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Wednesday, August 05, 2026

5: X

How Emily Wilson’s Takedown of ‘The Odyssey’ Ignited a Debate Wilson, whose 2017 translation of Homer’s Greek classic influenced the director Christopher Nolan, panned his screenplay for the movie version in an essay for The London Review of Books. .......... As Christopher Nolan’s epic “The Odyssey” closes in on $1 billion in ticket sales at the box office, one of the leading translators of the Homeric tale eviscerated the summer blockbuster as a grandiose and superficial movie that strays from classical interpretations. ....... Her 4,000-plus-word takedown of this year’s most-talked-about movie appeared to temporarily crash The LRB’s website and fueled a debate over balancing commercial success with literary authenticity. ......... In 2017, Wilson became the first woman to translate “The Odyssey” from ancient Greek into English, an interpretation widely celebrated in academia and the literary world as comprehensive, modern in sensibilities and faithful to Homer’s nearly 3,000-year-old poem. ............. In her translation of “The Odyssey,” which was published by W.W. Norton & Company, Wilson departed from the masculine framing used by her male predecessors. She has said on several occasions that the decision has subjected her to online harassment and misogyny from men and far-right figures who object to her translation. .......... Wilson is department chairwoman of Classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania and was recognized as a 2019 MacArthur fellow for “bringing classical literature to new audiences in works that convey ancient texts’ relevance to our time.” She has a bachelor’s degree in Classical literature and philosophy from Oxford, a Master of Philosophy in English literature from Oxford and a Ph.D. in Classics and comparative literature from Yale. .......... Five days before the movie “The Odyssey” had its premiere, Wilson, appearing on a July 12 episode of “The Daily,” the podcast of The New York Times, said she was “pumped” to see how the tale played out on the big screen. .......... “I think it’s totally fine and valid for a director to explore his own vision,” she said of Nolan........ But after she saw the movie, the floodgates of criticism opened: Wilson wrote that Nolan’s adaptation lacked many of the elements that made the poem great......... “It has nothing convincing to say about time, memory, history, war, or about the relationship between one warrior’s glorious return and the lives of his family, adversaries, comrades, friends and neighbours,” she wrote. “It lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth. Its narrative structure is gimmicky. The writing is abysmal.” ....... Wilson argued that the movie embraced style over substance......... “It’s a family-friendly audiovisual spectacle, like an elaborate Fourth of July fireworks display — and with about the same level of narrative and emotional depth,” she wrote. .........

“Most of the non-white actors — Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Himesh Patel, Corey Antonio Hawkins, Travis Scott — play versions of the Black best friend, whose only role in the drama is to provide aid to the white protagonist,” she wrote.

............ “In this piece, I regret the paragraph about the uses of the POC actors — who are all great, but IMO under-utilized (and why couldn’t Himesh Patel be Odysseus instead?),” she wrote. “I still think the film largely wastes its strong cast, but I framed it badly.” ................. Among those who have pushed back against Wilson’s criticism and in Nolan’s defense are the novelist Joyce Carol Oates, a retired professor of the humanities at Princeton and a National Book Award winner. ........... “Yes, her tone of dismissal & haughty superiority strike a sour note,” Oates wrote on X. “Rather than disagreeing with interpretations of Homer in a collegial manner, this person, who has benefited enormously from Nolan’s film, speaks in the crude language of MAGA folks attacking someone with ideas that differ from hers.” .............. In an online commentary for Slate, Theo Nash, who has published on the textual history of “The Odyssey,” accused Wilson of using “baffling arguments” to “flay” Nolan’s latest movie. .......... The close attention to the text that informs Wilson’s translation is lacking in her reading of the movie, and the idea that Nolan might have something new to say about ‘The Odyssey’ is denied.”

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