A Year in Reading: Emily Wilson
One of the big themes of my reading life this year has been the multiple ways a single story can be told—how one version or other can get preserved as “,” and how the narrative can be shifted. In my day-job reading life this year, I’ve spent a lot of time reading and re-reading scholarly books and articles about , as I finished my translation of the , and also prepared forTo me, one of the most interesting themes in contemporary Homeric scholarship is the study of how the Homeric poems use, subordinate, or play with alternative mythical traditions that aren’t part of their own main narrative. In the later part of the year, I’ve spent a lot of time with various books and handbooks surveying the ancient sources for Greek mythology—including the very useful and ‘s two volumes on early Greek myth—as background for writing my own fictionalized retelling of the myths about the Trojan War that are less prominent in Homer.
