A bestselling classicist embarks on a fresh odyssey

Ancient literature is having a moment. Moviegoers are flocking to Christopher Nolan’s cinematic treatment of Homer’s “Odyssey” and translations of the ancient poem are flying off bookstore shelves. British-American classicist, author, and translator Emily Wilson is having a moment of her own. Her celebrated 2017 translation of “The Odyssey,” the first by a woman, inspired Nolan to tackle a screen adaptation of the classic work.Drafting in the slipstream of this cultural juggernaut, Wilson offers a new book, “Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea: Journeys Through Ancient Literature.” Its 14 essays comprise an absorbing investigation into the art of translation, the sheer pleasure of reading the classics, and the insights such reading can bring.In the longest essay, previously unpublished, Wilson gives a close reading to a slew of “Odyssey” translations, from George Chapman, a contemporary of Shakespeare, to Daniel Mendelsohn, whose version was published last year. She praises some, finds others wanting, but acknowledges that there is no one “correct” way to translate a word, a phrase, a sentence, or a passage. Wilson devotes many fascinating pages to various ways that translators have interpreted the opening lines of the fifth book of “The Odyssey” as well as her own, controversial choice of how to interpret a single word in the opening line of the poem.One school of thought believes the translator should be invisible, striving to make the translated work read smoothly and fluently, a comfortable and familiar experience for readers of English-language novels. Opponents hold that this approach creates “a false kind of homogeneity.” They aver that English, a language associated with colonialism and empire, can crowd out other voices. This rival school encourages a “foreignizing” of translation, in which the unfamiliarity of the source language and culture is integrated into the translation, not masked by it. CROSSING THE WINE-DARK SEA: Journeys Through Ancient Literature By Emily Wilson Liveright Publishing Co. 288 pp. Wilson’s approach falls somewhere in the middle. “Difficult, unreadable translations are not inherently more ethical or ideologically superior to more fluent or domesticising ones,” she writes, “and the creation of a more reader-friendly translation does not necessarily imply a desire to appropriate or ‘colonise’ the foreign original.”Some interesting reinventions of ancient literature, Wilson says, have been created by non-classicists, outsiders who have been able to approach the source material with fresh eyes. She has mostly praise for Christopher Logue’s “War Music,” a poetic reimagining of Homer’s “Iliad.” Logue did not know ancient Greek, but worked with existing translations to produce a “powerful achievement” that invites the reader to return to Homeric poetry with a new eye. Similarly, she approvingly mentions Alice Oswald’s “Memorial” and Madeline Miller’s “The Song of Achilles,” two contemporary works inspired by ancient literature. Her essay on Edith Hamilton, whose “Mythology” made her one of the most influential “classicist” of the 20th century, characterizes her work as casually racist and scholarly deficient. Even so, Wilson applauds Hamilton for making classical studies popular and accessible through her vigorous writing style and skill as a storyteller.Wilson leaves the ancient world briefly to remark on the controversy over Han Kang’s novel “The Vegetarian,” which won the International Booker Prize in 2016. While Deborah Smith’s English-language translation was approved by the author and praised by some for its literary quality, many denounced it for playing fast and loose with the Korean language, producing more of a reimagining of Han’s novel than a direct translation.“The literary storm revealed how fraught the entire epic of translation can be,” Wilson writes, “and how little agreement there is about what exactly counts as a good translation.”Most of these essays were previously published, revised, and reworked for this edition. They touch on Aristophanes, Aeschylus, Catullus, Sappho, and other figures from the world of ancient Greek and Roman literature. Boris Johnson, Leonard Cohen, and Bill Clinton also make appearances. They illustrate the many ways in which the ancient and modern worlds intersect.Wilson sees Jeeves, the P.G. Wodehouse character, as the last link to the clever, competent servant, a staple of Roman comedies. She also notes the popularity of Stoicism, “in a watered down form,” among wealthy white men of Wall Street and Silicon Valley, remarking that “Stoicism offers an important example of how contemporary people may claim ideas from Greek and Roman antiquity to serve modern cultural imperatives.” In an essay examining the ribald side of Greek comedy, Wilson connects the “lyrical flow” of Aristophanes with a lewd hip-hop collaboration by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion. She even suggests that present day comedians and other artists could learn a thing or two from Aristophanes in the way his comedies imagined alternatives to the status quo. “Perhaps his memorable comic and poetic artfulness can be an antidote to the dangerous sound bites, falsehoods and simplifications of contemporary political discourse.” Deepen your worldviewwith Monitor Highlights.Politics with respectGet political stories with respectful analysis.There‘s a world of new ideas in everyBooks newsletter.There‘s more to life, enrich yours withCulture & Learning weekly.Follow humanity‘s discoveries withScience & Nature stories in your inbox.Gain a spiritual perspectivefrom the stories in your inbox.Want to understand the deeper impact of critical events? Learn the Monitor‘s insight.Already a subscriber? Log in to hide ads. Wilson notes the extraordinarily rapid changes occurring in the 21st century. The present can feel so different from the past, even just 10 years ago. She is of the hope that readers, both with and without any familiarity with ancient literature, will be inspired to gain perspective on our world today by looking back at ancient times.“A turn back to ancient Greek and Roman cultures reminds us that the crooks and adventurers have always been with us,” she writes. “A turn back to imagine the unimaginable world of antiquity can help us understand and reimagine our own rapidly changing society.” ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER? LoginReal news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.The Christian Science Monitor was founded in 1908 to lift the standard of journalism and uplift humanity. We aim to “speak the truth in love.” Our goal is not to tell you what to think, but to give you the essential knowledge and understanding to come to your own intelligent conclusions. Join us in this mission by subscribing.