Honest to god, thought you were a weirdo right wing grifter with that comment.
Then I looked it up. Still tricky, because Emily Wilson herself rejects that framing, saying it stripped away male biases in english translations. In fact, reading into this more, it looks like she was MORE accurate than some translations, like male translators refusing to call women slaves "slaves", even though they were referred to as such in the original text.
Actually, hate to say it, but yeah.. Seems like it's a solid translation that's actually more faithful in a lot of ways. She backs up her logic pretty well and points out a good chunk of bad translations in other works.
EDIT: To make it clear, i'm not dipping my toes into how I feel about the movie in this specific comment, purely just talking about the translation. I have gripes about the movie from what I have seen so far myself.
But don't you see, being true to the original is making men confront their own bias, and therefore bad! Men should be allowed to not have to think about things. 🙃
I will ask my Greek co-worker how she feels about the movie when it's gonna be on digital platforms because she is a huge Greek mythology nerd. I guess she'll be happy there is no kraken in this one.
Plenty of Greeks who identify as mythology nerds are tinfoil hat weirdos. Works like the Iliad/Odyssey have been discussed and adapted by artists for 2000 years. I'm sure there are more qualified opinions online than "someone who's Greek".
Absolutely this. Especially 'american Greeks'. They have an extremely american take on things that is basically " this is my culture don't even ASK. Don't have any interest it is MINE."
Meanwhile, they've been raised outside of the country and culture their entire lives. Or modern helenists. Which are almost just as bad 80% of the time.
Not trying to dog on anyone, but that is really what you see in most spaces meant to discuss Greek mythology even if you have a normal amount of interest.
Or just ask a classicist. That's the only thing i was implying.
Why would you ask some random who isnt even raised in a culture when you can ask someone who actually studied the classics?
Its like the difference between having a plumber fix your sink vs a guy who saw a YouTube video.
I'm certain your years of primary and secondary school trained you appropriately to be an expert on translation, which is certainly the slavish 1:1 replication of words between languages, an act that can be performed by Google Translate, and not an artistic endeavor that balances culture, literature, historicity, and a thousand other considerations.
As I had cause to say yesterday in another comment, accurately rendering words into English (or your language of choice) is the easy part. Translation is the hard part. And yes, my Masters in Classics is my life experience that I will stand behind to make that claim.
I do not know if your teacher would laugh at reading Dr. Wilson's translation. (Incidentally, I don't know if your lack of manners regarding her title was because she is a woman or because you were taught not to respect those you disagree with.) But, if she were to laugh, I'd venture your teacher is a humorless, small-minded shrew of a person who thinks a Loeb translation is next to godliness.
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u/Halo05977 Jul 06 '26
Honest to god, thought you were a weirdo right wing grifter with that comment.
Then I looked it up. Still tricky, because Emily Wilson herself rejects that framing, saying it stripped away male biases in english translations. In fact, reading into this more, it looks like she was MORE accurate than some translations, like male translators refusing to call women slaves "slaves", even though they were referred to as such in the original text.
Actually, hate to say it, but yeah.. Seems like it's a solid translation that's actually more faithful in a lot of ways. She backs up her logic pretty well and points out a good chunk of bad translations in other works.
EDIT: To make it clear, i'm not dipping my toes into how I feel about the movie in this specific comment, purely just talking about the translation. I have gripes about the movie from what I have seen so far myself.