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The Odyssey
Fitzgerald's new Odyssey deserves to be singled out for what it is - a masterpiece. Translated by Robert Fitzgerald.
416 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 801
About the author
Homer
5,274 books7,753 followersHomer (Greek: Όμηρος born c. 8th century BC) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the most revered and influential authors in history.
Homer's Iliad centers on a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles during the last year of the Trojan War. The Odyssey chronicles the ten-year journey of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, back to his home after the fall of Troy. The poems are in Homeric Greek, also known as Epic Greek, a literary language which shows a mixture of features of the Ionic and Aeolic dialects from different centuries; the predominant influence is Eastern Ionic. Most researchers believe that the poems were originally transmitted orally. Despite being predominantly known for its tragic and serious themes, the Homeric poems also contain instances of comedy and laughter.
Homer's epic poems shaped aspects of ancient Greek culture and education, fostering ideals of heroism, glory, and honor. To Plato, Homer was simply the one who "has taught Greece" (τὴν Ἑλλάδα πεπαίδευκεν). In Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, Virgil refers to Homer as "Poet sovereign", king of all poets; in the preface to his translation of the Iliad, Alexander Pope acknowledges that Homer has always been considered the "greatest of poets". From antiquity to the present day, Homeric epics have inspired many famous works of literature, music, art, and film.
The question of by whom, when, where and under what circumstances the Iliad and Odyssey were composed continues to be debated. Scholars remain divided as to whether the two works are the product of a single author. It is thought that the poems were composed at some point around the late eighth or early seventh century BC. Many accounts of Homer's life circulated in classical antiquity; the most widespread account was that he was a blind bard from Ionia, a region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey. Modern scholars consider these accounts legendary.
French: Homère, Italian: Omero, Portuguese, Spanish: Homero.
Homer's Iliad centers on a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles during the last year of the Trojan War. The Odyssey chronicles the ten-year journey of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, back to his home after the fall of Troy. The poems are in Homeric Greek, also known as Epic Greek, a literary language which shows a mixture of features of the Ionic and Aeolic dialects from different centuries; the predominant influence is Eastern Ionic. Most researchers believe that the poems were originally transmitted orally. Despite being predominantly known for its tragic and serious themes, the Homeric poems also contain instances of comedy and laughter.
Homer's epic poems shaped aspects of ancient Greek culture and education, fostering ideals of heroism, glory, and honor. To Plato, Homer was simply the one who "has taught Greece" (τὴν Ἑλλάδα πεπαίδευκεν). In Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, Virgil refers to Homer as "Poet sovereign", king of all poets; in the preface to his translation of the Iliad, Alexander Pope acknowledges that Homer has always been considered the "greatest of poets". From antiquity to the present day, Homeric epics have inspired many famous works of literature, music, art, and film.
The question of by whom, when, where and under what circumstances the Iliad and Odyssey were composed continues to be debated. Scholars remain divided as to whether the two works are the product of a single author. It is thought that the poems were composed at some point around the late eighth or early seventh century BC. Many accounts of Homer's life circulated in classical antiquity; the most widespread account was that he was a blind bard from Ionia, a region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey. Modern scholars consider these accounts legendary.
French: Homère, Italian: Omero, Portuguese, Spanish: Homero.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 488 reviews
May 27, 2025
Everyone should read this translation of The Odyssey. I loved the other version I read, but I understood so many more nuances from this version. She makes it accessible and simple. Odysseus is the craziest main character in the world. He is the worst, but also so powerful. At all times, either he is making things worse for his crew, or his crew is making things worse for him, but I can’t blame the crew because I wouldn’t trust Odysseus either. Love.
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November 30, 2025Just like with the Iliad last month, I read it in three translations simultaneously (one English and two Dutch). And again, it was the play with temporalities that stood out. Odysseus's story unfolds across several time periods simultaneously. For starters, the Odyssey follows the Iliad, literally continuing it, and the Iliad even seems to interject itself into this narrative at regular intervals. Even Odysseus's subsequent adventures, the difficult return, are largely told in retrospect. But not entirely: part of it also takes place in real time, in the present. And finally, both the middle and the end of the epic foreshadow what follows, something not really included in the Odyssey: the prediction that Odyssey will have to leave again.
In an essay appended to Emily Wilson's English translation, Laura Slatkin puts it succinctly: “The Odyssey, as it moves back and forth, gives us the simultaneous perspective of many time-frames: the limitless framework of the gods, the lifetime of Odysseus, the protracted return, the sudden maturation of Telemachus. The narrative sequence of the remainder of the poem, though more strictly chronological, displays a complementary virtuosity of concentration, counterpointing discretion and disclosure in the actions of Odysseus and Penelope until the Odyssey’s ultimate closure is achieved in the crucial convergence of events on a single day.”
Once again, a nonlinear narrative, also temporally. This once again highlights the mastery of the early Greek storytellers. Of course, there's so much to say about this epic attributed to Homer. For a more comprehensive review, see general account on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....
In an essay appended to Emily Wilson's English translation, Laura Slatkin puts it succinctly: “The Odyssey, as it moves back and forth, gives us the simultaneous perspective of many time-frames: the limitless framework of the gods, the lifetime of Odysseus, the protracted return, the sudden maturation of Telemachus. The narrative sequence of the remainder of the poem, though more strictly chronological, displays a complementary virtuosity of concentration, counterpointing discretion and disclosure in the actions of Odysseus and Penelope until the Odyssey’s ultimate closure is achieved in the crucial convergence of events on a single day.”
Once again, a nonlinear narrative, also temporally. This once again highlights the mastery of the early Greek storytellers. Of course, there's so much to say about this epic attributed to Homer. For a more comprehensive review, see general account on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....
July 2, 2021
Obviously one can't attempt to review it but this feeble try, to express the beauty disguised as words, is just to honour the undeniable craft and artiste of a writer so revered.
It is one of the most beautifully composed creation with not a single slump through this adventurous voyage. Odyssey (or Ulysses) as we know, is perfect in his craft and it is surreal how that transcends through Homer's pen as well. Throughout the poem/prose, the writing style and the adventures are very well versed with its protagonist which was something that completely swooned me.
For when you read the Iliad, there's a difference in the tone of the verses as well, which is more textured with its context and its main leads; while Odyssey is intelligent and witty, personifying the tale to its most mesmerising self. Ah, the genius of an immortal artist.
The adventures thus covered are again absolutely perfect, be it the graphic vividness of death or the various legends encountered, be it the extremely cunning Circe, the ruthless Cyclopes, the enchantingly vicious Sirens or the scary lands of Hades.
As Odyssey embarks through this journey back to his home, he brings along a tale full of dread, adventure, violence, love and wit. He is undoubtedly one of the greatest Greek heroes and this tale justifies it even more.
This will stay with me forever.
It is one of the most beautifully composed creation with not a single slump through this adventurous voyage. Odyssey (or Ulysses) as we know, is perfect in his craft and it is surreal how that transcends through Homer's pen as well. Throughout the poem/prose, the writing style and the adventures are very well versed with its protagonist which was something that completely swooned me.
For when you read the Iliad, there's a difference in the tone of the verses as well, which is more textured with its context and its main leads; while Odyssey is intelligent and witty, personifying the tale to its most mesmerising self. Ah, the genius of an immortal artist.
The adventures thus covered are again absolutely perfect, be it the graphic vividness of death or the various legends encountered, be it the extremely cunning Circe, the ruthless Cyclopes, the enchantingly vicious Sirens or the scary lands of Hades.
As Odyssey embarks through this journey back to his home, he brings along a tale full of dread, adventure, violence, love and wit. He is undoubtedly one of the greatest Greek heroes and this tale justifies it even more.
This will stay with me forever.
April 30, 2026
Read this in preparation for the movie this summer. Turns out the cool stories are only a small part of the book and most of it is Tom Holland whining about the guys who are trying to marry his mom.
July 19, 2026
Absolutely magical. Fantastic translation that preserves the vibe of the source material while staying readable. Was supposed to read most of this in 9th grade but am glad to have taken my time the last couple of weeks reading this now. So many interesting themes, great characters, action, etc. I get it now.
May 21, 2026
I read the new translation by Daniel Mendelsohn and loved it. Quite a readable and engaging translation. There are helpful but not excessive notes in the back. The introduction compares his translation with some others to see what is at stake.
I see there is a movie of the Odyssey coming out in July, which I'm looking forward to. And Kathy and I are going to Greece, including maybe a trip to Ithaca, this fall! All you can ask for...
I see there is a movie of the Odyssey coming out in July, which I'm looking forward to. And Kathy and I are going to Greece, including maybe a trip to Ithaca, this fall! All you can ask for...
August 1, 2026
Could it be...Goodreads finally grants each translation of The Odyssey its own entry?! In case I am wrong, this review is for Daniel Mendelsohn's translation.
I first spotted this book in the display window of Oblong Books in Rhinebeck, NY, on vacation, and I can't not buy any new English translation of The Odyssey... almost a year later, I started this in anticipation of the movie (which I mostly enjoyed but it is very much Christopher Nolan's, and not Homer's, The Odyssey). Daniel Mendelsohn has a great review of the movie; I would also suggest reading his review of the movie Troy if you need a laugh.
I thoroughly enjoyed Mendelsohn's intro, translation notes, and end notes, with the following caveat: he spends way too much time critiquing Emily Wilson's translation without acknowledging Wilson's contributions. Perhaps Mendelsohn would have always translated most instances of "slave" as "slave," instead of "servant" like most pre-Wilson translators, but I can't imagine post-Wilson translators going back to "servant." (Peter Green doesn't count, since he was already years-long into his work when Wilson's was published.)
It's true that Wilson, in choosing iambic pentameter and keeping the same number of lines as the original, had to excise some of the subtleties, but boy was it brisk, bold, and readable. Mendelsohn also chose to keep the same number of lines and preserve poetic qualities, but instead strove for something closer to the original dactylic hexameter, allowing for more fidelity as well. Of course, there's only so far any attempt of fidelity will go in translating Ancient Greek to modern English. I do not know Ancient Greek, but still a couple of Mendelsohn's choices stood out to me, like translating μελαγχροιής to "healthy" to describe Odysseus's skin color, instead of black or dark or olive skinned.
Wilson chose to vary the epithets, in part due to spatial constraints, but she also noted that modern readers tend to ignore or glaze over repetitions. Mendelsohn, on the other hand, kept the repetition of the epithets so that readers can appreciate a vital part of the original. When starting Mendelsohn's translation, I found myself agreeing with Wilson, but as I read on, I started to really appreciate Mendelsohn's approach as well. This is why I love when there's a glut of translation options! And I did really enjoy this one. It's rich and full of depth.
I first spotted this book in the display window of Oblong Books in Rhinebeck, NY, on vacation, and I can't not buy any new English translation of The Odyssey... almost a year later, I started this in anticipation of the movie (which I mostly enjoyed but it is very much Christopher Nolan's, and not Homer's, The Odyssey). Daniel Mendelsohn has a great review of the movie; I would also suggest reading his review of the movie Troy if you need a laugh.
I thoroughly enjoyed Mendelsohn's intro, translation notes, and end notes, with the following caveat: he spends way too much time critiquing Emily Wilson's translation without acknowledging Wilson's contributions. Perhaps Mendelsohn would have always translated most instances of "slave" as "slave," instead of "servant" like most pre-Wilson translators, but I can't imagine post-Wilson translators going back to "servant." (Peter Green doesn't count, since he was already years-long into his work when Wilson's was published.)
It's true that Wilson, in choosing iambic pentameter and keeping the same number of lines as the original, had to excise some of the subtleties, but boy was it brisk, bold, and readable. Mendelsohn also chose to keep the same number of lines and preserve poetic qualities, but instead strove for something closer to the original dactylic hexameter, allowing for more fidelity as well. Of course, there's only so far any attempt of fidelity will go in translating Ancient Greek to modern English. I do not know Ancient Greek, but still a couple of Mendelsohn's choices stood out to me, like translating μελαγχροιής to "healthy" to describe Odysseus's skin color, instead of black or dark or olive skinned.
Wilson chose to vary the epithets, in part due to spatial constraints, but she also noted that modern readers tend to ignore or glaze over repetitions. Mendelsohn, on the other hand, kept the repetition of the epithets so that readers can appreciate a vital part of the original. When starting Mendelsohn's translation, I found myself agreeing with Wilson, but as I read on, I started to really appreciate Mendelsohn's approach as well. This is why I love when there's a glut of translation options! And I did really enjoy this one. It's rich and full of depth.
May 15, 2026
How can I not give this 5 stars? Odysseus is a legend! And so is Penelope and Telemachus and the swineherd (who knew about the awesome swineherd!). Like the Iliad, fascinating depiction of loyalty, honor, friendship, revenge, and the interplay between god and man. Except this was much more fun to read than the Iliad.
Also you know I love Jorge Rivera Herran’s EPIC but man oh man did he alter the story a whole lot. The focus of the Odyssey is very different than his adaptation, and it shows the distinction between the ancient era and our modern perspective. Now I’m curious to see how Nolan is gonna spin the story. 👀
Also you know I love Jorge Rivera Herran’s EPIC but man oh man did he alter the story a whole lot. The focus of the Odyssey is very different than his adaptation, and it shows the distinction between the ancient era and our modern perspective. Now I’m curious to see how Nolan is gonna spin the story. 👀
March 1, 2026
2.5 really did not sparkle with me like I had hoped it would.
August 17, 2025
This is a new translation of the epic journey home from war for Odysseus, and the literature archetype for all adventure stories. I listened to this version on audiotape, which is 19 hours of poetry. It’s good if you are on a long trip don’t want to listen to anything that you don’t already know how it ends.
May 27, 2026
Great job Homer. I found the translation very accessible and enjoyed having Claire Danes read it to me. My new favourite hobby is reading one star reviews on a poem that has endured almost 3000 years.
July 3, 2026
The ultimate case of being impossible to overrate. Literature’s most thrilling adventure narrative encoded to its core with civilization-building discoveries and insights on philosophy, poetry, politics, marriage, war, and justice both human and divine. Ideas in IMAX. Frankly Christological. Odysseus is problematic though and we will talk about it
July 6, 2026
(5 stars) The Odyssey is always going to be amazing. Exciting, intense, clever, original. I think this translation captures Odysseus’s cunningness excellently and makes all the characters feel real. This was read to prepare for the movie, and I am SO excited to see how Christopher Nolan tells this story.
July 28, 2026
I absolutely loved this story about a complicated man. I wanted to weep bitterly so many times with the clever man. I appreciated that the reader had to grapple with all the good and bad acts that Odysseus completed. Highly recommend this translation for its use of common vernacular for our current style of language. 🌊🏝️
July 8, 2026
I’ll review this once Emma finishes reading it so that I don’t spoil The Odyssey.
August 3, 2026
My rating from high school still stands. Given that I fell asleep multiple times making my way through this, it's fair to say that this wasn't my fav lol.
September 22, 2025
Dream blunt rotation: Emily Wilson, Jorge Rivera-Herrans, and Madeleine Miller and we’re talking about democratizing the classics!!!!! Absolutely loved this translation by Dr. Wilson — it is clear, it is musical, it is witty and I can appreciate the very specific choice of words she uses and why. The modern, more simple and contemporary language makes the task of reading this classic much less intimidating and much more accessible, which they should be.
As she hints in the introduction, Homer has a great sense of humor and her translation, while serious and with gravitas, showcases this witty humor throughout. Very very thoroughly enjoyed The Odyssey, with the introduction serving as a guiding compass for some of the key themes explored including Xenia/hospitality rules, colonization and early western concepts of what ‘civilized’ and ‘civilization’ entails, meaning of manhood/coming of age, and the role of slaves and social status throughout the story.
Final thought is that if in Nolan’s adaption Odysseus or someone around him isn’t crying and sobbing every other minute, I will consider it an unfaithful adaption.
As she hints in the introduction, Homer has a great sense of humor and her translation, while serious and with gravitas, showcases this witty humor throughout. Very very thoroughly enjoyed The Odyssey, with the introduction serving as a guiding compass for some of the key themes explored including Xenia/hospitality rules, colonization and early western concepts of what ‘civilized’ and ‘civilization’ entails, meaning of manhood/coming of age, and the role of slaves and social status throughout the story.
Final thought is that if in Nolan’s adaption Odysseus or someone around him isn’t crying and sobbing every other minute, I will consider it an unfaithful adaption.
July 12, 2026
I read the Daniel Mendelsohn translation, and enjoyed it and the endnotes provided for context / comprehension. I read this in preparation for the Nolan film coming out this summer. It feels nice to fill in my understanding of this piece of the literary canon, to connect the dots between cultural osmosis and adaptation and allusion and the source material, but I can't say I found the story itself particularly compelling. Among ancient epics, my preference is Beowulf. :)
April 3, 2026
Emily Wilson's translation is so good! Get this one. It's so well crafted, approachable, and comprehensible. We read sections as a class and my high schoolers felt like they understood what was going on. I went ahead and reread the whole thing because I like it.
What surprised me most was when Odysseus went to the Underworld to talk to the prophet and he was worried that he would get in trouble: not with Hades, not with Cerberus, but with "Dread Persephone." When on the sea, he kept looking over his shoulder for trouble from Poseidon's queen, Amphitrite. I don't think Persephone and Amphitrite get enough modern credit for being alarming.
I was also surprised by Telemachus and Penelope's relationship. When Telemachus gets back from his trip and takes his role as man of the house, he flexes it by bossing around his mother!? And she's kind of pleased he's asserting dominance?? This comes across as incredibly rude to a modern sensibility. I found it interesting to compare to the Old Testament, which is roughly contemporaneous (yes yes asterisk). Proverbs, for example, is all about young men learning wisdom, but it's "hear, my son, your father's instruction, and do not forsake the teaching of your mother." There's no claiming authority over her as a rite of passage. It's a different relationship model.
Homer's structure is sophisticated, and it feels similar to a modern novel told through flashbacks. It was originally written for an audience familiar with the Trojan War and journey of Odysseus already, so Homer's priority was not sharing a new story but on how he gets you there. I think it succeeds brilliantly. I would recommend to a first time reader to spend about five minutes looking up the plot structure so you know what's coming and where you are, and then you can just enjoy the ride.
What surprised me most was when Odysseus went to the Underworld to talk to the prophet and he was worried that he would get in trouble: not with Hades, not with Cerberus, but with "Dread Persephone." When on the sea, he kept looking over his shoulder for trouble from Poseidon's queen, Amphitrite. I don't think Persephone and Amphitrite get enough modern credit for being alarming.
I was also surprised by Telemachus and Penelope's relationship. When Telemachus gets back from his trip and takes his role as man of the house, he flexes it by bossing around his mother!? And she's kind of pleased he's asserting dominance?? This comes across as incredibly rude to a modern sensibility. I found it interesting to compare to the Old Testament, which is roughly contemporaneous (yes yes asterisk). Proverbs, for example, is all about young men learning wisdom, but it's "hear, my son, your father's instruction, and do not forsake the teaching of your mother." There's no claiming authority over her as a rite of passage. It's a different relationship model.
Homer's structure is sophisticated, and it feels similar to a modern novel told through flashbacks. It was originally written for an audience familiar with the Trojan War and journey of Odysseus already, so Homer's priority was not sharing a new story but on how he gets you there. I think it succeeds brilliantly. I would recommend to a first time reader to spend about five minutes looking up the plot structure so you know what's coming and where you are, and then you can just enjoy the ride.
July 16, 2026
I love the centrality of the home and hospitality! I'll be returning to this one many times in the future, I hope.
August 7, 2026
What is it about an epic written 3000 years ago that still appeals to people today? We live in a post ideological world, where we have started to question and reject figures and institutions earlier regarded as unassailably heroic, and maybe that is why The Odyssey has resurfaced in the cultural zeitgeist. All the old certainties of the old world order are crumbling before our eyes, much like it is in the aftermath of the Trojan war, and an everyman's journey home allows us to believe, if only for twenty-four chapters, that sometimes the agency of the individual really is enough to overcome insurmountable odds, and to set things right once and for all.
And so it was that in the run-up to the Nolan film's theatrical release, I decided it was high time I read The Odyssey, a book that has languished in my wish-list ever since I heard it being called one of the foundational texts of Western literature. Much has been said about the Emily Wilson translation (especially the fact that it was this much-lauded version that Nolan had decided to base his movie on), but my research also led me to an older translation from 1996 that has enjoyed even more acclaim in critical circles, that of Robert Fagles.
Deciding that this was exactly the kind of "extreme sport" I might enjoy, I decided to read the two translations side by side. This review is a comparison of the two rather than a straightforward breakdown of the Wilson translation, especially since it was in comparing one to the other that my experience of reading The Odyssey was so enriching.
The most important and most telling difference between the two translations is that of style. Pick any passage and you will see that Robert Fagles' translation is, without a doubt, a more grandiloquent, theatrical rendition of the epic, painting Odysseus as an archetypal figure of destiny. Wilson, on the other hand, is much leaner, more colloquial in its use of language, and reads very clean.
Whether one prefers the immersion of older language or the accessibility of modern colloquialisms is a matter of preference. Translators have often used old-fashioned words to make the epic seem old, to put distance, through language, between the then and the now. But the truth is that we are much closer to the old English seen in many translations than that old English is to the ancient Greek - it is a trick used time and again across media in translation to portray antiquity.
Wilson believes that archaic language is anything more than an unnecessary stylistic conceit, and wants her translation to read like a poem. In an attempt to preserve some sense of rhythm from the original, she employs iambic pentameter and restricts herself to the exact same number of lines as Homer, who used dactylic hexameter to give his 12,109 line epic the booming, galloping cadence it was known for. But English as it is spoken today is chock full of monosyllabic words and resists hexameter. Iambic pentameter becomes a much more natural choice - one that requires very little work from the translator herself, because of how naturally English fits into it.
The issue is that, without a rhyming scheme (which would be borderline impossible in this case), the lines tend to read less like poetry and more like prose, with a cadence that is at choppy and abrupt. Moreover, Wilson is forced to make do with only 10 syllables per line where Homer had 12, and there are several words from ancient Greek that have no direct English equivalents. The result is verse that is bare almost to the point of being terse, and unlike Fagles, who allows himself a luxurious 14,000+ lines to get his point across, all poetic fluff in the Wilson translation is excised.
Fagles is not beyond the use of a few contemporary expressions himself; there is a line from his translation that reads, hilariously, "Look at the hams on that old-timer". But it is, on the whole, much more atmospheric, featuring verse that is expansive and grandiose. This verse can also occasionally become languorous in its pacing, bogging down the narrative to accommodate the theatrical vocabulary. There were segments of the poem, especially in the second half, where Fagles' translation moves at a crawl and I yearned for the rapidity of the Wilson translation.
But in many ways Fagles stays more faithful to the original text than Wilson does, as evidenced by the way the two translators approach the recurring epithets, which preserve the mechanical, ritualistic texture of the original where multi-line blocks were repeated every time someone sat down to eat, or every time the day turned over into a new one. These duplications helped the rhapsodes in their memorization of the ~12,100 lines, and gave the audience timely verbal story anchors.
Here, Fagles repeats each epithet and duplication as is, without variation, while Wilson translates these epithets slightly differently each time, depending on the context, using it as an opportunity to explore different semantic shades. It's fairly well done and a good idea, especially since the constant repetitions, while invaluable in keeping an audience consuming the epic aurally from getting lost, can become monotonous on paper. Wilson's variations are a welcome inclusion.
Beyond this, there isn't much else the Fagles translation notably tries to do but give the reader a faithful, accurate translation of the text. But Emily Wilson has approached this work with an agenda in mind, and it's very clear what that agenda is even if you leave the introduction for the end, like I did.
My first clue to this was the way Wilson noticeably uses feminine generic pronouns in places where other authors (including Fagles) use masculine generic pronouns, or the word "one" instead. A good example of this is in book 4, where it reads: "Whoever drinks this mixture from the bowl will shed no tears that day, not even if HER mother or father die" - even though the crowd being addressed in this case is entirely male.
Further clues to Wilson's leanings are not hard to find. Fagles uses the term "your father's wealth", whereas Wilson uses "inheritance" to describe the same thing. While Fagles softens the assault endured by some of the slave women in the Ithacan palace to "ravished", Wilson does not shy away from using "rape".
This is an admirable effort in the right direction, especially since male translators in the past have taken undue liberty inserting their own sexist biases in the text, even adding lines like:
"You sluts - the suitors' whores!" (Fagles, chapter 22), which are completely absent from the original, and from Wilson's edition. Or, to take another example, translating "the girls who had been sleeping with the suitors" (Wilson, book 20) to "the maids who whored in the suitors' beds each night" (Fagles).
But this ultimately becomes a case of "too much of a good thing", with Wilson going completely overboard in her politically progressive linguistic decisions. She makes much of her decision to translate "pachus" (literally, thick) as "muscular" when referring to Penelope's hand in the final chapters, even though the connotation here is clearly one of vigour, not actual size. Fagles does a much neater job, choosing the adjective "steady" to prefix "hand", thereby conveying the full meaning without the awkwardness of confusing the viewer about why Penelope's hand was muscular.
Wilson justifies this choice in her Translator's Note with some half-baked explanation about Penelope's hands being toughened by years at the loom, but it feels more like a knee-jerk overcompensation for the dozens of sexist translations that have either misread the connotation just as poorly or ignored the epithet altogether.
She goes further by pointing out that while other translators have liberally used the word "bitch" when the line is addressed to, or speaks of, a woman, she has opted for "she-dog", or, ridiculously, "bad girl". Her defence is that the word “bitch” carries a modern misogynistic connotation that would be anachronistic in the world of The Odyssey. But this argument has feet of clay, since the job of the translator is not only to convey the meaning of the original work, but also to do it in ways that are fluent, compelling and believable. To that end, the word "bitch" would have been a perfect word to convey the insults of the speaker, but it is at odds with Wilson's ideas.
Even more contentious is Wilson's use of the word "slave" as a catch-all for all the forms of indentured labour in the epic. Her need to "acknowledge the fact and horror of slavery" is one that could have been satisfactorily met by the section on slavery that already exists in the Translator's Note itself, with further emphasis through footnotes which also litter the text. Not only is a great deal of nuance about the types of non-elite servants lost in Wilson's linguistic flattening, but in translating the words for "attendants" and "squires" to "slave" she is making a factual mistake.
It is not the only error of fact she is guilty of - a cursory glance at any of the academic literature analysing her translation will turn up dozens of instances of misattributed speech, skipped lines and mistranslated words.
These kinds of small but overlooked errors are what have completely undermined Wilson's translation among serious academics, most of whom believe that Wilson has only been able to infuse the text with her politics through a distortion of what the Greek text actually says.
Among more casual readers, for whom immersion in the story is of the greatest importance, some of Wilson's semantic choices, like the decision to include modern-day words and phrases like "tote bag", "well-toned", "You must be joking" and "What you say is trash" have a jarring effect that tends to pull one out of the story. It is curious that Wilson has criticized Nolan for the dialogue in his film when her translation is filled with contemporary colloquialisms that feel like they have no business belonging in a 3000-year old epic.
But I suppose that's par for the course when you've been the punching bag in the academic community for years, and you now want to kick on the new kid on the block (Nolan's movie is not a translation, but Wilson undoubtedly derives great joy out of finally finding a piece of media that she thinks she can get everyone to pan even more than her own work). It's quite ironic though that the discourse has now moved on to the unseemly tone of her review rather than the substance of it, with Nolan himself walking away from this one-sided affair completely unscathed.
Whether or not Nolan regrets it, it is clear from the introduction to Wilson's edition that his film has been influenced by this translation in particular. Take, for example, the line:
In the film, Nolan makes the strange decision to portray Helen as the victim of abuse since her return to Sparta, an idea no doubt inspired from the line above.
Another instance of this can be seen from the line:
This again sits very congruently with Nolan's film, where the war on Troy is a pretext for grander designs, Helen being only the excuse.
All notions about Wilson's agendas are vindicated in this introduction, which is decidedly political in its tone, using every opportunity to view the text from the lens of colonialism and feminism (its longest segment is one titled "Goddesses, Wives, Princesses and Slave Girls"). But it doesn't have much to say, beyond pointing out (and, strangely, reproving) the obviously dated moral code of the Homeric age. Take for example this line:
Or the line:
Which she includes only to point out that this is a double standard.
In comparison, the introduction to the Fagles translation is much more academic in flavour and throws much more light on several topics, including 'the Homeric question'. It credits Lord and Parry's pioneering work regarding the question of Homer's literacy, but establishes a solid case that the bard did, in fact, put pen to figurative paper. The reasoning goes that while Homer was the heir to a long, rich tradition of oral poetry - all of which explains the repetitive nature of the epithets, his own creativity in the composition of the poem is not to be understated. And while Homer's forebears might have been illiterate, he did, in fact, write.
On balance, while Wilson's work is interesting to read purely for the manner in which it approaches the business of translation, it is clear to see why the Fagles introduction is the favoured one in classrooms and among enthusiasts. With fewer of his own subjective judgements creeping in, Fagles is more committed to translating The Odyssey as the epic poem we have come to know it as, and his introduction adds something impactful and substantive to the existing literature on the world of Homer. It's not nearly as fast-paced as the Wilson edition, but second- and third-time readers already familiar with the plot will undoubtedly find more to enjoy from the rich translation Fagles offers.
And so it was that in the run-up to the Nolan film's theatrical release, I decided it was high time I read The Odyssey, a book that has languished in my wish-list ever since I heard it being called one of the foundational texts of Western literature. Much has been said about the Emily Wilson translation (especially the fact that it was this much-lauded version that Nolan had decided to base his movie on), but my research also led me to an older translation from 1996 that has enjoyed even more acclaim in critical circles, that of Robert Fagles.
Deciding that this was exactly the kind of "extreme sport" I might enjoy, I decided to read the two translations side by side. This review is a comparison of the two rather than a straightforward breakdown of the Wilson translation, especially since it was in comparing one to the other that my experience of reading The Odyssey was so enriching.
The most important and most telling difference between the two translations is that of style. Pick any passage and you will see that Robert Fagles' translation is, without a doubt, a more grandiloquent, theatrical rendition of the epic, painting Odysseus as an archetypal figure of destiny. Wilson, on the other hand, is much leaner, more colloquial in its use of language, and reads very clean.
Whether one prefers the immersion of older language or the accessibility of modern colloquialisms is a matter of preference. Translators have often used old-fashioned words to make the epic seem old, to put distance, through language, between the then and the now. But the truth is that we are much closer to the old English seen in many translations than that old English is to the ancient Greek - it is a trick used time and again across media in translation to portray antiquity.
Wilson believes that archaic language is anything more than an unnecessary stylistic conceit, and wants her translation to read like a poem. In an attempt to preserve some sense of rhythm from the original, she employs iambic pentameter and restricts herself to the exact same number of lines as Homer, who used dactylic hexameter to give his 12,109 line epic the booming, galloping cadence it was known for. But English as it is spoken today is chock full of monosyllabic words and resists hexameter. Iambic pentameter becomes a much more natural choice - one that requires very little work from the translator herself, because of how naturally English fits into it.
The issue is that, without a rhyming scheme (which would be borderline impossible in this case), the lines tend to read less like poetry and more like prose, with a cadence that is at choppy and abrupt. Moreover, Wilson is forced to make do with only 10 syllables per line where Homer had 12, and there are several words from ancient Greek that have no direct English equivalents. The result is verse that is bare almost to the point of being terse, and unlike Fagles, who allows himself a luxurious 14,000+ lines to get his point across, all poetic fluff in the Wilson translation is excised.
Fagles is not beyond the use of a few contemporary expressions himself; there is a line from his translation that reads, hilariously, "Look at the hams on that old-timer". But it is, on the whole, much more atmospheric, featuring verse that is expansive and grandiose. This verse can also occasionally become languorous in its pacing, bogging down the narrative to accommodate the theatrical vocabulary. There were segments of the poem, especially in the second half, where Fagles' translation moves at a crawl and I yearned for the rapidity of the Wilson translation.
But in many ways Fagles stays more faithful to the original text than Wilson does, as evidenced by the way the two translators approach the recurring epithets, which preserve the mechanical, ritualistic texture of the original where multi-line blocks were repeated every time someone sat down to eat, or every time the day turned over into a new one. These duplications helped the rhapsodes in their memorization of the ~12,100 lines, and gave the audience timely verbal story anchors.
Here, Fagles repeats each epithet and duplication as is, without variation, while Wilson translates these epithets slightly differently each time, depending on the context, using it as an opportunity to explore different semantic shades. It's fairly well done and a good idea, especially since the constant repetitions, while invaluable in keeping an audience consuming the epic aurally from getting lost, can become monotonous on paper. Wilson's variations are a welcome inclusion.
Beyond this, there isn't much else the Fagles translation notably tries to do but give the reader a faithful, accurate translation of the text. But Emily Wilson has approached this work with an agenda in mind, and it's very clear what that agenda is even if you leave the introduction for the end, like I did.
My first clue to this was the way Wilson noticeably uses feminine generic pronouns in places where other authors (including Fagles) use masculine generic pronouns, or the word "one" instead. A good example of this is in book 4, where it reads: "Whoever drinks this mixture from the bowl will shed no tears that day, not even if HER mother or father die" - even though the crowd being addressed in this case is entirely male.
Further clues to Wilson's leanings are not hard to find. Fagles uses the term "your father's wealth", whereas Wilson uses "inheritance" to describe the same thing. While Fagles softens the assault endured by some of the slave women in the Ithacan palace to "ravished", Wilson does not shy away from using "rape".
This is an admirable effort in the right direction, especially since male translators in the past have taken undue liberty inserting their own sexist biases in the text, even adding lines like:
"You sluts - the suitors' whores!" (Fagles, chapter 22), which are completely absent from the original, and from Wilson's edition. Or, to take another example, translating "the girls who had been sleeping with the suitors" (Wilson, book 20) to "the maids who whored in the suitors' beds each night" (Fagles).
But this ultimately becomes a case of "too much of a good thing", with Wilson going completely overboard in her politically progressive linguistic decisions. She makes much of her decision to translate "pachus" (literally, thick) as "muscular" when referring to Penelope's hand in the final chapters, even though the connotation here is clearly one of vigour, not actual size. Fagles does a much neater job, choosing the adjective "steady" to prefix "hand", thereby conveying the full meaning without the awkwardness of confusing the viewer about why Penelope's hand was muscular.
Wilson justifies this choice in her Translator's Note with some half-baked explanation about Penelope's hands being toughened by years at the loom, but it feels more like a knee-jerk overcompensation for the dozens of sexist translations that have either misread the connotation just as poorly or ignored the epithet altogether.
She goes further by pointing out that while other translators have liberally used the word "bitch" when the line is addressed to, or speaks of, a woman, she has opted for "she-dog", or, ridiculously, "bad girl". Her defence is that the word “bitch” carries a modern misogynistic connotation that would be anachronistic in the world of The Odyssey. But this argument has feet of clay, since the job of the translator is not only to convey the meaning of the original work, but also to do it in ways that are fluent, compelling and believable. To that end, the word "bitch" would have been a perfect word to convey the insults of the speaker, but it is at odds with Wilson's ideas.
Even more contentious is Wilson's use of the word "slave" as a catch-all for all the forms of indentured labour in the epic. Her need to "acknowledge the fact and horror of slavery" is one that could have been satisfactorily met by the section on slavery that already exists in the Translator's Note itself, with further emphasis through footnotes which also litter the text. Not only is a great deal of nuance about the types of non-elite servants lost in Wilson's linguistic flattening, but in translating the words for "attendants" and "squires" to "slave" she is making a factual mistake.
It is not the only error of fact she is guilty of - a cursory glance at any of the academic literature analysing her translation will turn up dozens of instances of misattributed speech, skipped lines and mistranslated words.
These kinds of small but overlooked errors are what have completely undermined Wilson's translation among serious academics, most of whom believe that Wilson has only been able to infuse the text with her politics through a distortion of what the Greek text actually says.
Among more casual readers, for whom immersion in the story is of the greatest importance, some of Wilson's semantic choices, like the decision to include modern-day words and phrases like "tote bag", "well-toned", "You must be joking" and "What you say is trash" have a jarring effect that tends to pull one out of the story. It is curious that Wilson has criticized Nolan for the dialogue in his film when her translation is filled with contemporary colloquialisms that feel like they have no business belonging in a 3000-year old epic.
But I suppose that's par for the course when you've been the punching bag in the academic community for years, and you now want to kick on the new kid on the block (Nolan's movie is not a translation, but Wilson undoubtedly derives great joy out of finally finding a piece of media that she thinks she can get everyone to pan even more than her own work). It's quite ironic though that the discourse has now moved on to the unseemly tone of her review rather than the substance of it, with Nolan himself walking away from this one-sided affair completely unscathed.
Whether or not Nolan regrets it, it is clear from the introduction to Wilson's edition that his film has been influenced by this translation in particular. Take, for example, the line:
"Helen and Menelaus seem to have suffered no obvious ill effects from her escapade—beyond the fact that so many people decided to engage in the war and died as a result".
In the film, Nolan makes the strange decision to portray Helen as the victim of abuse since her return to Sparta, an idea no doubt inspired from the line above.
Another instance of this can be seen from the line:
"The affair is not presented as something that she actually desired. In The Odyssey, a much more self-possessed and cheerful Helen declares that the Greeks made war “for the sake of” her face—a formulation that suggests that the woman’s appearance is the men’s supposed motive, but does not imply that it, let alone its owner, can be blamed for their actions."
This again sits very congruently with Nolan's film, where the war on Troy is a pretext for grander designs, Helen being only the excuse.
All notions about Wilson's agendas are vindicated in this introduction, which is decidedly political in its tone, using every opportunity to view the text from the lens of colonialism and feminism (its longest segment is one titled "Goddesses, Wives, Princesses and Slave Girls"). But it doesn't have much to say, beyond pointing out (and, strangely, reproving) the obviously dated moral code of the Homeric age. Take for example this line:
"The relationships of Odysseus with Calypso, Circe, and especially Athena give us glimpses of an alternative to the “normal” mortal world, in which female characters are always less powerful than their male partners."
Or the line:
"Female fidelity is important for maintaining a husband’s sense of honor and control; it is associated with the preservation of a particular wealthy household and the perpetuation of a particular elite family line."
Which she includes only to point out that this is a double standard.
In comparison, the introduction to the Fagles translation is much more academic in flavour and throws much more light on several topics, including 'the Homeric question'. It credits Lord and Parry's pioneering work regarding the question of Homer's literacy, but establishes a solid case that the bard did, in fact, put pen to figurative paper. The reasoning goes that while Homer was the heir to a long, rich tradition of oral poetry - all of which explains the repetitive nature of the epithets, his own creativity in the composition of the poem is not to be understated. And while Homer's forebears might have been illiterate, he did, in fact, write.
On balance, while Wilson's work is interesting to read purely for the manner in which it approaches the business of translation, it is clear to see why the Fagles introduction is the favoured one in classrooms and among enthusiasts. With fewer of his own subjective judgements creeping in, Fagles is more committed to translating The Odyssey as the epic poem we have come to know it as, and his introduction adds something impactful and substantive to the existing literature on the world of Homer. It's not nearly as fast-paced as the Wilson edition, but second- and third-time readers already familiar with the plot will undoubtedly find more to enjoy from the rich translation Fagles offers.
July 16, 2026
Loved this a lot more than the Iliad. The side stories, the structure of how it is told, all the characters, perfect. So excited for the movie.
June 30, 2026
This was such a good story! However, this was my first time reading The Odyssey so I cannot comment on the translation as I have nothing to compare it to.
**I won a copy of this book in a Goodreads Giveaway.**
**I won a copy of this book in a Goodreads Giveaway.**
May 11, 2026
I have been told that people are either Iliad people or Odyssey people, and I am definitely part of the Iliad gang BUT this was still a great read (mainly because of books 9-12 of course!)
Very glad to have read this and this translation is absolutely amazing!
Very glad to have read this and this translation is absolutely amazing!
July 14, 2026
Gave myself 2 weeks to read before the movie comes out this week! Have been disappointed with female characters in Nolan’s films recently and wanted to stop myself from going into seeing the Odyssey with a preconceived distaste for the film.
Did some research (mostly on Reddit) before to decide who’s translation to read and it quickly became clear Emily Wilson is the one for me. Absolutely champion of female story telling and (I think?) first widely respective female translator of Ancient Greek. Such a treat to hear the story through her. She kept it in stanza poem form which I appreciated even further.
Her intro alone talking about the role of the translator, relevancy of translation within cultural context…really good. Worth reading on its own, to be honest!!!!
I’ve since read and watched a bunch about Emily Wilson..big fan.
AS FOR THE STORY
Yeah. It’s obviously a 5/5. It’s got everything, really. War, love, lust, beauty, Mediterranean islands, sea gods, nymphs, Cyclops, princesses, the vast ocean, giants, sorcerers, Zeus, Hades, shipwrecks, the ghost of Achilles and Agenemnon, Argos, family, grandpas, battles, dinners,…idk so much to say. Just really glad to have read this and now extremely excited to see the movie this weekend.
Did some research (mostly on Reddit) before to decide who’s translation to read and it quickly became clear Emily Wilson is the one for me. Absolutely champion of female story telling and (I think?) first widely respective female translator of Ancient Greek. Such a treat to hear the story through her. She kept it in stanza poem form which I appreciated even further.
Her intro alone talking about the role of the translator, relevancy of translation within cultural context…really good. Worth reading on its own, to be honest!!!!
I’ve since read and watched a bunch about Emily Wilson..big fan.
AS FOR THE STORY
Yeah. It’s obviously a 5/5. It’s got everything, really. War, love, lust, beauty, Mediterranean islands, sea gods, nymphs, Cyclops, princesses, the vast ocean, giants, sorcerers, Zeus, Hades, shipwrecks, the ghost of Achilles and Agenemnon, Argos, family, grandpas, battles, dinners,…idk so much to say. Just really glad to have read this and now extremely excited to see the movie this weekend.
July 30, 2026
The new movie of Christopher Nolan just came out, and I bought this one in the livraria lello in Portugal a couple of months ago, so just had to read it!!🐴
Honestly, it took me longer than expected, but it surely was so nice reading it with the impactful scenes of the movie still in mind. Usually I first read the book so I can judge the movie (lol), but actually glad that this time my bf surprised me with movie tickets. I didn't mind the differences between book and film, and really liked the translation of the original text.
It's crazy to think that this document is the second written Western literature we own. Extraordinary to get a glimpse of that unimaginable time, and although it probably never happened and there was no Horse of Troy, still unthinkable how a story can last for centuries.
I decided not to read until the very end - which believe me, is hard for me to do - but read just untill the translator mentioned that some ppl rumoured this page was the 'original' ending, although what came behind it was of Homeric dignity.
Still, i'm just a girl, and the image of Penelope and Odysseus going to bed togethet after 20 years and sleeping in each other's arms, is exactly the vision i want to go to bed to as well. 😌
Honestly, it took me longer than expected, but it surely was so nice reading it with the impactful scenes of the movie still in mind. Usually I first read the book so I can judge the movie (lol), but actually glad that this time my bf surprised me with movie tickets. I didn't mind the differences between book and film, and really liked the translation of the original text.
It's crazy to think that this document is the second written Western literature we own. Extraordinary to get a glimpse of that unimaginable time, and although it probably never happened and there was no Horse of Troy, still unthinkable how a story can last for centuries.
I decided not to read until the very end - which believe me, is hard for me to do - but read just untill the translator mentioned that some ppl rumoured this page was the 'original' ending, although what came behind it was of Homeric dignity.
Still, i'm just a girl, and the image of Penelope and Odysseus going to bed togethet after 20 years and sleeping in each other's arms, is exactly the vision i want to go to bed to as well. 😌
June 7, 2026
This translation is masterful in so many ways...I think it's so much more accessible for young, modern, readers. As with every time I've read or taught, I cried at the same places, I cringed, and I celebrated. And Penelope is a Bad. Ass.
August 25, 2026
“You handsome idiot” - excellent translation, no notes
July 19, 2026
what they say is true, emily wilson’s translation captures and conveys the best of odysseus’ journey. easily digestible and utterly fun (im biased, i love greek mythology)
July 22, 2026
Re-read The Odyssey ahead of watching Nolan’s movie- Emily Wilson’s translation has been praised heavily and I generally found it easy reading, a fluid verse adaptation - I expected more deviation in the language as it was heralded as a marked difference from the male translated versions like Lattimore - Robert Pattinson will make a fine Antinous im sure
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