,
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