Q&A …

… How Emily Wilson Translated ‘The Odyssey’ – Chicago Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Intimate engagement with an imaginative text is about far more than just gender, though gender definitely matters. But in fact, since I wasn’t looking at any other translations while I worked on the Greek and my own version, I didn’t really know whether (or if so, how exactly) the text I was creating was different from those created by men. It was only at the end, once I was done with my version and had to explain to the general public what was distinctive about it, that I went and looked closely at various scenes in other translations—and realized that there are some very significant differences that do have to do with gender. For instance, as I’ve discussed before, I don’t import misogynistic language (like “sluts” and “whores”) where the original doesn’t have it, but—as I was shocked to discover—many translations by men indeed do this, even those which are touted for being “faithful.” I also, for example, don’t make the goddess Calypso seem ridiculous—but I discovered that most male translators work very hard to present her as a hysterical, absurd “nymph” whose frustrated sexual desire is essentially laughable. The Greek doesn’t do this, and nor do I. I didn’t know it was even a thing to avoid, until I looked at the other translations.