The Iliad: A New Translation

Emily Wilson with Stephanie McCarter

 

Saturday, October 21st | 6:00 pm

Join us for an evening with renowned Classical translator Emily Wilson, for a conversation on her new translation of Homer’s Iliad, the greatest literary landmark of antiquity.

When Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey appeared in 2017—revealing the ancient poem in a contemporary idiom that was “fresh, unpretentious and lean” (Madeline Miller, Washington Post)—critics lauded it as “a revelation” (Susan Chira, New York Times) and “a cultural landmark” (Charlotte Higgins, Guardian) that would forever change how Homer is read in English. Now Wilson has returned with an equally revelatory translation of Homer’s other great epic—the most revered war poem of all time.

The culmination of a decade of intense engagement with antiquity’s most surpassingly beautiful and emotionally complex poetry, Wilson’s Iliad now gives us a complete Homer for our generation.

Wilson will be in conversation with fellow translator Stephanie McCarter.

Event Details:

  • This event is free and open to the public. No registration is required, but we’d appreciate an RSVP over on Facebook!

  • All book festival events, unless otherwise noted, will take place at the Midtown Scholar Bookstore’s main stage.

  • Seating is general admission; first come, first served.

  • A public book signing will immediately follow the discussion. Purchasing an author’s new or previously published book from the Midtown Scholar Bookstore is required for entry to the signing line. (Additional copies of a book, purchased elsewhere, may also be signed if time permits).

About the Speakers:

Emily Wilson is a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She has been named a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome in Renaissance and early modern scholarship, a MacArthur Fellow, and a Guggenheim Fellow. In addition to Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, she has also published translations of Sophocles, Euripides, and Seneca. She lives in Philadelphia.

Stephanie McCarter is Professor of Classical Literature at the University of the South in Sewanee. She has published translated work on Horace and has written for Sewanee Review, Eidolon, Electric Literature and The Millions.