In 1865, she published a translation of Aeschylus’ trilogy The Oresteia, following it with all of his plays in 1873. Swanwick, however, took a more activist approach through her translations and scholarship. While not overtly engaged in the politics of translation, Browning’s poetic works were some of the first to win popular and critical acclaim, showing that it could be possible for women to make a very male-dominated subject their own. She later published a version of Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound (1833) and followed with reflections on Homer throughout her career. For a woman to learn Greek and then translate a classical work was, by its very nature, a radical act.Įlizabeth Barrett (later Browning), who wanted to be a “female Homer,” wrote an epic, The Battle of Marathon, when she was 14. Anna Swanwick, one of the first women to translate Aeschylus, said, “I often longed to assume the costume of a boy in order to learn Latin, Greek, and Mathematics, which were then regarded as essential to a liberal education for boys, but were not thought of for girls.” As the daughter of a wealthy merchant, Swanwick was eventually able to pursue her interests, but many others had to get their education at the margins, most often while assisting male relatives with their studies. At the time, women struggled to acquire the resources to take part in the long, complex process of learning Greek and Latin. As I read the striking opening lines, I could start to place Wilson and her translation into an existing feminist tradition of classical translation that began in the nineteenth century.Ĭlassical translation has been the purview of male scholars for centuries, and it is not until the 19th century that we see a break in the façade of male ownership of the ancient past. Male translators have historically described Odysseus with a variety of obviously heroic attributes Wilson’s “complicated” is a first.

But Wilson’s translation does break with male translators of the Odyssey, beginning in the very first line.

Although classics remains a male-dominated field, women like Marguerite Yourcenar, Monique Wittig, Louise Glück, and Elizabeth Cook have contributed to a growing tradition of women poets, translators, and authors adapting Homer over the past century. It is staggering that such a breakthrough had to wait until 2017, but it is not a complete break with literary history. “Tell me about a complicated man,” opens Emily Wilson’s new translation of Homer’s Odyssey, the first English version by a woman.

Emily wilson the illiad