View original postI'm not going to respond directly about
that film, because in my opinion it is cultural rape from start to finish, whether we talk about full plate armor 2500 years too early, pants about 2000 years too early, Viking long ships, modern slang, casting black women as Greeks (and the most beautiful one, no less - sorry, she is not attractive), and the list goes on. I never thought very much of Nolan as a director. In my opinion, he makes movies so stupid people can feel smart, like
Inception, and movies so stupid people don't have to think, i.e., his idiotic superhero movies. He's no Spielberg, Coppola or Scorsese. He's no Kubrick. He's not even a Wes Anderson.
I guess that's one thing you and Emily Wilson agree on, then.
View original postThe only reason I am responding is because you mentioned Wilson's butchery of the Odyssey and her absolutely idiotic statement that the Sea Peoples were "debunked".
View original post1. The Sea Peoples have not been remotely debunked. The notion that the Sea Peoples were Greeks, or their forebears, has been cast aside, but no one has at any point attempted to refute that they happened, with much violence. They burned Ugarit. They caused the downfall of the Hittite Empire. They fatally compromised Egypt such that it faded in power and never recovered. Those wall scenes of Ramesses III slaughtering massive numbers of people in boats have not been "debunked." The Philistines are likely a remnant of the Sea Peoples. Excavations prove their existence. Wilson is a dumb cunt.
From what I've read elsewhere in the meantime, the 'debunking' comment is referring to the idea that there was a unified, coordinated invasion by a specific group or alliance of groups which caused the downfall/temporary decline of Egypt, Mycene and other leading civilizations, whereas now the consensus would be more that there were various different invasions and groups of raiders, in addition to other non-military factors. Even if that's the case (not quite sure from your reply above if you'd agree with that assessment), 'debunking' indeed seems like a stretch - particularly in the context of the movie, where the references to the Sea Peoples work just as well or even better if it's multiple different aggressors.
View original post2. About Wilson's "translation" of the Odyssey, there are great essays out there that take apart the translation and its flaws. The best one is called "A Coat of Varnish" and attacks the so-called translation well. Another good one is here:
I found the Coat of Varnish one very interesting - according to that review, Wilson's work does have literary merit and the ideological bias isn't all that strong, but the real weakness is how much she oversimplifies and loses nuance. As he puts it, it's a good or even remarkably good translation for certain purposes/audiences ('For young readers, and the casual “Book of the Month Club” type consumer of print, Wilson’s may be the finest Odyssey ever produced.' ), but a bad one for deeper analysis or academic purposes.
If I just take Kuhner at his word on that, the problem isn't so much Wilson's translation project as such (excepting perhaps a few particular choices here and there), as the way it's been promoted as a brilliant new translation and the first in English by a woman and all that, without any such warnings about target audiences or about how its strength in certain regards (like the meter/rhythm) comes at a cost in terms of depth and complexity.
Robertson's article spends some time objecting to the premise of a translation that makes deliberate choices instead of reflecting the translator's worldview more indirectly - he focuses on ideological/bias choices, but according to Kuhner's take, Wilson's choices about meter and language register make a much bigger difference than the ideological ones. I think there should be room for such projects and they can be great if done right (a bit like how many stage, opera and movie directors show us e.g. Shakespeare or Wagner in modern settings or with modernized language - and Shakespeare and his contemporaries did just the same when depicting stories from Antiquity), but I do agree that those choices need to be clear and the people reading/watching such versions need to be aware that they're not the most straightforward translations.
View original postYes, that's the end of the URL. It should work if you cut and paste. I believe that particular review, without realizing it, highlights an example of Wilson just not knowing Greek as well as she claims. She takes πεπνυμενος, the past participle of πεπνυμαι, meaning "to be wise", and accidentally thinks it's the past participle of πινυσκω, which means "to admonish". The reduplication of roots in perfect forms could lead one to conclude that the πε- is a reduplication, leading someone to seek out a verb that starts with πνυ-or πινυ-. I believe Wilson did this, because her mistranslation makes more sense that way (i.e., never attribute to malice what can be easily attributed to incompetence).
View original postEither way, she is a poster child for the lax standards of modern academia and the hyperpoliticization of every aspect of human activity. Her translation is substandard and should not be used except to teach the mentally slow.
