On Tuesday, Feb. 11, the ¶·Å£ÆåÅÆ University Department of English and J.N. Honors Program attended a lecture with Madeline Miller, author of the New York Times bestselling novels “The Song of Achilles” and “Circe,” and Emily Wilson, translator of the “Odyssey.” As part of the Francis A. McAnaney Humanities Lectures at St. Mary’s College, Miller and Wilson were speakers from a long line of writers, historians and philosophers who have come to visit this Catholic women’s college. Some other notable guests included Margaret Atwood (“The Handmaid’s Tale”), Tara Westover (“Educated”) and poet Tracy K. Smith.
“The Song of Achilles” (2011), Madeline Miller’s debut novel, is an adaptation of the “Iliad” following the Greek mythic hero Achilles in the Trojan War from the perspective of Patroclus. Her sophomore book, “Circe” (2018), focuses on the eponymous goddess’s immortal life as a loose adaptation of the “Odyssey.” Emily Wilson became the first woman to publish an English translation of the “Odyssey” in 2018 and released her second translation of the “Iliad” in 2023.
Wilson took the podium first, illuminating the art of re-translating ancient poetry, through which she works to evoke the strange familiarity of ancient culture within her readers. She compared her style of translation to a chameleon, as she aims to implement the multiplicity of voices throughout the narrative, shifting between characters’ perspectives instead of solely privileging that of Odysseus or Achilles.
Wilson also introduced an understanding of women’s experiences into the ancient texts that hadn’t been previously present. For instance, in “Odyssey” book 22, there is an excerpt where Odysseus slays not only the suitors vying for the throne through Penelope’s hand but the women who accompany them. In this scene, many preceding translators took liberties with the phrasing in a way that condoned Odysseus’ violence as justified. However, Wilson mentioned that while other translators called the women demeaning names such as “sluts” and “creatures,” she honored the original text and simply called them “girls” in her version. In doing so, she presented a translation that avoided villainizing the women while also unveiling the accurate translation of them as non-stigmatized “girls.” In their joint conversation, Wilson expressed her hope to “enable the Madelines [referring to Miller] of the future” to use her translation text to inform their retellings.
Although Madeline Miller joined virtually that night, she connected with the audience just as wholeheartedly as she does through her novels. Her journey with the “Odyssey” and “Iliad” began in early childhood with her mother reading the dense Greek epics as bedtime stories, developing further through her high school Latin teacher who taught her Ancient Greek. As she accessed the poetry in the original languages, Miller was captivated by the human emotions of anger, grief and loss enveloped in these narratives. This interest in ancient mythology intersected with contemporary literary influences, including those of authors Amy Tan, Margaret Atwood and Toni Morrison, culminating in her niche of modern mythological retellings. Yet, Miller noted that the success of “The Song of Achilles” was built on writing that started 10 years earlier during her master’s thesis on the interpretation of Achilles and Patroclus as lovers, which was incidentally, she joked, the exact length of time as the Trojan War in their story.
In her segment, Miller discussed the dilemma between adaptation and faithfulness to the original work. Both of her retellings have diverged from Homer’s canon in subtle ways that propose her narrative as an alternate interpretation. For instance, when Miller constructs Circe’s character, she is struck by her description in the Odyssey of a goddess who is “speaking like a human.” This was the kernel behind Miller’s characterization of Circe as someone who was born among the immortal yet fundamentally longs for human connection. She offers a reimagining of Circe, the goddess who provided the safe haven for Odysseus yet was remembered in myth and cultural consciousness as a villain.
Through their writing and translation, Madeline Miller and Emily Wilson unearth and bring to light perspectives of queer identity, racial dynamics and unjustly maligned women in the “Odyssey” and the “Iliad.” As Miller astutely recognized, these ancient classics have a long history of white supremacy and gatekeeping, but her and Wilson’s works contribute to its increasing accessibility so that we may resonate with and critique it today. Given the lasting popularity of ancient Greek mythology, there seems to be a universal resonance embedded in these tales. Wilson articulated how the “Iliad” addresses themes of rage and war, while the “Odyssey” is a journey of homecoming; yet the “Iliad” ends in homecoming while the “Odyssey” spirals into rage and war, revealing the cyclical nature of these narratives.
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