Emily Wilson's translation of Homer's "The Iliad" is stirring excitement over its Sept. 26 publication.
The Penn professor's "The Odyssey" received critical acclaim in 2017 for its fresh rendering of the ancient poet's epic. Wilson, the first woman to translate Homer's work, updated the poem's language while employing the traditional English iambic pentameter form.
Along with the praise, some purists found fault with Wilson's work, saying she strayed too far from Homer's language.
Wilson's "Iliad" was frequently mentioned by Times Literary Supplement contributors who in the literary journal's current issue give their summer reading plans. Famed classics expert Mary Beard is one of the worthies who express enthusiasm about reading Wilson's new work a few months early.
The New York Times Book Review in Sunday's special section on literary translations also gave attention to Wilson's new translation.
Wilson presented her rendition of a passage from "The Iliad" along with the same lines translated by the Elizabethan poet George Chapman and Victorian writer Samuel Butler's prose version.
The translations give variations on the Trojan hero Hector's poignant farewell to his wife, Andromache, before his fatal confrontation with the Greek hero Achilles, the epic's climax.
In her introduction, Wilson notes the frequency of English translations of Homer and how they reflect changes in English literature. Chapman's Homer translation, praised by Keats in a famous poem, was the first in English.
Chapman's lines add words not found in Homer, while Butler's work offers the poignance of a Victorian novel. Wilson's less melodramatic version strikes me as overly contrived.
Wilson's "The Iliad" likely will raise the same heated debate as her "The Odyssey." She once again makes the ancient poet a modern literary sensation.
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