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The Odyssey Paperback – Deckle Edge, November 6, 2018
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A New York Times Notable Book of 2018
"Wilson’s language is fresh, unpretentious and lean…It is rare to find a translation that is at once so effortlessly easy to read and so rigorously considered." ―Madeline Miller, author of Circe
Composed at the rosy-fingered dawn of world literature almost three millennia ago, The Odyssey is a poem about violence and the aftermath of war; about wealth, poverty and power; about marriage and family; about travelers, hospitality, and the yearning for home.
This fresh, authoritative translation captures the beauty of this ancient poem as well as the drama of its narrative. Its characters are unforgettable, none more so than the “complicated” hero himself, a man of many disguises, many tricks, and many moods, who emerges in this version as a more fully rounded human being than ever before.
Written in iambic pentameter verse and a vivid, contemporary idiom, Emily Wilson’s Odyssey sings with a voice that echoes Homer’s music; matching the number of lines in the Greek original, the poem sails along at Homer’s swift, smooth pace.
A fascinating, informative introduction explores the Bronze Age milieu that produced the epic, the poem’s major themes, the controversies about its origins, and the unparalleled scope of its impact and influence. Maps drawn especially for this volume, a pronunciation glossary, and extensive notes and summaries of each book make this is an Odyssey that will be treasured by a new generation of readers.
3 maps- Print length592 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherW. W. Norton & Company
- Publication dateNovember 6, 2018
- Dimensions5.7 x 1.3 x 8.3 inches
- ISBN-100393356256
- ISBN-13978-0393356250
- Lexile measure830L
The Amazon Book Review
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More items to explore
- The tension between strangeness and familiarity is in fact the poem’s central subject.Highlighted by 838 Kindle readers
- In The Odyssey, we find instead the story of a man whose grand adventure is simply to go back to his own home, where he tries to turn everything back to the way it was before he went away. For this hero, mere survival is the most amazing feat of all.Highlighted by 797 Kindle readers
- It is a written text based on an oral tradition, which is not at all the same as being an actual oral composition.Highlighted by 634 Kindle readers
Editorial Reviews
Review
― Rowan Williams, University of Cambridge
"A revelation. Never have I been so aware at once of the beauty of the poetry, the physicality of Homer’s world, and the moral ambiguity of those who inhabit it."
― Susan Chira, New York Times Book Review
"Emily Wilson’s crisp and musical version is a cultural landmark.… This translation will change the way the poem is read in English."
― Charlotte Higgins, Guardian
"In the history of Odyssey translations, few have exerted such a cultural influence that they become ‘classics’ in their own right.… I predict that Emily Wilson will win a place in this roll-call of the most significant translations of the poem in history. She certainly deserves the honour."
― Edith Hall, Daily Telegraph
"Emily Wilson has given us a staggeringly superior translation―true, poetic, lively and readable, and always closely engaged with the original Greek―that brings to life the fascinating variety of voices in Homer’s great epic."
― Richard F. Thomas, Harvard University
"When I first read these lines…, I was floored. I’d never read an Odyssey that sounded like this. It had such directness, the lines feeling not as if they were being fed into iambic pentameter because of some strategic decision but because the meter was a natural mode for its speaker."
― Wyatt Mason, New York Times Magazine
"In her powerful new translation, Emily Wilson… has chosen immediacy and naturalism over majestic formality. She preserves the musicality of Homer’s poetry, opting for an iambic pentameter whose approachable storytelling tone invites us in, only to startle us with eruptions of beauty.… Wilson’s transformation of such a familiar and foundational work is… astonishing."
― Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, Atlantic
"Wilson’s translation is a superb achievement and a striking departure from the tradition of Homeric translation into English.… There is no elaborate or antiquated diction, just a crispness and clear-headedness that will seem quite alien to anyone familiar with earlier versions.… Wilson has produced a wonderfully distinctive―and modern―version of the poem."
― Henry Power, Evening Standard
"Irresistibly readable, Wilson’s Odyssey turns Homeric epic into a poetic feast."
― Froma Zeitlin, Princeton University
"This translation is a marvel! Bold and timely and ever so exciting.… As majestic as literature gets."
― Max Porter, author of Grief Is the Thing With Feathers
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company; 1st Edition (November 6, 2018)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 592 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0393356256
- ISBN-13 : 978-0393356250
- Lexile measure : 830L
- Item Weight : 1.43 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.7 x 1.3 x 8.3 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,437 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1 in Ancient & Classical Poetry
- #1 in Epic Poetry (Books)
- #69 in Classic Literature & Fiction
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors
Homer was probably born around 725BC on the Coast of Asia Minor, now the coast of Turkey, but then really a part of Greece. Homer was the first Greek writer whose work survives.
He was one of a long line of bards, or poets, who worked in the oral tradition. Homer and other bards of the time could recite, or chant, long epic poems. Both works attributed to Homer - The Iliad and The Odyssey - are over ten thousand lines long in the original. Homer must have had an amazing memory but was helped by the formulaic poetry style of the time.
In The Iliad Homer sang of death and glory, of a few days in the struggle between the Greeks and the Trojans. Mortal men played out their fate under the gaze of the gods. The Odyssey is the original collection of tall traveller's tales. Odysseus, on his way home from the Trojan War, encounters all kinds of marvels from one-eyed giants to witches and beautiful temptresses. His adventures are many and memorable before he gets back to Ithaca and his faithful wife Penelope.
We can never be certain that both these stories belonged to Homer. In fact 'Homer' may not be a real name but a kind of nickname meaning perhaps 'the hostage' or 'the blind one'. Whatever the truth of their origin, the two stories, developed around three thousand years ago, may well still be read in three thousand years' time.
Emily Wilson grew up in Oxford, UK, and studied Classics at Balliol College, and English Literature at Corpus Christi College. Her PhD. is from Yale in Classics and Comparative Literature. She is currently a Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She is interested in literature, story-telling and how ideas and culture play out through narrative and in words, and in the music of language. She cares about poetry, drama and philosophy of all eras, especially ancient Greek, Roman and early modern. She has written books on tragedy and "overliving", the long afterlife of the death of Socrates, and a life of Seneca. She has also done several verse translations of classical verse drama and epic, including Seneca's tragedies, four plays of Euripides, and Homer's Odyssey.
Her approach to translation is discussed here: http://poems.com/special_features/prose/essay_wilson_odyssey.php
Profiled here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/02/magazine/the-first-woman-to-translate-the-odyssey-into-english.html
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Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2021
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Wilson’s text reads well while retaining a poetic style in translation, a major achievement in itself. Even better, she does so while avoiding the masculine-centered assumptions of other translators. This does not mean changing Homer, who wrote in and about a patriarchal world, but instead trying to see the women as Homer did, and not as a Victorian Englishman would. (I exaggerate, but you get the idea.)
You can see Wilson’s perspectives in her extensive introduction, most of which you can see in Amazon’s “Look Inside!” feature. Unfortunately, you can’t preview her “Translator’s Note,” which explains her decisions about style and other matters. The introduction includes passages from her translation, so read those and see what you think.
I read the book on Kindle, and it worked well as an epic narrative. Some reviewers object to Wilson’s style because they don’t like how it sounds when read aloud. Sample some excerpts on the page and out loud and see what works for you. Wilson’s translation is grammatically simpler than those in the critical reviewers’ preferred translations, so try comparing those. The style feels somewhat like a Germanic epic to me, which suggests connections to a shared Proto Indo-European style lost to history.
It’s possible that the critical reviewers prefer stuffy translations, and they may prefer them as a matter of English style or as a matter of Homeric Greek (which I don’t read). Read some of the three-star reviews before making a decision. I certainly found this translation a great read.
And so it begins: the finest piece of historical fiction ever written. Was it truth? Was a blind poet/singer/tale spinner named Homer the author of the tale? Or was it strung together from many sources? Does it even matter? All we know is that something kept this story alive from the times of the "Hellens" [the Greeks' name for themselves] and the "barbarians"[ anyone else] to the 21st century. It is often the introduction to poetry and Ancient History in First World classrooms, where students are confused and terrorized by the images it spins.
The story of Odysseus, his bravery, his stupidity, his cunning, his vulnerability; of Telemachus, a sin grown up without a father, simply trying to salvage any kind of life out of the shreds of his fortune the suitors haven't eaten, stolen or used- in any way you want to take it; of Penelope, a wise but vulnerable woman in a world were voth aren't to be trusted. Add the gods and goddesses who use them all in a huge game of chance, and that's the daytime serial called "The Odyssey of Homer". And thanks is a large part to a woman professor who spent years pouring over other translations, this is the most accessible translation out there.
I can't remember when I first read/heard The Odyssey; but I do remember when it first captured me. In a class called "The Bible as Literature" in college we read both the Iliad and the Odyssey in a much more accessible form: a prose version which until probably 5 years ago was still available through Barnes and Noble publishing/ I became enamoured with the soap opera feel of the story and the morality it supported (or didn't). That class gave me my still favorite book, and I have collected/read many riffs on it since in books like Katenzakas' version, Fagles'translation, "Cold Mountain", "Life of Pi", "Graffiti Bridge ", "Ithaca", and others including the book "Circe" from 2019.
This is a much longer review, and more personal than I am wont to right. I hope it reflects both my love of the poetry and story, and my respect for Emily Wilson. I am so glad to finally get this book to add to my collection, for the introduction and maps alone. Highly Recommended 5/5
Top reviews from other countries

I am no classicist, although I have read and studied a good number of classical works in translation. However, I know good poetry when I encounter it, and Wilson's modern, rushing iambic pentameter treatment of the original Archaic Greek dactylic hexameter feels fresh, lyrical, exciting and emotionally tense.
Put simply, this is the best translation of the Odyssey I have read. I don't say this as a Greek scholar, because I am not; I'm just someone who loves good literature. So if you are new to Homer, or haven't picked him up in a while, I recommend buying this translation.
I do hope Emily Wilson has plans to translate the Iliad. I suspect it will be marvellous.


I 've never imagined I would ever read a translated epic, and actually enjoy it more than the original.
Some people are criticising this on grounds of linguistic accuracy, but I am no expert to judge that.
But this FEELS and "SOUNDS" closer to the original, than clunky, φιλολογικές μεταφράσεις του χαμού.
In short this is more than well made, it is actually fun - and I actually bought it to have it my hands rather than reading it in a pdf.

I certainly don't like it, if you riffle through the pages, they fall in clumps, its hard to stop at a specific page. It feels like I have a faulty one that someone cut with scissors; if this is a deliberate design choice it's a poor one.
Anyone else got the paperback who can comment - should I start reading or return this copy ?
The star rating is for the format of the book only, I haven't read it yet and will amend in future for content.


Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 12, 2018
I certainly don't like it, if you riffle through the pages, they fall in clumps, its hard to stop at a specific page. It feels like I have a faulty one that someone cut with scissors; if this is a deliberate design choice it's a poor one.
Anyone else got the paperback who can comment - should I start reading or return this copy ?
The star rating is for the format of the book only, I haven't read it yet and will amend in future for content.



Open up and read. Thoroughly recommended.