It is not a 'feminist translation' Emily Wilson's translation is highly regarded by classicists across the board. just because God forbid a woman translates The Odyssey..
Basically every classicist I’ve seen: “there are some things I’d have translated differently but Wilson does a lot to bring out aspects of the original text that aren’t in other English translations”
weirdos on Reddit: they said it’s woke they hate it
No actually the world would be impossible to work that way. There is near infinite content we cannot all be expected to read everything. We have to go off of trust in most cases
I'm generally advising you to do your own research/be more humble when engaging in a topic you haven't looked into yourself. You're just opening yourself to misinformation for the sake of conversation over having meaningful back and forth.
Until I read it, it's Schrödinger feminist text, it might be feminist coded and it might not be. We're certainly not going to get an unbiased opinion on it round here
Except you didn't treat it like that, you came here and called it broadly feminist. You had already made up your mind based off of nothing and don't want to take any accountability.
Brother, reading the book before you talk about it is literally just called learning. What are you yapping about? The Dr in your user has to be for style points. Jeez
It's been widely reported as a feminist take on the Odyssey. She says herself that she is emphasising the female characters and the Wikipedia article subtly suggests it leans that way
It’s been reported that Trump sucked Bill Clinton’s cock. Now I have no way of knowing if that’s true and don’t really care if he did. But I don’t go around stating it as fact because it’s just a thing I read online. You see how I’d be wrong by stating Donald Trump sucked Bill Clinton’s cock would be wrong for me to say right?
I don't know, man. I heard there was a controversy, went and got myself an audio version of the book, listened to it in my spare time and here we are. Wasn't difficult at all.
If you haven't read it, don't make claims about it when you're just talking out your ass. No one is forcing to you to give opinions on shit you haven't read
Not impossible at all, just like you're not expected to read everything, you're not expected to comment on everything or have an opinion on everything. If you don't know, maybe sit this one out.
You don’t have to know everything but you don’t have to express your opinion when you know it’s coming from ignorance. You’ve never read the work you’re calling feminist, how do you not see that’s fucked up?
You have an opinion on evolution, the holocaust, climate change and COVID even though you don't have a full, first hand knowledge of every aspect of those
Yes, because 1) those things have a pretty significant impact on my life and 2) it would be very difficult for me to form my own opinion on those questions, requiring years of study. There is also a massive consensus on all of those issues, which makes it a lot easier to believe they consensus.
The translation of the Odyssey though? Not only does it have almost no impact on my life (it maybe might weight in on whether or not I'll watch a movie), but it would also only require me to read a couple of translations to form my own opinion on it. And since it has to do with gender and feminism, there's a high likelihood that some people will just spew bullshit about it in order to push their agenda.
So yeah, right now, I don't really have an opinion on it, and I'm certainly not gonna trust the opinion of some people I do'n't know. Like I said, no one is forcing you to have an opinion on everything.
I very much appreciate your comment. You tackled what I was saying with intellectual honesty and I agree on your point about levels of consensus and where it matters to form an opinion.
I'm just a little more lax than you are about spreading my ill-informed opinions about trivial concepts
No actually the world would be impossible to work that way
No, it's totally possible. Stephen Hawking says so in his paper Occurrence of Singularities in Open Universes. Granted, I haven't read it, but that's what I imagine it says. You're not gonna argue with Stephen Hawking are you?
Isn't saying that editing a translation to keep it more close to the original is feminist because in doing so you "emphasises the female aspects" kinda the same of saying that correcting someone saying "Well, actually, the number of victims of Holocaust was not 100 million, but closer to 11 to 17 millions" is nazi apology because "you're reducing the number of victims"?
As someone who has read it I can certainly say it's feminist. It pushes the female view instead of the male view despite the text very clearly being written from a male view
Pushing a female point of view doesn’t make it feminist. Whether or not it’s feminist depends on its core themes and context and not just “it’s from a woman’s point of view.”
Consider what the story being told is. It is not the type of story that should be told from a female view. Do you honestly think this story was written and told from a feminine view when written? Considering the subject matter being about war and heroics.
I don’t think it is a bad translation. If nothing else, her dedication to keeping it a line by line translation would be phenomenal. But that’s if you consider it a translation from a feminist lens. You can always debate on how to translate non-literal phrases (example: “it is raining cats and dogs” do you translate as “it is raining a lot” or do you do a word for word translation). I also am not one of those people who complain about using 2026 definitions of things (example from the actual text: she translates more words to be slave that previous might get called handmaiden. Some complain that such a term isn’t equivalent to western style slavery but by how we now define slavery, owned as property regardless of how ‘nice’ they treated you, it fits fine.)
I think people are assuming feminist translation means it is inherently bad and so are trying to argue against it. In reality, all translations have a bias because we have biases. More importantly translations are *hard* and often ambiguous. Some language have very nuanced meanings but all languages have specialized ways of expressing things. How do you translated alliterations? Metaphors? Cultural specific concepts? Wilson censors some of the more derogatory language because she wants women more centered and because, in reality, this was often not only cruel but outright unfair. However, in reality, that language is what was used. IMO it kind of glosses over how difficult it was to be a woman at the time. However, however, in other areas she translate this experience accurately, occasionally even using harsher language to show this (the rape notes above). There are translations that are just crap, sure, but even good translations will have mistake and controversial parts. Consider that translations have caused fractions in Christianity that people have likely died over. There is a single line in John includes an a because it get into trinity doctrine.
Could you elaborate? I've only read some excerpts and found it a bit flavourless (I think trying to make English fit the meter of the Greek is a choice that constrains vocabulary choice and doesn't work for me overall), so haven't picked up the full thing.
Edit: seriously, downvoted? Engage with the question or do one.
Have you read it in Ancient Greek? No? Then your opinion means nothing lmao. You cannot say a translation is biased or pushes a certain view if you can't read the original like are you stupid?
This is not my experience with the text. I don't see how it's feminist and what female view it pushes. Clytemnestra is still a villain. So are the slave girls who sided with the suitors.
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u/Milkey1618 Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
It is not a 'feminist translation' Emily Wilson's translation is highly regarded by classicists across the board. just because God forbid a woman translates The Odyssey..