A long way home

Until recently, it seemed we were living in an age of Iliads. Since 2007, the ancient Homeric epic has been translated into English at least seven times (including by Caroline Alexander, the first woman to do so). Yet the Iliad’s sequel, the Odyssey — about war’s aftermath, the home front and the difficult return to civilian life — is just as topical. And with its greater emphasis on female characters and different walks of life, it should appeal to a broader audience. Until now, it has not been translated into English by a woman. Does this make a difference? Emily Wilson, in the introduction to her sleek translation, argues that it does.

The poem’s cast of female characters — princesses, queens, slaves, goddesses — along with its vagueness on the technical details of sailing and war, led Samuel Butler to propose, in his brilliant if zany 1887 book The Authoress of the Odyssey, that the epic was written by a woman.