EMILY WILSON

On Sunday Nov 16th I'll be in NYC to celebrate the brilliant memoir on the profound theme of kitchen objects by my brilliant sister, Bee Wilson. All welcome! Bring a favorite kitchen item! I will be bringing the Legendary Toast Rack. www.eventbrite.com/e/bee-wilson...

One of many interesting common threads: All three of us talked about Matthew Arnold and the challenges of recreating the nobility/ rapidity/ plainness/ musicality of Homeric poetry in English. Caroline and I both talked about our inner Achilles.

Last week I got to spend the day with two fellow translators of Homer: Caroline Alexander and Richard Whitaker. Many thanks to David van Schoor and the Center for Hellenic Studies for organizing. It was such a joy to meet them both!

Thank you so much. This is beautiful. Homer has been making people cry for 3000 years and it is inspiring to hear of new instances.

In my British childhood I never dreamed I would one day get to live among these majestic beings.

NYC, 92st Y: The Aeneid, with translators Scott McGill and Susannah Wright. www.92ny.org/event/scott-...

The Aeneid: Translating the Classics with Emily Wilson, Scott McGill, and Susannah Wright The Author Events Series presents The Aeneid: Translating the Classics with Emily Wilson, Scott McGill, and Susannah Wright Crafted during the reign of Augustus Caesar at the outset of the Roman…

freelibraryfoundation.org/events/the-a...
Philadelphia FREE LIBRARY, October 14: THE AENEID.

My essay collection focused on ancient literature and translation will be available for pre-order in the UK in October.

www.classics.utoronto.ca/events/trans...

FWIW, William Logan had a very funny discussion of my Iliad translation, saying the meter is way too regular: "Every copy of her Iliad should have been boxed with a metronome." Haha! The original is metrically regular (with accepted variants) and I aim for an equivalent sonic experience.

That’s Emily H Wilson! Idk if she is on bsky

Odysseus Saved from the Sea | Homer, translated by Daniel Mendelsohn a poem

FWIW, Mendelsohn doesn't use hexameter or any regular meter. www.nybooks.com/articles/202... The only English Homer I know that uses a stressed hexameter is Rodney Merrill - an impressive technical feat, tho IMO it doesn't exactly work as English.

Yes, very fair points! pity is not the same as a notion that the pain shouldn’t ever happen. I honestly was unable to watch the video, due to it featuring me, so thank you for catching the Iliad error- I’ll get it fixed.

My brilliant colleagues Kevin Platt and Paul StAmour let me chat with them on their new podcast fusing literature and music, in Kelly Writers' House. We talked, very predictably, about Homer. and it was fun.
jacket2.org/podcasts/emi...

Emily Wilson Explores The Aeneid ’s Influence on the Contemporary Western World “Hindsight as foresight makes no sense,” insists the speaker of W. H. Auden’s great poem about the Aeneid, “Secondary Epic,” objecting to perhaps the most provocative element of Virgil’s epic: the …

From migrants and colonizers to gossip and war, @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social examines The Aeneid and its relevance to the modern world.

I'm very glad to hear this. Thank you. The original poem is a wonderfully immersive, intense experience, so I am happy if the translation works that way for you.

Happy publication day to Scott McGill and Susannah Wright, whose translation of THE AENEID (w/ introduction by THE ODYSSEY and THE ILIAD's @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social) is now available wherever epic works are sold! wwnorton.com/books/978132...

For those who thought it was a book about translating: I am also doing a collection of essays about ancient literature and translation.

Great topic. No. The use of traditional metrical verse form has always been central to my approach to re-translating Homer, and that hasn't changed. There are already numerous English free verse or "a loose 5/6/7 beat line" translations out there, so I don't see the need to do that.

To clarify: I am doing a fully revised re-retranslation, to align my Odyssey translation more closely with my Iliad. Many phrases will be the same, including, of course, "complicated". Many will be a little different. If interested, check back in a couple of years!

I am very excited about my current project: TRANSLATING THE ODYSSEY.

Jazz inspired by the Iliad! www.92ny.org/event/darcy-...

I'm looking forward to visiting Rockport, Maine and talking to Prof. Barbara Boyd on July 16th. www.bowdoin.edu/news/2025/07...

Great to see you, friend!

cover of "The Aeneid by Virgil", gold and dark blue, showing Roman image of wounded warrior Aeneas with his weeping son, Astyanax/ Iulus.

This beautiful new metrical verse translation of the Aeneid, by Scott McGill and Susannah Wright, with introduction by me, will be available in August. You can pre-order now!

Haha, I love her.

Emily Wilson “Translating the Iliad’s Violence” | Hunter College

I'll be doing a talk about translating the Iliad in NYC on May 9th. I'll discuss gaps between ancient and modern ideas about violence, humanity and heroism. Free and open to all! hunter.cuny.edu/event/emily-...

Thanks, Curtis! I'm interested in creating a version of what the Homeric poems sound like, do, and are, especially elements that are obscured or ignored in pre-existing versions – including traditional meter, and other essential elements of the poems' worlds.

In this sense, my translations of Homer are far more traditional than the numerous modern unmetrical/ free verse translations - both the long-line ones, like Lattimore or Green, or the short-line, usually chattier ones, like Fagles. Use of traditional meter was my primary goal.

Traditions are language-specific!