New chapter for 'The Odyssey'

Emily Wilson, first woman to translate the ancient epic into English, explains her milestone

There are dozens of translations of “The Odyssey,” the ancient epic poem credited to Homer, yet Emily Wilson’s is the first by a woman into English.

“We should be shocked that the English-speaking world hasn’t had a translation by a woman,” Wilson said during a recent visit to Harvard. “Slightly more women than men get Ph.Ds. in the classics in the U.S., and yet the vast majority of translations that readers read in English for classics are by men. This is an issue, and we should talk about it.”

The British classicist, who teaches at the University of Pennsylvania, gave a lecture earlier this month titled “Translating ‘The Odyssey’: Why and How.”

“It’s very visible to me how misogynistic some of these translations are, and not because they were consciously imposing misogyny, but they had some unconsidered biases,” Wilson said before her talk. “Men are never asked about their gender, and this omission is seriously distorting. It’s very clear gender has an impact on men’s work.”