Thursday, September 19, 2019

Link to Emily Wilson's article about translating The Odyssey


On Friday we're going to write about the meaning of a single word in The Odyssey and the various ways that translators have translated it. It's the very first adjective in the poem that describes Odysseus, the Greek work "polytropos," which means, literally, "many twists/turns." The question is, based on your reading of his character, how should you render that word into English, since "many twists and turns" doesn't make colloquial sense. 

Emily Wilson, the scholar who has the distinction of being the first woman to translate The Odyssey into English, gave a fascinating interview to the New York Times Magazine about translating The Odyssey, and why gender matters as a context for any translation. If you would like to read the entire article, here it is: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/02/magazine/the-first-woman-to-translate-the-odyssey-into-english.html

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