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EMILY WILSON @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · 1d

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

Translating the Violence of the Iliad: 2025-26 S. J. Stubbs Lecture in Classics | Department of Classics

In the 2025-26 S. J. Stubbs Lecture in Classics, Translating the Violence of the Iliad, Professor Emily Wilson of the University of Pennsylvania will assess the challenges of interpreting and translat...

www.classics.utoronto.ca

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EMILY WILSON @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · 8d

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.

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EMILY WILSON @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · 27d

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

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EMILY WILSON @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · 29d

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.

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

a poem

www.nybooks.com

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EMILY WILSON @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · Sep 4

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.

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EMILY WILSON @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · Sep 3

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 (SideGig #1) | Jacket2

jacket2.org

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Reposted by EMILY WILSON

Lit Hub @literaryhub.bsky.social · Sep 3

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

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 …

buff.ly

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EMILY WILSON @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · Aug 26

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.

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Reposted by EMILY WILSON

Liveright @liveright.bsky.social · Aug 12

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...

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EMILY WILSON @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · Aug 6

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

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EMILY WILSON @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · Aug 5

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.

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EMILY WILSON @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · Aug 5

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!

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EMILY WILSON @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · Aug 4

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

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EMILY WILSON @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · Jul 15

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

www.92ny.org

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EMILY WILSON @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · Jul 11

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

Classics Scholar Barbara Weiden Boyd in Conversation with Renowned Translator Emily Wilson

www.bowdoin.edu

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EMILY WILSON @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · Jun 2

Great to see you, friend!

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EMILY WILSON @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · May 17

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!

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

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EMILY WILSON @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · May 13

Haha, I love her.

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Reposted by EMILY WILSON

EMILY WILSON @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · Apr 27

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-...

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

hunter.cuny.edu

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EMILY WILSON @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · May 1

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.

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EMILY WILSON @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · May 1

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.

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EMILY WILSON @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · May 1

Traditions are language-specific!

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EMILY WILSON @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · May 1

THAT IS LOVELY, thank you for sharing!

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EMILY WILSON @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · May 1

Regular iambic pentameter is a traditional poetic form. Unmetrical free verse is much more modern. One isn't better than the other. They have different histories and different sonic registers.

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EMILY WILSON @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · Apr 27

Seen it, have many thoughts! Maybe I should write them up but I haven't yet.

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