This seems like a good follow-up to our consideration of translation in the Good Soldier Švejk review. This version of Homer kicked up quite a kerfuffle on its publication, both from the Woke Police and from the translation enforcers. But in her translator’s note, Emily Wilson explained exactly what she was after:

In planning to translate the poem into English, my first thoughts were of style. The original is written in a highly rhythmical form of verse. It reads nothing like prose and nothing like any spoken or nonpoetic kinds of discourse. Many modern poets in the Anglo-American tradition write free verse, and modern British and American readers are not usually accustomed to reading long narratives with a regular metrical beat, except for earlier literature like Shakespeare. Most contemporary translators of Homer have not attempted to create anything like a regular line beat, though they often lay out their text as if it were verse. But The Odyssey is a poem, and it needs to have a predictable and distinctive rhythm that can be easily heard when the text is read out loud. The original is in six-footed lines (dactylic hexameters), the conventional meter for archaic Greek narrative verse. I used iambic pentameter, because it is the conventional meter for regular English narrative verse—the rhythm of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, Keats, and plenty of more recent Anglophone poets. I have spent many hours reading aloud, both the Greek original and my own work in progress. Homer’s music is quite different from mine, but my translation sings to its own regular and distinctive beat.

My version is the same length as the original, with exactly the same number of lines. I chose to write within this difficult constraint because any translation without such limitations will tend to be longer than the original, and I wanted a narrative pace that could match its stride to Homer’s nimble gallop. Moreover, in reading the original, one is constantly aware of the rhythms and the units that make up elements of every line, as well as of the ongoing movement of the narrative—like a large, elaborate piece of embroidery made of tiny, still visible stitches. I wanted my translation to mark its own nature as a web of poetic language, with a sentence structure that is, like that of Homer, audibly built up out of smaller units of sense. There is often a notion, especially in the Anglo-American world, that a translation is good insofar as it disguises its own existence as a translation; translations are praised for being “natural.” I hope that my translation is readable and fluent, but that its literary artifice is clearly apparent.

Matthew Arnold famously claimed that translators of Homer must convey four supposedly essential qualities of Homeric style: plainness, simplicity, directness of thought, and nobility. But Homeric style is actually quite often redundant and very often repetitious—not particularly simple or direct. Homer is also very often not “noble”: the language is not colloquial, and it avoids obscenity, but it is not bombastic or grandiloquent. The notion that Homeric epic must be rendered in grand, ornate, rhetorically elevated English has been with us since the time of Alexander Pope. It is past time, I believe, to reject this assumption. Homer’s language is markedly rhythmical, but it is not difficult or ostentatious. The Odyssey relies on coordinated, not subordinated syntax (“and then this, and then this, and then this,” rather than “although this, because of that, when this, which was this, on account of that”). I have frequently aimed for a certain level of simplicity, often using fairly ordinary, straightforward, and readable English. In using language that is largely simple, my goal is not to make Homer sound “primitive,” but to mark the fact that stylistic pomposity is entirely un-Homeric. I also hope to invite readers to respond more actively with the text. Impressive displays of rhetoric and linguistic force are a good way to seem important and invite a particular kind of admiration, but they tend to silence dissent and discourage deeper modes of engagement. A consistently elevated style can make it harder for readers to keep track of what is at stake in the story. My translation is, I hope, recognizable as an epic poem, but it is one that avoids trumpeting its own status with bright, noisy linguistic fireworks, in order to invite a more thoughtful consideration of what the narrative means, and the ways it matters.

My translation is written in a style that echoes the rhythms and phrases of contemporary anglophone speech. It may be tempting to imagine that a translation of a very ancient poem would be somehow better if it used the language of an earlier era. Mild stylistic archaism is often accepted without question in translations of ancient texts and can be presented as if it were a mark of authenticity. But of course, the English of the nineteenth or early twentieth century is no closer to Homeric Greek than the language of today. The use of a noncolloquial or archaizing linguistic register can blind readers to the real, inevitable, and vast gap between the Greek original and any modern translation. My use of contemporary language—rather than the English of a generation or two ago—is meant to remind readers that this text can engage us in a direct way, and also that it is genuinely ancient. My Homer does not speak in your grandparents’ English, since that language is no closer to the wine-dark sea than your own. I have tried to keep to a register that is recognizably speakable and readable, while skirting between the Charybdis of artifice and the Scylla of slang.

All modern translations of ancient texts exist in a time, a place, and a language that are entirely alien from those of the original. All modern translations are equally modern. The question facing translators and their readers is whether to try to disguise this fact, through stylistic tricks such as archaism and an elevated, artificially “literary” register, or to underline it, and thereby encourage readers to be aware that the text exists in two different temporal and spatial moments at once. I have tried to make my translation sound markedly poetic and sometimes linguistically distinctive, even odd. But I have also aimed for a fresh and contemporary register. The shock of encountering an ancient author speaking in largely recognizable language can make him seem more strange, and newly strange. I would like to invite readers to experience a sense of connection to this ancient text, while also recognizing its vast distance from our own place and time. Homer is, and is not, our contemporary.

Given that I, like most of us, can not read Greek, nevermind ancient Greek, I wouldn’t know how to judge how faithful she is to the original text. But she succeeds admirably in rendering the piece understandable and compulsively readable to us moderns. As I look around my shelves, I have several older translations–Fagles, Fitzgerald, etc.--and a few novelizations–Rosemary Sutcliffe’s young adult version, The Wanderings of Odysseus is a particularly good introduction–but this is the one I would henceforth choose.

For a sense of the fluidity/modernity, here’s how she opens the epic:

Tell me about a complicated man.
Muse, tell me how he wandered and was lost
when he had wrecked the holy town of Troy,
and where he went, and who he met, the pain
he suffered in the storms at sea, and how
he worked to save his life and bring his men
back home. He failed to keep them safe; poor fools,
they ate the Sun God’s cattle, and the god
kept them from home. Now goddess, child of Zeus,
tell the old story for our modern times.
Find the beginning.

All the other Greeks
who had survived the brutal sack of Troy
sailed safely home to their own wives—except
this man alone. Calypso, a great goddess,
had trapped him in her cave; she wanted him
to be her husband. When the year rolled round
in which the gods decreed he should go home
to Ithaca, his troubles still went on.
The man was friendless. All the gods took pity,
except Poseidon’s anger never ended
until Odysseus was back at home.
But now the distant Ethiopians,
who live between the sunset and the dawn,
were worshipping the Sea God with a feast,
a hundred cattle and a hundred rams. There sat the god, delighting in his banquet.
The other gods were gathered on Olympus,
in Father Zeus’s palace. He was thinking
of fine, well-born Aegisthus, who was killed
by Agamemnon’s famous son, Orestes.
He told the deathless gods,

“This is absurd,
that mortals blame the gods! They say we cause
their suffering, but they themselves increase it
by folly. So Aegisthus overstepped:
he took the legal wife of Agamemnon,
then killed the husband when he came back home,
although he knew that it would doom them all.
We gods had warned Aegisthus; we sent down
perceptive Hermes, who flashed into sight
and told him not to murder Agamemnon
or court his wife: Orestes would grow up
and come back to his home to take revenge.
Aegisthus would not hear that good advice.
But now his death has paid all debts.”

Athena looked at him steadily and answered, “Father,
he did deserve to die. Bring death to all
who act like him! But I am agonizing
about Odysseus and his bad luck.
For too long he has suffered, with no friends,
sea all around him, sea on every side,
out on an island where a goddess lives,
daughter of fearful Atlas, who holds up
the pillars of the sea and knows its depths—
those pillars keep the heaven and earth apart.
His daughter holds that poor unhappy man
and tries beguiling him with gentle words
to cease all thoughts of Ithaca; but he
longs to see even just the smoke that rises
from his own homeland, and he wants to die.
You do not even care, Olympian!

Remember how he sacrificed to you
on the broad plain of Troy beside his ships?
So why do you dismiss Odysseus?”

“Daughter!” the Cloud God said, “You must be joking,
since how could I forget Odysseus?
He is more sensible than other humans,
and makes more sacrifices to the gods.
But Lord Poseidon rages, unrelenting,
because Odysseus destroyed the eye
of godlike Polyphemus, his own son,
the strongest of the Cyclopes—whose mother,
Thoösa, is a sea nymph, child of Phorcys,
the sea king; and she lay beside Poseidon
inside a hollow cave. So now Poseidon
prevents Odysseus from reaching home,
but does not kill him. Come then, we must plan:
How can he get back home? Poseidon must
give up his anger, since he cannot fight
alone against the will of all the gods.”

Athena’s eyes lit up and she replied,
“Great Father, if the blessed gods at last
will let Odysseus return back home,
then hurry, we must send our messenger,
Hermes, the giant-slayer. He must swoop
down to Ogygia right away and tell
the beautiful Calypso we have formed
a firm decision that Odysseus
has waited long enough. He must go home.
And I will go to Ithaca to rouse
the courage of his son and make him call
a meeting and speak out against the suitors
who kill his flocks of sheep and longhorn cattle
unstoppably. Then I will send him off
to Pylos and to Sparta, to seek news
about his father’s journey home and gain
a noble reputation for himself.”

Ms Wilson drew immediate attention with that “complicated man” and you’ll find plenty of discussion about its suitability, but it seems well supported. And while she denies it was her intent, you can’t help but be amused by the way it summons another epic hero:

Who's the black private dick that's a sex machine to all the chicks?
(Shaft)
You damn right
Who is the man that would risk his neck for his brother man?
(Shaft)
Can you dig it
Who's the cat that won't cop out when there's danger all about?
(Shaft)
Right on
They say this cat Shaft is a bad mother
(shut your mouth)
I'm talkin' 'bout Shaft
(then we can dig it)
He's a complicated man
But no one understands him but his woman
(John Shaft)

    Theme from Shaft (Isaac Hayes)

There are so many echoes there you wish it were a purposeful invocation, but it is enough that it helps us see the Odyssey as timeless.

Making it even more contemporary is a concept she explores in her Introduction: xenia.

Hospitality is important in all human cultures, ancient and modern; in this respect, there is nothing special about archaic Greece. What is distinctive about the customs surrounding hospitality in this culture is that elite men who have entered one another’s homes and have been entertained appropriately are understood to have created a bond of “guest-friendship” (xenia) between their households that will continue into future generations. Guest-friendship is different from philia, the friendship, affection, love, and loyalty that connects a person to his or her family members and neighborhood friends. It is created not by proximity and kinship, but by a set of behaviors that create bonds between people who are geographically distant from each other. Xenia is thus a networking tool that allows for the expansion of Greek power, from the unit of the family to the city-state and then across the Mediterranean world. It is the means by which unrelated elite families can connect to one another as equals, without having to fight for dominance. It is no coincidence that the origin of the Trojan War, the abduction of Menelaus’ wife by his guest, Paris, is presented in Greek literature as an abuse of xenia, since the laws of hospitality are what stave off a world where men kill those who are different from themselves. When xenia is absent or is abused, violence follows.

Xenia acquired an extra importance in the era when Greek men were expanding their world. Travelers, in an era before money, hotels, or public transportation, had to rely on the munificence of strangers to find food and lodging and aid with their onward journey. The Odyssey suggests that it was the responsibility of male householders to offer hospitality of this kind to any visitor, even uninvited guests, strangers, and homeless beggars. Those who traveled to an unfamiliar land used the norms and expectations of xenia to form bonds with people who might otherwise have treated them as too ragged and dirty to deserve a welcome, or as too dangerous to accept into their home. Conversely, the promotion of Greek xenia as a quasiuniversal and quasi-ethical concept can be used as imaginative justification for robbing, killing, enslaving, or colonizing those who are reluctant to welcome a group of possible bandits or pirates into their home. The Odyssey shows us both sides of this complex concept, which hovers in an uneasy space between ethics and etiquette.

The poem’s episodes can be seen as a sequence of case studies in the concept of xenia.

Now, when we were kids, there were cartoon versions of the Odyssey that would be on TV in the afternoon or shown to us in class, and it was sufficient that stuff like escaping the Cyclops or sailing by the Sirens was cool. But here we are given the unifying theme that binds together what might otherwise appear just a string of disconnected adventures and provides a moral spine to the tale. Nor is it just tied to Odysseus himself. The stories of Penelope and Telemachus are, likewise, inextricably linked with the proper behavior of guests and hosts and the treatment of strangers.

In the midst of our current xenophobic eruption, Homer is speaking across centuries to us. And Emily Wilson has given him a voice we recognize, along with the issues he limns.

(Reviewed:14-Aug-25)

Grade: (A+) Orrin C. Judd

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Emily Wilson Links:

    -WIKIPEDIA: Emily Wilson (classicist)
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    -FACULTY PAGE: Emily Wilson: College for Women Class of 1963 Term Professor in the Humanities (University of Pennsylvania)
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    -WIKIPEDIA: Odyssey (Emily Wilson translation)
    -AUTHOR PAGE: Emily Wilson (WW Norton)
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    -INDEX: Emily Wilson (Times Literary Supplement)
    -INDEX: Homer's The Odyssey, translated by Emily Wilson (Good Reads)
    -INDEX: Emily Wilson (LitHub)
    -INDEX: The Odyssey (LitHub)
    -INDEX: Homer (LitHub)
    -INDEX: Emily Wilson (Paris Review)
    -INDEX: Homer (The Guardian)
    -INDEX: Emily Wilson (New Republic)
    -INDEX: Emily Wilson (London Review of Books)
    -INDEX: Emily Wilson (The Atlantic)
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    -VIDEO ARCHIVES: “emily wilson odyssey” (YouTube)
    -VIDEO ARCHIVES: “emily wilson homer” (YouTube)
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    -REVIEW ESSAY: A Trojan Horse Is Supposed to Have Humans Inside It: Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey is full of contradictions about deceit and violence. (Emily Wilson, 8/05/26, The Atlantic)
    -ESSAY: Emily Wilson Explores The Aeneid ’s Influence on the Contemporary Western World: “This ancient epic raises profound, provocative questions that are now more pressing than ever.” (Emily Wilson, September 3, 2025, LitHub)
    -ESSAY: Growing Up with the Odyssey: Emily Wilson’s new translation of the Odyssey appears in our Summer issue. Here, she remembers performing in a child’s production of the Odyssey as a girl in Oxford, England. (Emily Wilson, August 7, 2017, Paris Review)

These versions of the Odyssey taught me that the most interesting things happen in the spaces in between: not in the war or in Ithaca, not in school or at home, but somewhere else. At school, I was lost and homesick; but at home, I often felt equally lost. My parents—an academic and a writer—were busy and distant. My sister and I learned early on that silence was the easiest way to avoid their displeasure. My beloved adaptations of the Odyssey pointed me to the possibility that one might yearn for home without actually wanting to spend much time there. Somewhere else, there was a world of fantasy in which a person with patience, determination, brains, and the right kind of divine help could achieve wonderful things and discover temporary homes—an idea I found enormously comforting. I had already discovered that daydreaming, playing pretend, and books could take me to places where my anxieties melted away. As an introverted child, I wasn’t able to articulate how the Odyssey connected with my deep feelings of unbelonging. I only knew that I felt at home in the world of Odysseus’s wanderings—because it was a story of not being at home.

    --EXCERPT: From Homer’s ‘Odyssey,’ Book I Homer: translated by Emily WilsonIssue 221, Summer 2017, Paris Review)
    -ESSAY: Why I Gave Homer a Contemporary Voice in the Odyssey: Emily Wilson on the Virtues of Hospitality, Now and in the Ancient World (Emily Wilson, December 19, 2017, LitHub)

The word xenos suggests both “stranger,” “foreigner,” “host,” “guest,” and “friend.” The Odyssey suggests that there are particular ways that people should, ideally, treat visitors, which will enable the stranger to become a friend. When a bedraggled stranger in need shows up at your door, you must—before even asking his name—ask him inside, offer him a warm bath and a clean change of clothes, give him food, wine, and a seat by the fire, and let him listen to your resident poet or singer, if you are lucky enough to have one. When the guest tells his story, it may turn out that he is a murderer, in exile from his homeland. It makes no difference. He is a human in need. You offer a comfortable bed for the night, and when the guest is ready to leave, you provide a lavish parting gift, and help with the onward journey—perhaps a pair of mules and a chariot, or a ship, for those who live on an island, or maybe a lift to the airport, as needed. After this initial stay, the two men are understood to be life-long guest-friends (xenoi); the visitor will invite his host to his own home one day, and repay his generosity. This inspiring ideal stands in shaming contrast to the way that strangers in desperate need are often treated in the contemporary world.

But the Odyssey also shows a keen awareness of the limitations of xenia. I deliberately used the male pronoun, “him,” to describe the guest, since in the world evoked or imagined by Homer, only men, and only elite, free men at that, can travel to new places and forge new bonds of friendships with other elite, free men. The only woman in the poem who visits a different household before returning home is Helen of Sparta, also Helen of Troy, whose trip abroad has some bad consequences. If female guests are bad, female hosts are sometimes even worse: they can be monstrous, liable to get the norms of hospitality terrifyingly wrong. Rather than giving the male guest food and drink, they may (like Scylla) eat him, or (like Charybdis) drink him; rather than entertaining him with music for an hour, they may (like the Sirens) entrap him forever. The mortal Penelope tries to be a good host to her husband, when he shows up in disguise; but her son cuts in and sends her upstairs, back to her place, and casts doubt on her ability to perform even the basic tasks of a good host. The Odyssey does not, then, imagine hospitality as a way to break down all social boundaries (between known and unknown peoples, between male and female, or between rich and poor); rather, it provides a very limited social mechanism by which well-born men from different places can connect with one another.

Moreover, even within these constraints, hospitality can go horribly wrong. The suitors barge into Odysseus’ home without asking, and Odysseus responds to his bad guests by being a notably bad host—one who, like the Cyclops Polyphemus, kills his unwelcome visitors. Reading the poem in 2017, we can see how precisely it maps the sensitive gray area between strangers and enemies, and the ways that people define their own identity and their own sense of belonging by connecting with a particular community, and by killing, excluding or silencing those who have supposedly failed to fit in with the “proper” way of life.

    -ESSAY: Found in translation: how women are making the classics their own: Women have long been marginalised in the world of ancient texts, but female scholars and translators are finally having their say (Emily Wilson, 7 Jul 2017, The Guardian)
    -EXCERPT: from 'The Death of Socrates': Introduction: The Man who Drank the Hemlock (Emily Wilson, Nov. 24, 2007, WSJ)
    -ESSAY: A Translator’s Reckoning With the Women of the Odyssey (Emily Wilson, December 8, 2017, The New Yorker)
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    -REVIEW: An Uncomplicated Man: review of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey (Emily Wilson, 7/26/26, London Review of Books)
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    -INTERVIEW: What Do Cardi B and Aristophanes Have in Common? PW Talks with Emily Wilson (Henry Carrigan | Jun 26, 2026, Publishers Weekly)
    -VIDEO DISCUSSION:The Iliad: Emily Wilson, Juliet Stevenson, Tobias Menzies and Edith Hall (London Review of Books, Dec 22, 2023)
    -INTERVIEW: Enduring Epics: Emily Wilson and Madeline Miller on Breathing New Life Into Ancient Classics: The Author of Circe Talks to the Translator of The Iliad (Emily Wilson, September 26, 2023, LitHub)
    -AUDIO LECTURE: Translating the Odyssey Again: How and Why (Emily Wilson, 1/13/19, Key West Literary Seminar)
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    -REVIEW: Flip-flopping: a review of Hesitant Heroes: Private Inhibitions, Cultural Crisis by Theodore Ziolkowski (Emily Wilson, 17 November 2005, LRB)
    -REVIEW: The Secret of Rome’s Success: Mary Beard’s sweeping history is a new read of citizenship in the ancient empire: a review of SPQR (Emily Wilson, December 2015, The Atlantic)
    -REVIEW: So Caucasian : a review of Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer (Emily Wilson, 4/01/04, LRB)
    -REVIEW: I have gorgeous hair: a review of The Complete Works: Handbook, Discourses and Fragments by Epictetus, translated by Robin Waterfield. (Emily Wilson, 6/1/23, LRB)
    -REVIEW ESSAY: Tongue breaks; a review of several books on Sappho Emily Wilson, 8 January 2004, LRB)
    -REVIEW: Ah, how miserable!: a review of The Orestia (Emily Wilson, 8 October 2020, LRB)
    -REVIEW ESSAY:Ave, Jeeves! (Emily Wilson, 21 February 2008, LRB)
    -REVIEW:Punishment by Radish: Four Plays by Aristophanes, translated by Aaron Poochigian (Emily Wilson, 21 October 2021, LRB)
    -ESSAY: The Trouble With Speeches: The Birth of Political Rhetoric in an Ancient Democracy (Emily Wilson, April 27, 2013, New Republic)
    -REVIEW: The Origins of Foreigners: a review of Rethinking the Other in Antiquity by Erich S. Gruen (Emily Wilson, August 24, 2012, New Republic)
    -REVIEW: The Narniad: a review of C.S. Lewis’s Lost Aeneid: Arms and the Exile Edited by A.T. Reyes (Emily Wilson, July 28, 2011, New Republic)
    -REVIEW: Conquests: a review of The Golden Mean by Anabelle Lyon (Emily Wilson, July 19, 2011, New Republic)
    -REVIEW: Slut-Shaming Helen of Troy: If we blame her for the Trojan War, what does it say about us?: review of Helen of Troy: Beauty, Myth, Devastation by Ruby Blondell (Emily Wilson, April 26, 2014, New Republic)
    -REVIEW: Stoicism and Us: Marcus Aurelius: A Life By Frank McLynn & A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William B. Irvine (Emily Wilson, March 17, 2010, New Republic)
    -REVIEW: Behind closed doors: The daughter of Gisèle Pelicot on the family’s ordeal: a review of I’LL NEVER CALL HIM DAD AGAIN: Turning our family trauma of chemical submission into a collective fight, Translated by Stephen Brown (Caroline Darian (Emily Wilson, 3/21/25, TLS)
    -REVIEW: The hour of our death: How we address our final days (Emily Wilson, 4/15/22, TLS)
    -REVIEW: Second selves: Thoughts about parenting in white, affluent America: a review of THE PHILOSOPHICAL PARENT: Asking the hard questions about having and raising children by Jean Kazez (Emily Wilson, 2/02/18, TLS)
    -REVIEW: So many deaths: Colm Tóibín’s retelling of the Oresteia, by way of Shakespeare: a review of HOUSE OF NAMES by Colm Tóibín ( Emily Wilson, 5/19/17, TLS)
    -REVIEW: Torture by word list: What happens when an author becomes a substitute teacher: review of SUBSTITUTE: Going to school with a thousand kids by Nicholson Baker Emily Wilson, 12/09/16, TLS)
    -REVIEW: Web of Rome: How the Romans adopted Greek culture: a review of BEYOND GREEK: The beginnings of Latin literature by Denis Feeney (Emily Wilson, 4/29/16, TLS)
    REVIEW: of WOMEN IN DARK TIMES by .Jacqueline Rose (Emily Wilson, TLS)
    -VIDEO: Emily Wilson: On Gender and Being the First Woman to Translate Homer's Odyssey into English (The Western Canon, 1/04/18)
    -VIDEO LECTURE: Great Writers, Great Readings: Emily Wilson (Hofstra University, Feb 27, 2020)
    -VIDEO: Emily Wilson, The Civil Discourse (Season 1) (The Civil Discourse, Dec 14, 2020 DREXEL UNIVERSITY
    -VIDEO: Emily Wilson — The Iliad (Politics and Prose, Jan 7, 2024)
    -VIDEO LECTURE: Translating the Classics with Emily Wilson: On September 26, the Center for the Core Curriculum hosted Translating the Classics with Emily Wilson for their Coursewide Lecture (Columbia College, 9/26/19)
    -PODCAST: Emily Wilson on The Illiad (Barnes & Noble, Dec 5, 2023 Poured Over)
    -VIDEO LECTURE: Retranslating The Iliad with Emily Wilson (PhilaAthenaeum, Jun 20, 2024
    -VIDEO: Emily Wilson: Reading The Iliad | LIVE from NYPL (The New York Public Library, Apr 30, 2024
    -VIDEO LECTURE: 2025 Distinguished Lecture: Retranslating the Classics with Emily Wilson (Humanities Institute, Apr 1, 2025, ASU)
    -VIDEO LECTURE & READING:The Iliad: Emily Wilson, Juliet Stevenson, Tobias Menzies and Edith Hall (London Review of Books (LRB), Dec 22, 2023)
    -VIDEO: Emily Wilson at the International Poetry Forum (International Poetry Forum, Feb 4, 2025 CARNEGIE MUSIC HALL)
    -VIDEO: Decoding The Homeric Greek of The Iliad with Dr EMILY WILSON (MoAn Inc., May 16, 2024)
    -VIDEO: Emily Wilson | The Iliad: In conversation with Sheila Murnaghan, chair of the classics department at the University of Pennsylvania (Author Events, Sep 27, 2023, Free Library of Philadelphia)
    -PODCAST: Mindscape 297 | Emily Wilson on Homer, Poetry, and Translation (Sean Carroll, Nov 25, 2024 Mindscape Podcast)
    -VIDEO LECTURE: 2019 Hoffman Lecture - Translating the Odyssey Again: How and Why: Given by Emily Wilson, Professor of Classical Studies and Chair of the Program in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory at the University of Pennsylvania. (Dartmouth College, Jan 28, 2019)
    -VIDEO LECTURE: Some Favorite Writers: Emily Wilson (Hammer Museum, Oct 26, 2018
    -PODCAST: Ten Reasons to Read Homer in 2021 (Emily Wilson) (Theodore Hadzi-Antich Jr., Feb 27, 2021)
    -VIDEO: Homer’s The Odyssey translated by Emily Wilson | Hay Festival Book Club AUGUST 2024 (Hay Festival, Aug 28, 2024)
    -VIDEO: Translating The Odyssey: How and Why (The University of Scranton, Dec 18, 2018
    -PODCAST: Emily Wilson on Translations and Language (Ep. 63) (Mercatus Center, Mar 27, 2019, Conversations with Tyler)
    -VIDEO: Translating for a World on Fire : Maria Dahvana Headley (whose new Beowulf has just appeared) and Emily Wilson (translator of The Odyssey, now at work on The Iliad) join Literary Translation at Columbia Director Susan Bernofsky for a far-ranging conversation on the radical practice of making translation a space of resistance and joy. (CUSchooloftheArts, Sep 25, 2020)
    -PODCAST: Episode 185: Ethics in Homer’s “Odyssey” Feat. Translator Emily Wilson (Part One) (Mark Linsenmayer, 3/05/18, The Partially Examined Life)
    -VIDEO: Translating The Odyssey: How and Why (The University of Scranton, Dec 18, 2018
    -VIDEO: Journeying into Homer's Odyssey | Chris Ofili and Emily Wilson | S2, E3 | DIALOGUES (David Zwirner, Jun 7, 2023, DIALOGUES)
    -VIDEO: Meet the translator behind Christopher Nolan's Odyssey (Archaeology with Flint Dibble, Jul 18, 2026)
    -AUDIO: 'Odyssey' translator Emily Wilson says Nolan shouldn't have written the movie himself (Dave Davies, 7/29/26, NPR: Fresh Air)
    -PODCAST: ABC: The Odyssey, Translated By Emily Wilson: Katy Waldman, Parul Seghal, and Meghan O'Rourke discuss Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey by Homer. (Audio Book Club, 12/19/17, Slate)
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    -PROFILE: A ‘celebrity translator’ takes center stage: Emily Wilson, professor of classical studies, is renowned for her English translations of Homer’s ancient Greek epic poems, first ‘The Odyssey’ and now the ‘The Iliad.’ (Louisa Shepard, 1/29/24, Penn Today)
    -INTERVIEW: How Emily Wilson Translated ‘The Odyssey’ (Amy Brady, January 16, 2018, Chicago Review of Books)
    -PROFILE: The First Woman to Ttranslate the Odyssey into English (NY Times Magazine 11/02/17)
    -PROFILE: Historically, men translated the Odyssey. Here’s what happened when a woman took the job.: “Tell me about a complicated man.” So begins Emily Wilson’s new translation, which reveals how the ancient story is relevant today. (Anna North, Nov 20, 2017, Vox)
    -INTERVIEW: ‘The Iliad may be ancient – but it’s not far away’: Emily Wilson on Homer’s blood-soaked epic: Following her acclaimed translation of the Odyssey, Wilson has turned to Homer’s other, darker poem. She explains how she got stuck for six months – and why it speaks to today’s era of conflict (Charlotte Higgins, 9 Sep 2023, The Guardian)
    -PROFILE: How Emily Wilson Made Homer Modern: Her vitally urgent translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey strip away the “tarnish of centuries.” (Judith Thurman, September 11, 2023, The New Yorker)
    -INTERVIEW: Emily Wilson on Porous Boundaries and the World of Homer: Robert Wood interviews Emily Wilson about her translation of Homer’s “Odyssey” and the state of the classics. (Robert Wood, April 2, 2019, LA Review of Books)
    -AUDIO INTERVIEW: The Odyssey: A Conversation with translator, Emily Wilson (Interviewed by New York Times Best Selling Author of “Circe”, Madeline Miller., December 4, 2018, Midtown Scholar Bookstore)
    -PROFILE: Emily Wilson’s Exciting New Take on Homer (Xenia Georgiadou, December 19th, 2023, Greece Is)
    -PROFILE: Our Odyssey: Emily Wilson, Professor of Classical Studies, is the first woman to translate Homer’s classic into English. (Susan Ahlborn, November 6, 2017, Omnia)
    -INTERVIEW: Women Translating the Classics: An Interview with Emily Wilson, Sholeh Wolpé, and Arshia Sattar (Alta L. Price, August 2018, Words Without Borders)
    -INTERVIEW: A Conversation With … Emily Wilson PhD, Contemporary Interpreter of the Iliad, on Listening, Hearing, and Communicating (Seth S Leopold, Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research)
    -INTERVIEW: Why Emily Wilson Is Translating The Odyssey—Again: The scholar discusses her process for modernizing the classic and shares her thoughts on Christopher Nolan’s cinematic adaptation (Maxwell Rabb, Jul 27, 2026, Bazaar)
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    -ESSAY: I’m a Classicist. Were Emily Wilson and I Watching the Same Odyssey Movie?: The celebrated translator used baffling arguments to flay Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s poem. (Theo Nash, July 29, 2026, Slate)
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XENIA
    -ESSAY: Xenophilia: Golden Rule of the Stranger: We may have heard enough about xenophobia, the fear of the stranger. But what of its opposite, the love for a stranger, better known as hospitality? (Matthew Wills, December 1, 2024 JSTOR Daily)
    -REVIEW ESSAY: In a time of xenophobia, displacement and distraction, we need Homer’s ‘Odyssey’ more than ever: Informed by scholarship and family history, Daniel Mendelsohn’s translation is both vital and timely (Robert Zaretsky, July 22, 2025, The Forward)

Odysseus is, by turns, the stranger and the guest, who is driven by nostalgia over the course of his story; he is received unreservedly by some, rejected unreservedly by others. Clearly, this condition as both a guest and a stranger is not limited to Odysseus, but is the lot of countless others over the millennia who, through circumstances beyond their control, have been torn from their homes and find themselves strangers in strange lands, longing for what they loved and lost.

Wilson movingly addresses this condition in the final paragraph of her translator’s note, where, in her words, she asks us to imagine a stranger outside our house, a stranger who is old and ragged and tired, wandering for years and whose name you do not know. And you invite him inside your home. “He may remind you of your husband, your father, or yourself … Let him eat and drink until he is satisfied. Be patient. When he is finished, he will tell his story. Listen carefully. It may not be as you expect.”

It is this same theme that Mendelsohn had already addressed in his earlier books An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic and The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million. The first is his often-moving (and frequently funny) account of a trip he made to Greece with his father who had attended his class on Homer and with whom the son had deep but difficult ties. The second book is an account of Mendelsohn’s effort, spurred by a longing to discover a family and a home — in a word, to find himself — obliterated in the Holocaust.

This same concern and connection with the human condition, one informed by nostos and xenos, infuses Mendelsohn’s translation of Homer’s epic. In his introduction, he devotes several pages to these themes, arguing that the importance of xenia is paramount for Homer and that it is an ethical imperative that keeps surging to the surface of events.

    -REVIEW ESSAY: The Odyssey and the Other: What the epic can teach about encounters with strangers abroad and at home (Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, December 2017, The Atlantic)
    -ESSAY: The Odyssey: Xenia and the Stranger at Your Door: A Discussion About Xenia within The Odyssey (Joab Jackson, 5/16/18)
    -ESSAY: Xenia: the ancient Greek norm of guest-friendship (Interconnected, 2 Nov 2020)
    -ESSAY: Civility, manners, and hospitality in the Odyssey (Alexandra Hudson, November 26, 2024, Classical Pursuits)

I was writing my book The Soul of Civility while reading the Odyssey, and was happily surprised when I realized that manners and civility are the primary theme of the work!

The Odyssey’s driving theme is xenia: each book is a case study in the duties of welcoming strangers into one’s life and one’s home, as the story follows Odysseus as he journeys home to Ithaca and encounters various people of different places and cultures.

Notably, xenia means both stranger and friend, embodying the cliche that a “stranger is just a friend we haven’t met yet.”

I’ve been reflecting on what xenia means for us today, in a moment where we are all-too-familiar with xenophobia—fear of the other, the different, the stranger (a word derived, of course, from xenia).

The easiest, most universal thing in the world is to show benevolence to those to whom we are related, to people we like, to people like us, to people who can do things for us in return.

Xenia is all about the decency with which we treat the “other”—the person who is neither our kin, nor our neighbor, nor our friend, who is not like us, and who very likely will never be able to do anything for us in return.

The Greek ideal of xenia calls upon us to treat such “others” with the same decency we accord to those closest to us. We might describe this high standard of conduct as requiring kindness: literally, treating strangers and visitors with the benevolence with which we would treat our kin.

This is also how I define civility: according to the irreducible respect we owe to everyone by virtue of our shared humanity.

    -ESSAY: Xenia: Refugees, Displaced Persons and Reciprocity (JOHN HARRIS, 10/04/19, Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics)

What has happened to our culture today that strangers to our shores are not welcomed, not given the protection of our laws, and the warmth of our hospitality? What has happened to civilization? Refugees, displaced persons and desperate would-be migrants are treated as creatures of no consequence, no interests, and no rights. Britain—a nation built on migration: Celts, Saxons, Romans, Danes, Normans, Huguenots, Jews, West Indians, Asians from India, Pakistan, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) Singapore, and so many others—has turned its back on contemporary strangers and on ancient values. To understand this tragedy and both the origins and possible solutions to its disastrous effects, we need to start in the bronze age, nearly three thousand years ago, with one of the most complex and human of humans ever imagined, Odysseus of Ithaca.

    -ESSAY: Odysseus at Shabbat Dinner: Hospitality Ethics in Genesis and The Odyssey (Iggrot Ha Ari, May 2022)
    -ESSAY: Lessons on Hospitality from 'The Odyssey' Topics: Culture, History, Heritage, Multiculturalism (This paper was proofread by: Mateusz Brodowicz, July 3, 2024), Aithor
    -ESSAY: Ancient hospitality: Is the Homeric concept of xenia – generosity to strangers – the best tonic for the rise of right-wing populism? (Gabrielle Rifkind and John Harris, 16th July 2019, New Humanist)
    -ESSAY: Significance and Consequences of ‘Xenia’ in The Odyssey (Bradley Farless, 4/01/11, Bradley’s Old Fashioned Weblog)
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    -REVIEW ESSAY: Emily Wilson’s Sack of Homer (Valerie Stivers, September 27, 2023, Compact)
    -ESSAY: Man gets roasted for complaining about Emily Wilson’s translation of ‘The Iliad’ (This amateur critic got dunked on for mansplaining a supposedly ‘woke’ new translation of ‘The Iliad.’ (Gavia Baker-Whitelaw, August 29 2023, Daily Dot)
    -ESSAY: The Resurgence of the Witch’s Tale (A.K. Afferez, November 13, 2018, Ploughshares)
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    -STUDY GUIDE: THe Odyssey (Super Summary)
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    -STUDY GUIDE: Odyssey Summary (Ollie Randall, 3/02/20, Randall Reading)
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    -REVIEW ARCHIVE: Emily Wilson (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW ARCHIVE: The Odyssey (BookMarks)
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    -REVIEW: Light through the Fog: The Odyssey , translated by Peter Green, The Odyssey, translated by Emily Wilson & The Odyssey, translated by Anthony Verity. (Colin Burrow, 26 April 2018, LRB)
    -REVIEW: of Emily Wilson, Homer. The Odyssey (Corinne Pache, Trinity University, San Antonio, Bryn Mawr Classical Review)

Compared with her predecessors’, Wilson’s Odyssey feels more readable, more alive: the diction, with some exceptions discussed below, is straightforward, and the lines are short. The effect is to turn the Odyssey into a quick-paced page turner, an experience I’d never had reading the poem in translation.

    -REVIEW: Emily Wilson sensitively considers The Odyssey’s original poetic purpose and resonance: Not only is this the first English verse translation of the poem by a woman, it is a fluid and immensely readable versification. (Josephine Balmer, 1/21/18, New Statesman)
    -REVIEW: The Odyssey translated by Emily Wilson review – a new cultural landmark: The first version of Homer’s groundbreaking work by a woman will change our understanding of it for ever (Charlotte Higgins, 8 Dec 2017, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW: Emily Wilson's 'Odyssey' Scrapes The Barnacles Off Homer's Hull (Annalisa Quinn, 12/02/17, NPR)
    -REVIEW: The Odyssey and the Other: What the epic can teach about encounters with strangers abroad and at home (Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, December 2017, The Atlantic)
    -REVIEW: The Odyssey (Washington Post)
    -REVIEW: A Version of Homer That Dares to Match Him Line for Line (Gregory Hats, 5/12/17, The New York Times)
    -REVIEW: of The Odyssey (Richard H. Armstrong, Museum Helveticum)
    -REVIEW: Light through the Fog (Colin Burrow, 4/26/18, London Review of Books)
    -REVIEW: The Odyssey (Jason McIntosh, Fog Knife)
    -REVIEW: of The Odyssey (Jenny Doran, Ephemeral Whispering)
    -REVIEW: The Odyssey by Homer (translated by Emily Wilson) (James Whitmore, The Library is Open)
    -REVIEW: of The Odyssey (Madeleine Miller, Washington Post)
    -REVIEW: of The Odyssey (Keyan Bowes)
    -REVIEW: of The Odyssey (Poem Shape)
    -REVIEW: On Reading The Odyssey in 2025: An escape into tears. . . (Jennifer Sears, Apr 14, 2025, Si Omnia Ficta)
    -REVIEW: of The Odyssey, Translated by Emily Wilson (Katharine Sherrer, 2/16/19, Quin News)
    -REVIEW: On First Looking into Wilson’s Homer: A Review of Emily Wilson’s Translation of Homer’s Odyssey,Including a Discussion with the Translator (David Wiley, Originally published in the Rain Taxi Review of Books, Spring 2018, A Certain Slant)
    -REVIEW: Of The Odyssey (Deborah H. Roberts, The Spencer Review)
    -REVIEW: Women Who Weave: Reading Emily Wilson’s Translation of the Odyssey With Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad (Yung In Chae, Nov 16, 2017, Eidolon)
    -REVIEW: HOMER’S ODYSSEY THREE WAYS: RECENT TRANSLATIONS BY VERITY, WILSON, AND GREEN (Richard Whitaker, Acta Classica)
    -REVIEW: The new ‘Iliad’ translation is a genuine page-turner: In her translation of Homer’s classic poem of the Trojan War, Emily Wilson perfectly balances the epic and the everyday (Naoíse Mac Sweeney, September 21, 2023, Washington Post)
    -REVIEW: of The Odyssey translated by Emily Wilson (Doug Merrill, The Frumious Consortium)
    -REVIEW: of The Odfyssey (Cam Campbells Reads)
    -REVIEW: Mother Tongue: Emily Wilson makes Homer modern. (Judith Thurman, September 11, 2023, The New Yorker)
    -REVIEW: An Excess of Xenia: Some Thoughts on the Odyssey (trans. Emily Wilson) (The Bookbinder’s Daughter)
    -REVIEW: of The Odyssey (Transactions with Beauty)
    -REVIEW: of The Odyssey (Tate Standage, Young Poets Network)
    -REVIEW: “The Odyssey” by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson (Patrick T. Reardon, July 28th, 2022)
    -REVIEW: of The Odyssey (Captain Fez)
    -REVIEW: Homer for Scalawags: Emily Wilson’s “Odyssey”: Richard H. Armstrong journeys through Emily Wilson’s new translation of Homer’s “Odyssey.” (Richard H. Armstrong, August 5, 2018, LA Review of Books)
    -REVIEW: of The Odyssey (It’s All Geek to Me)
    -REVIEW: On Coming Home: A Review of Emily Wilson’s Translation of Homer’s Odyssey (Johanna Staplesager, Braving the New World)
    -REVIEW: Emily Wilson's new translation of Homer's 'The Odyssey' (Anndee Hochman, Aug 07, 2018, Broad Street Review)
    -REVIEW: The Odyssey by by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson & The Iliad: A new translation by by Homer, translated by Peter Green (Marguerite Johnson, December 2018, Australian Book Review)
    -REVIEW: Emily Wilson's 'The Odyssey' (Elizabeth Stockdale, Macquarie University, 30/12/2019, AWAWS)
    -REVIEW: of The Odyssey (pace, amore, libri)
    -REVIEW: of The Odyssey (warm days will never cease)
    -REVIEW: The Complicated Radicalism of Emily Wilson’s The Odyssey (Janey Tracey, November 20, 2018, Ploughshares)
    -REVIEW: of The Odyssey (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW: of The Odyssey (shelf by myself)
    -REVIEW: of The Odyssey (argmin gravitas)
    -REVIEW: The Odyssey By Homer, translated by Emily Wilson (Justin Pen, BarNews)
    -REVIEW: of The Odyssey (Siddharth Kannan's Blog)
    -REVIEW: of The Odyssey (Georgia Ellen)
    -REVIEW: Traveling with the Classics: Emily Wilson’s The Odyssey (Robert Wood, February 19, 2018, Singapore Review of Books)
    -REVIEW: of The Odyssey (Writing in Obscurity)
    -REVIEW: Emily Wilson’s translation of Homer’s Odyssey: (A book review by Bob Morris, August 30, 2019)
    -REVIEW: of The Odyssey (for every Helen of Troy)
    -REVIEW: Poetic and revolutionary: why Emily Wilson’s translations of Homer’s epics are my favourite (Molly Seabury, Apr. 23, 2025, The Boar)
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    -REVIEW: of The Iliad by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson review – a bravura feat: Six years on from her translation of the Odyssey, Wilson revels in the clarity and emotional clout of Homer’s battlefield epic (Edith Hall, 27 Sep 2023, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW: Good Jar, Bad Jar: a review of The Illiad, translated by Emily Wilson (Ange Mlinko,11/02/23, LRB)
    -REVIEW: of The Illiad, translated by Emily Wilson (Washington Post)
    -REVIEW: A grand new Iliad translation – and it’s an English triumph: Praise be to Calliope! Emily Wilson’s superb rendering of the Greek epic resounds with Miltonic echoes, and lays the poem’s cruelty bare (Edward N Luttwak, 29 September 2023, The Telegraph)
    -REVIEW: Translator Emily Wilson does not shield the sexism in Greek mythology (Lora Jushchenko ’25, 12/15/23, Mount Holyoke News)
    -REVIEW: How Emily Wilson Reimagined Homer: Her boldly innovative translation of the Iliad is an epic for our time (Emily Greenwood, Yale Review)
    -REVIEW: of The Illiad (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW: What Emily Wilson’s Iliad Misses: Her new translation is inviting to modern readers, but it doesn’t capture the barbaric world of the original. (Graeme Wood, October 2, 2023, The Atlantic)
    -REVIEW: A Review of Emily Wilson's Iliad: How Homeric language might be found or lost in translation. (Mark Buchan, 21 November 2023, In Media Res)
    -REVIEW: Homer Without Heroes (Spencer A. Klavan, Winter 2023, Claremont Review of Books)
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    -REVIEW: Into Extra Time: a review of Mocked with Death: Tragic Overliving from Sophocles to Milton by Emily Wilson (Deborah Steiner, 2/23/06, LRB)
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    -REVIEW: Fratricide, Matricide and the Philosopher: a review of Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero by James Romm & Seneca: A Life by Emily Wilson (Shadi Bartsch, 6/18/15, LRB)
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    -REVIEW: Dying to Make a Point : a review of Death in Ancient Rome by Catharine Edwards & The Death of Socrates: Hero, Villain, Chatterbox, Saint by Emily Wilson (Shadi Bartsch, 15 November 2007, LRB)
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    -REVIEW: Crossing the Wine Dark Sea by Emily Wilson review – a masterclass in translation: The polarising translator of the Odyssey and the Iliad sets out her philosophy in this fascinating collection (Blake Morrison, 26 May 2026, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW: Lost in translation: Attempting to understand the lives and thought of our ancestors can teach us about ourselves (Andy Owen 6/08/26, The Critic)
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Book-related and General Links:


FILM:
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    -PODCAST: The Triumph of ‘The Odyssey,’ and the Christopher Nolan Movie Rankings (The Big Picture, 7/21/26)
    -ESSAY: Who cares if Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey is nothing like the book? (Sam Leith, July 20, 2026, The Spectator)
    -ESSAY: Remythologizing the Myths: Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey and the Fractures in a Secular Age: Notes on Homer, Christopher Nolan, Kevin Vanhoozer, and how the flat world built by a century of demythologizing is generating its own dissatisfaction (Jake Adkins, July 17, 2026, Mere Orthodoxy)
    -ESSAY: The White Guilt of Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey (John Byron Kuhner, July 17, 2026, Compact)
    -ESSAY: The Film That Launched a Thousand Tweets: Nolan's Odyssey has split the internet. Beyond the debate over black Helens and Viking ships lies a deeper question: what becomes of Homer's epic when claimed by a late-stage civilization? (David Boos, Jul 18, 2026, LEO)
    -ESSAY: 10 Greatest Adaptations of 'The Odyssey' To Watch Before Christopher Nolan’s Next Epic (Soniya Hinduja, 7/27/25, MovieWeb)
    -ESSAY: Who is Odysseus, hero of Christopher Nolan’s new epic? (Stephan Blum, July 31, 2025, The Conversation)
    -ESSAY: The perils of adapting Homer’s epic: In remaking Homer's Odyssey for the big screen, Christopher Nolan must reckon with the poem's sheer vastness, as well as the poignancy and power of the human story at its heart. (Armand D'Angour, 8/01/25, Englesberg Ideas)
    -INTERVIEW: ‘At 60, the bulk of your life is lived. What’s left now?’ Ralph Fiennes and Uberto Pasolini on their ripped and radical take on The Odyssey (Tom Shone, 3/28/25, The Guardian)
    -ESSAY: Everyone Should Watch These 6 Amazing Adaptations of 'The Odyssey' Before Christopher Nolan's New Movie (Eddie Possehl, August 2025, Collider)
    -INTERVIEW: “It’s never quite brutal enough for Chris”: The Odyssey cast reveal how they created Christopher Nolan’s epic adventure: Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway and fellow cast members get to the heart of their blockbuster Greek myth adaptation, while the director explains why it had to be made the way it was. (Lou Thomas, 16 July 2026, BFI)
    -ESSAY: Christopher Nolan and ‘The Odyssey’ Were Bound to Cross Timelines: The director has been using nonlinear narrative structures straight from Homer’s epic throughout his career. Now he’s applying them to serve his own version of the tale. ( Daniel Chin, July 23, 2026, The Ringer)
    -ESSAY: The Grift at the Gate: The Grift Industrial Complex targeted Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey—and got buried. (Giancarlo Sopo, 23 Jul 2026, Quillette)
    -INTERVIEW: ‘At times I felt I’d bitten off more than I could chew’: Christopher Nolan on sweeping the Oscars, making The Odyssey – and getting a puppy (Tom Shone, 17 Jul 2026, The Guardian)
    -INTERVIEW: Christopher Nolan on the Sheer Feat of Filming ‘The Odyssey’: He and the cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema combined new inventions (like fire-mimicking lights they developed) with century-old techniques: “I called up my friends at IMAX,” Christopher Nolan said. “I couldn’t tell them what the movie was yet, but I said if ever we were going to do a film all in IMAX, this is the one.(Melena Ryzik, July 17, 2026, NY Times)
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    -FILM REVIEW: Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Return’ on Paramount+, an Authentic Interpretation of Homer’s ‘Odyssey’ Starring an Absurdly Ripped Ralph Fiennes (John Serba, April 22, 2025, Decider)
    -FILM REVIEW: Epic Failure: Many of the people involved in Uberto Pasolini’s new screen adaptation of Homer’s ‘Odyssey’ are intimidatingly talented. It’s a pity, then, that the film is such a disaster. (Jaspreet Singh Boparai, 29 Apr 2025, Quillette)
    -REVIEW: Odysseus, Trauma and Identity in Homer and Pasolini’s The Return (Jan Parker, May 2025, Antigone)
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    -PODCAST: What Translator Emily Wilson Thinks of Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey (Plain English with Derek Thompson, Jul 22, 2026)
    -ESSAY: Are the blockbusters of Christopher Nolan the greatest artworks of our time?: With 'The Odyssey', the director has not only made the film of the summer but perhaps that which best captures the anxieties of the 2020s. (Will Hosie, 7/22/26, Country Life)
    -ESSAY: Can Director Christopher Nolan’s Midas Touch Work Its Magic on Homer’s Odyssey?: This summer, Nolan's $250 million reboot of the ancient Greek epic marches into movie theaters throughout the world. Will his Bronze Age blockbuster strike box-office gold? (Thom Delapa, 7/06/26, The Collector)
    -ESSAY: Who’s Who in The Odyssey Cast: Every Actor and the Mythological Character They Play: A cast guide for everyone who kind of remembers reading The Odyssey in school but also not really (Matthew Byrd, July 9, 2026, ReacTor)
    -ESSAY: ‘The Odyssey’: What Academics Are Saying About Christopher Nolan’s Epic (Antonio Ferme, 7/18/26, Variety)
    -ESSAY: When Homer Meets Hollywood: Modern filmmakers struggle to retell ancient stories without sanding away the very qualities that made them timeless. (Aubrey Harris, July 22, 2026, American Spectator)
    -ESSAY: Was There Ever an Original Version of ‘The Odyssey,’ and Do We Need to Worry About What Homer Would Think?: The earliest surviving fragments of the epic poem—the subject of Christopher Nolan’s latest Hollywood blockbuster—date back more than 2,000 years. But oral storytelling about a hero named Odysseus is much older (Ellen Wexler, July 17, 2026, Smithsonian)
    -ESSAY: The Oldest Tradition in Art: Christopher Nolan's Odyssey, shot entirely on IMAX cameras, is the newest chapter in an old story: technological innovation creating new forms of art. (Claire Lehmann, 21 Jul 2026, Quillette)
    -ESSAY: Christopher Nolan vs. the Chuds : Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey is a massive hit — and nearly everyone on the Right, from Elon Musk to the Daily Wire, is furious. Because what 21st-century conservatives really want is a profound cheapening of the Western civilization they claim to revere. (Matt McManus, 7/22/26, Jacobin)
    -INTERVIEWS: I’m a Classics Professor. This Is What I Really Think of ‘The Odyssey’: They study “The Odyssey” for a living at a time when people are living for “The Odyssey.” (Elena Nicolaou, 7/21/26, Today)
    -ESSAY: Let This Be the Final Word on Culture War Feuding (Sharon Waxman, 7/22/26, NY Times)
    -ESSAY: Why Conservatives Are Losing Their War Against The Odyssey: Christoper Nolan’s epic film is enlightened, not woke. (Paul Glastris, July 22, 2026, Wasshington Monthly)
    -AUDIO: How to keep an ancient text interesting to students? Make it a summer blockbuster (Sequoia Carrillo, July 23, 2026, NPR: All Things Considered)
    -ESSAY: Listen to Ludwig Göransson’s Score for The Odyssey (Jordan Raup, July 17, 2026, The Film Stage)
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    -PODCAST: ‘The Odyssey’ Is Massive and Magnificent (The Big Picture, July 16, 2026)
    -FILM REVIEW: The Odyssey Review: Christopher Nolan’s Journey of Perpetual, Enervating Awe (Nick Newman, July 15, 2026, Film Stage)
    -FILM REVIEW: The Odyssey review – Nolan goes god-tier with breathtaking epic of men, monsters and moral metamorphosis: Doing full justice to the Homeric legend, Christopher Nolan amasses an epic cast to convey the true cost of war with film-making of thrilling ambition (Peter Bradshaw, 15 Jul 2026, The Guardian)
    -FILM REVIEW: A classicist’s verdict on Nolan’s Odyssey: a soulful hero flatters our times as women and nuance pushed overboard (Dr Emily Hauser, 7/15/26, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW: ‘The Odyssey’ Review: Christopher Nolan Defies the Gods with a Staggering Epic About Fate, Family, and the Future of Living in a Broken World: Thanks to a career-defining performance by Matt Damon, Christopher Nolan's biggest film so far is also one of his best. (David Ehrlich, July 15, 2026, IndieWire)
    -REVIEW: An Odyssey Deserving of the Biggest Screen Possible: Christopher Nolan successfully brings the epic into the IMAX era. (David Sims, 7/16/26, The Atlantic)
    -REVIEW: Nolan’s gorgeous ‘Odyssey’ makes the controversies evaporate: Homer asks: How should this story be told? Here’s the version for our times. (Spencer A. Klavan, 7/16/26, Washington Post)
    -REVIEW: ‘The Odyssey’ Review: In Christopher Nolan’s Vast, Thrilling, Slightly Aloof Epic, Homer Is Where the Heart Is Not: There's nary a dull moment in the director's typically muscular, temporally complex interpretation, but despite a fine, bone-weary turn from Matt Damon as the wandering king of Ithaca, it's more sensually than emotionally felt. (Guy Lodge, 7/16/26, Variety)
    -REVIEW: The Odyssey: After victory in the Trojan War, Odysseus (Matt Damon) spends years struggling to return home to his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and son Telemachus (Tom Holland). Will the gods allow it? (John Nugent, 15th July 2026, Empire)
    -REVIEW: ‘The Odyssey’ Review – Christopher Nolan’s Greek Epic is Incredibly Haunting and Relevant (Andrew J. Salazar, July 15, 2026, Discussing Film)
    -REVIEW: Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” Leaves the Gods in the Outtakes: The director’s Homer adaptation presents a modern, relatable Odysseus, rather than trying to understand the ancient world on its own terms. (Richard Brody, July 15, 2026, The New Yorker)
    -REVIEW: ‘The Odyssey’ will overwhelm you — and not only with spectacle: Christopher Nolan proves epic-scale, old-school Hollywood blockbusters aren’t gone yet. (Will Leitch, 7/16/26, Washington Post)
    -REVIEW: Thrilling but uneven, 'The Odyssey' is a homecoming for Christopher Nolan (Justin Chang, 7/16/26, NPR)
    -REVIEW: The Odyssey review – a magnificent feat of storytelling (Hannah Strong, 7/15/26, Little White Lies)
    -REVIEW: ‘The Odyssey’ Review: Christopher Nolan’s Aptly Epic Adventure (Kyle Smith, July 15, 2026, WSJ)
    -REVIEW: 'The Odyssey' is the epic only Christopher Nolan could make — and thank Zeus he did (Glen Weldon, 7/17/26, NPR: Pop Culture Happy Hour)
    -REVIEW: ‘The Odyssey’ Review: Christopher Nolan Brilliantly Deconstructs Homer’s Epic: By the end, the film’s critiques build to a significant revision of the myth of the Trojan War. (Jake Cole, July 15, 2026, Slant)
    -REVIEW: ‘The Odyssey’ Review: The concluding epic in Christopher Nolan’s Death Drive trilogy. (Sonny Bunch, Jul 15, 2026, The Bulwark)
    -REVIEW: ‘The Odyssey’ Is Almost as Wondrous as You Wish It to Be (Germain Lussier, July 15, 2026, Gizmodo)
    -REVIEW: ‘The Odyssey’ Review: Passion in Every Frame: Few directors close the divide between the art film and the blockbuster like Christopher Nolan. (Manohla Dargis, July 15, 2026, NY Times)
    -REVIEW ESSAY: Christopher Nolan’s Worlds Keep Getting Bigger: The meticulous director’s ‘Odyssey’ adaptation is grand and beautiful, even if it reeks of effort (Adam Nayman, July 17, 2026, The Ringer)
    -REVIEW: Nolan's Odyssey (Titus Techera, Jul 17, 2026, PostModernConservative)
    -REVIEW: Artful Weaving: The most authentic thing about Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey is its densely braided narrative, but its tormented hero sounds like the heroes of Christopher Nolan movies. (Daniel Mendelsohn, July 17, 2026, NYRB)
    -VIDEO REVIEW: Mark Kermode reviews The Odyssey (Kermode and Mayo's Take, Jul 16, 2026)
    -REVIEW: ‘The Odyssey’: Is Christopher Nolan’s Homeric midrash the best adaptation of a great literary work in movie history? (John Podhoretz, July 20, 2026, Washington Free Beacon)
    -REVIEW: Tell me about a complicated film: Not a woke disaster, not a masterpiece: our guest author on why Nolan's much-hated Odyssey may be closer to the heart of Homer's hero than its critics think. (Bartzissey, Jul 21, 2026, LEO)
    -REVIEW: Nolan's Odyssey: I'm In The Mood/For Dancing/Romancing (Adam Roberts, Jul 20, 2026, Substack-ships On Fire, Off The Shoulder Of Orion)
    -REVIEW: Christopher Nolan’s ‘Odyssey’: Epic for Our Times or Epic Failure?: (Mostly) Pro: When you spend enough time adapting a masterwork, it adapts you—whether or not you intended it to (Liel Leibovitz, July 20, 2026, Tablet)
    -REVIEW: Apocalypse Troy: Nolan’s Odyssey and the End of Civilization (Theodore Nash, 7/21/26, Antigone)
    -REVIEW: Misunderstanding the Odyssey: Nolan’s Odyssey is neither Homer’s material nor a modern morality play. (Sumantra Maitra, Jul 22, 2026, American Conservative)
    -REVIEW: Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey reveals a darker, less triumphant heroism (Pantelis Michelakis, July 22, 2026, The Conversation)
    -REVIEW: Robert Henderson What Christopher Nolan Couldn’t Bring Himself to Do: A blockbuster can’t afford to depict a hero from whom audiences recoil. Nolan needs his Greek warrior to be one of us. (Robert Henderson, 7/20/26, Daily Wire)
    -REVIEW: Is Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey faithful to Homer? (Professor Armand D’Angour, 7/20/26, Oxford University)
    -REVIEW: Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey' demands we consider the cost of war Culture (Emma Cieslik, 7/22/26, National Catholic Reporter)
    -REVIEW: I’ve been reading The Odyssey my whole life. Nolan’s film version is exhilarating – but not perfect (Anthony Morris, July 16, 2026, The Conversation)
    -REVIEW: Hit and myth: Christopher Nolan’s high-stakes version of The Odyssey strikes some targets but avoids others (Philippa Hawker, Cinema 24 July 2026, Inside Story)
    -PODCAST: Nolan, Odyssey podcast (Titus Techera, Jul 25, 2026, PostModern Conservative)
    -REVIEW: A Darkly Beautiful, Almost Epic Masterpiece of The Odyssey (Paul Krause, 7/18/26, Voegelin View)
    -REVIEW: Cutting Homer Down to Size: Nolan’s Odyssey (Elijah Weaver, 7/20/26, Voegelin View)
    -REVIEW: Nolan’s Odyssey Is a Gripping Kind of Downer: There goes the Bronza Age (C.T. May, 7/22/26, splice today)
    -REVIEW: The Odyssey review: Christopher Nolan turns Homer’s epic poem into movie magic: The film’s three tense hours elapse with the speed of a riptide (John Nathan, July 22, 2026, The Jewish Chronicle)
    -REVIEW: We Are the Marauders: Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey is an anti-war epic with a warning about the perils of xenophobia. (John Feffer, July 29, 2026, Foreign Policy in Focus)
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