The Odyssey

The enduring character of the epic poem The Odyssey invites repeated attempts at translation, here most recently an energetic verse rendition by Wilson (classical studies, Univ. of Pennsylvania), who has authored books on the nature of tragedy, Socrates, and Seneca, as well as translations of plays by Euripides and Seneca. Wilson's goal is for the work to sound natural to the modern reader without falling into contemporizing anachronisms, such as those found in the translation of Stanley Lombardo. Unlike Robert Fagles or Robert Fitzgerald, Wilson deploys a natural English syntax, while closely following Homer's lines. Like Fagles and Barry P. Powell, she adopts iambic pentameter and seeks a diction that does not sound archaic, using the Latinate version of names and submerging many of the recurrent epithets. Thus Odysseus, "the man of many turns," becomes the "complicated man," or "bright-eyed goddess, Athena" becomes "she looked him straight into the eye," true to the spirit of the text if not always the word. Wilson is particularly sensitive to the tone and description applied to the many women throughout the narrative, especially Helen and Penelope.