Back Draft: Emily Wilson
What’s the difference between “trouble” and “disaster”? For someone like Emily Wilson, it can mean everything. Fresh off her highly acclaimed translation of The Odyssey, one of The New York Times’ notable books of 2018, Wilson is now tackling The Iliad. She was kind enough to share a snippet from her work in progress.
Our conversation began with the topic of meter and then quickly found a rhythm of its own. We discussed toxic masculinity, pseudo feminism, and which pronouns are most appropriate for Homer. She explained what lessons we might take from The Iliad, and why the epic remains so compelling to the “emo teenager” in all of us.
—Ben Purkert for Guernica
Guernica: The two drafts are so different!
Emily Wilson: Well, that’s because I went back and forth on the line length while translating. It was so frustrating. I was in a real state of crisis.
Guernica: Why?
: I’d that I used for . With , I managed to preserve the same number of lines as the original while moving from hexameter to pentameter.
