Classicist and translator Emily Wilson published a critical review christopher nolan’s odyssey In London Review of Books. Wilson loved Greek myths since childhood and has translated both iliad And odyssey. She has a tattoo of a spear on one leg and a bow on the other – she says they represent Achilles and Odysseus.
The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania via Liveright Publishing
hide caption
toggle caption
The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania via Liveright Publishing
Christopher Nolan’s new film odyssey Is a box-office hit. But classics scholar Emily Wilson of the University of Pennsylvania, who published her translation of Homer’s epic in 2017, They say Nolan’s script is poorly written and lacks emotional depth and character development. And, she adds, there are no sex scenes – and all the food looks terrible.
“We need a hero with detailed, believable motivations,” says Wilson. “[But]these desires seem to be taken away from Odysseus. It seems he doesn’t want to eat. It seems he doesn’t want sex. What does he want?”
Set after the legendary Trojan War, odyssey Tells the story of the Greek hero Odysseus who sets out on an epic journey to Ithaca. Wilson’s translation, which took six years to complete, has been praised for its lively language and fidelity to the original Greek text. But as the first woman to publish a translation in the English language odysseyShe has also faced an onslaught of misogynistic online comments.
Nolan has cited Wilson’s translation when discussing his approach to the film, but Wilson says he was disappointed by the adaptation – and particularly by Nolan’s rendering of the central character. In his translation, Wilson describes Odysseus as a “complex” person. He defeats the Cyclops and creates an oversized wooden horse, which allows his soldiers to ambush the Trojans and win the battle.
Wilson says, “She’s smart… and clever and therefore a fascinating character.” But, she adds, “The film gives us a version of Matt Damon as Odysseus who doesn’t need to be smart, but instead is constantly haunted by anxiety about the Trojan Horse and his role in the Trojan War. … It’s a shame.”
Nolan wrote the script odyssey himself, which Wilson feels may have been at fault: “I think it would have been better if Nolan had hired a screenwriter, because that would have resolved a lot of the issues.”
Despite the film’s criticism, Wilson says it is “absolutely” still worth watching. She says, “There’s a lot to think about, both in terms of what this film is saying about war, violence and deception in our time, and what it’s doing with the source material.” “The actors are amazing. It’s a star-studded cast and they are giving their best to the script they have been given.”
For his part, Wilson admits to being “addicted” to Homer’s epic. In his 2017 translation odyssey, He limited himself to the number of original lines. She is now working on another translation of the epic, in which she frees herself from the “line-for-line” constraint.
She says, “I’m… using more lines, so sometimes longer words. … And I’ll have a lot more long end notes, too.” “I’m having so much fun. I’m halfway through and I never want it to end.”
Wilson also has a collection of essays coming out in September. Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea: Voyages through Ancient Literature Introduces readers to the literature of ancient Greece and Rome and the challenges of translation. Additionally, it explores some modern themes, such as the parallels between the hip-hop of Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion and the comedy of Aristophanes in 5th century BC Athens.
matt damon and zendaya odyssey, Written, produced and directed by Christopher Nolan.
Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures
hide caption
toggle caption
Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures
Interview highlights
On the role of gods and goddesses in Nolan’s film
They are kind of missing. I mean, there’s a moment when Zendaya, who is like Athena, but maybe not, says to Matt Damon’s Odysseus, who is complaining that the gods don’t speak in a language that mortals can understand, and Zendaya says, “Who doesn’t understand thunder, fire, a child’s cry?” We understand those things. So clearly, gods exist.
But I felt like the film, in some ways, wanted to have it both ways. …the soundtrack is noisy; There is thunder. So, of course, Zeus is there. …should we really believe in Zeus and Poseidon? Or is Calypso a goddess, or Circe a goddess? I would have liked God a little more.
How are sirens represented?
In the Archaic and Classical Greek tradition sirens have always been depicted in ancient art as bird characters with women’s faces… who could lure sailors to their doom. … Odysseus plugs his men’s ears with wax so they can’t hear the mesmerizing song… But Odysseus is eager to hear their song himself, so he has the men tie him to the mast. This is a memorable scene from the film. This is also a very memorable scene from the poem. … (in the movie) They’re definitely not birds. They are surrounded by seals. It seems that he has no clothes on his body. But I guess they’re a kind of naked seal women. But I’m not really sure.
On performance in a school production of odyssey when she was 8 years old
I went to a local primary school and the teachers there were bored of doing a nativity play every year, so they wanted to mix it up and use their creativity. So they converted the children odyssey And (my sister) the bee was Helen of Troy. She was great. And I had to be Athena and I had to make my own tinfoil helmet. And we had to take out the eye of the headmaster who played Polyphemus. That was an amazing game, and let us do this. And it was a lot of fun.
And for me as a very shy child, I realized that I had this wonderful outlet through the world of stories, particularly the world of Greek myth. So that’s what attracted me to the fact that the world of magic exists. …I read every children’s adaptation I could find. And then eventually I went to a high school where I could learn Latin and Greek. And that’s how my life came to be.
How she started thinking differently about translation after earning her doctorate in the US
When I was studying Homer as an undergraduate, no one ever said, “You must read this or that translation.” Translations were highly despised. They were for amateurs. If you are a serious classicist, of course, you read poems in Greek. You read the comments, you read the dictionaries, you read the original text. Whereas once I arrived in this country (America), and especially when I started teaching in America, I realized that translation had great potential in introducing serious graduate students to the world of ancient literature. …
Once I was teaching Homer in many different translations for many years, I realized that there were things I could convey from the Greek that would be really useful to Anglophone, English-speaking, English-speaking readers that would be available to them in a translation of Homer.
on being the first lady to translate odyssey In English – but didn’t know it until after the fact
That was news to me. I hadn’t even thought about the fact that all the translations I had done in class before were done by men. I mean, that wasn’t really part of my inspiration. I have already talked about my inspiration in terms of poetics, in terms of movement and in terms of the proto-dramatic liveliness of the poem. It wasn’t that I thought, “Homer doesn’t have enough girls’ beauties, let me get them.” I think, sometimes, online discourse seems to be some version of that. Or some version could also be… “Let’s celebrate her being a girl,” which I think is either one of those is actually a little misleading about my actual job.
Why she doesn’t consider her work a feminist translation
I think it’s very limiting in the context of women’s work – and also in the context of feminism – if you think that everything a woman does is inherently feminist. I also think it’s misleading about the fact that, undoubtedly, there are many female classicists, many female Homerists. There were also several female translators of Homer in other languages. …So I think there’s this vague idea about gender and about this idea that the English-speaking world is the only thing that exists.
I certainly don’t approach the task of translation with the assumption that all female characters will be presented as ridiculous, but I don’t think that’s really feminism. I think feminism really needs to be more than that if there is to be a feminist intervention. I approach the task of translating Homer with the idea that these poems are really good and they’re really good at portraying all the characters, including the female characters, including the slave characters, that we really get a sense of these richly different perspectives. But then again, this isn’t really about feminism.
On the (mostly male) trolls who have harassed her online
I don’t think most of these people are very serious students of Homer or students of ancient history. I think these are people who, as far as I can tell, are people who want to spin some kind of story to justify the prejudices that they are so attached to. I wish some of them would interact with me face to face instead of spamming me with emails. …
I also get lots of sweet, loving emails from strangers all the time. I mean, really, I’ve got a lot going on lately with the new focus. odyssey And iliad In view of this fantastic Hollywood film. So I really don’t want the discussion to be seen as just hatred and bias. I think there’s really a lot of it that’s not about that. A lot of the story here is that Homer and ancient literature are really getting new readers, new audiences. And some of my favorite people are those who have read odyssey Or iliad I was forced to read it years ago or in school and then I came back and realized there was so much more to this poem than I had realized when I read it at 16.
Anna Baumann and Nico Gonzalez Wisler produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper, and Beth Novy adapted it for the Web.
