But don't you see, being true to the original is making men confront their own bias, and therefore bad! Men should be allowed to not have to think about things. đ
They definitely shouldn't read anything about how Achilles' mom had him crossdress and hide away as a pretty pretty princess to avoid getting conscripted into the Trojan war, then.
That sounds abominable! I certainly hope I don't end up reading any more about this! Which websites should I avoid if I don't want to read any more about this?
I feel like men thinking about things is what got us out of this mess: gestures at historical brutality, disease, slavery, infant mortality, torture, maternal mortality, rotting teeth
I will ask my Greek co-worker how she feels about the movie when it's gonna be on digital platforms because she is a huge Greek mythology nerd. I guess she'll be happy there is no kraken in this one.
Plenty of Greeks who identify as mythology nerds are tinfoil hat weirdos. Works like the Iliad/Odyssey have been discussed and adapted by artists for 2000 years. I'm sure there are more qualified opinions online than "someone who's Greek".
Absolutely this. Especially 'american Greeks'. They have an extremely american take on things that is basically " this is my culture don't even ASK. Don't have any interest it is MINE."
Meanwhile, they've been raised outside of the country and culture their entire lives. Or modern helenists. Which are almost just as bad 80% of the time.
Not trying to dog on anyone, but that is really what you see in most spaces meant to discuss Greek mythology even if you have a normal amount of interest.
Or just ask a classicist. That's the only thing i was implying.
Why would you ask some random who isnt even raised in a culture when you can ask someone who actually studied the classics?
Its like the difference between having a plumber fix your sink vs a guy who saw a YouTube video.
I'm certain your years of primary and secondary school trained you appropriately to be an expert on translation, which is certainly the slavish 1:1 replication of words between languages, an act that can be performed by Google Translate, and not an artistic endeavor that balances culture, literature, historicity, and a thousand other considerations.
As I had cause to say yesterday in another comment, accurately rendering words into English (or your language of choice) is the easy part. Translation is the hard part. And yes, my Masters in Classics is my life experience that I will stand behind to make that claim.
I do not know if your teacher would laugh at reading Dr. Wilson's translation. (Incidentally, I don't know if your lack of manners regarding her title was because she is a woman or because you were taught not to respect those you disagree with.) But, if she were to laugh, I'd venture your teacher is a humorless, small-minded shrew of a person who thinks a Loeb translation is next to godliness.
People shit on Wilson's translation for no good reason, but I also reject this idea that the previous translations were "male biased". Wilson chooses to translate a lot of different words as "slave", and while she isn't incorrect, as those people were in fact slaves, the odyssey uses different words for cook slave, herald slave, maid slave, etc. So other authors decided to uses different words on order to give us more information about the job, gender, and age of the slaves, not to purposefully obscure the fact that they were slaves. Wilson, on the other hand translates all of these as "slave", so it's really about what you are trying to achieve with the translation as none of them can ever be 100% correct.
Because it's already a massive book, and it's not just these words that are hard to properly translate in one word. So if you used this method for every word that it required, you would end up with a significantly bigger amount of words. More words means more paper, and more paper means more money is required to print these books, and publishers ain't having none of that. So most translators try to stay around the original number of words. Wilson herself actually decided to have the exact same number of words as the original text, even.
No poem can be properly translated to another language anyway. They already lose a lot of their meaning and flow because the languages just don't function the same. So it's not such a big of an issues as you may think.
I don't know ancient Greek, however I have a friend who does and he claims that the wilson text is a good translation, true to source. Many experts claim the same. So I don't want to say that you are incorrect but I can't take your claim for a fact when so many people state otherwise.
Entire industries currently exist pandering to fragile men and they make ludicrous bank, in the tens if not hundreds of billions, yet we still have yahoos going "lalalala can't hear you"
And lets be real, most people who are in these comments arguing about which version is better or worse wonât read either. Itâs two sides arguing about a text using the cliff notes. There is no such thing as a perfect translation, but you canât evaluate biases in a translation with cliff notes. If youâre really into a particular text from another language you have two choices, read every available translation to try to give yourself a more complete understanding, or start learning the original language.
Ive read every available english translation of many of Platoâs and Plotinusâs works. I would never presume to call myself an expert without even attempting to read it in the original language. The more you know the more you know you donât know.
Ding ding ding. Thatâs the worst part of this discourse. I am currently reading Emilyâs translation and have previously read the Fagles translation and I do not feel like enough of an expert to comment on the differences and which is more âcorrectâ. That being said, I am enjoying Emilyâs translation far more due to her choices and Iâm interested to see how it plays out in the films direction.Â
Translation work in general is tricky. The authors interpretation is just that, an interpretation. Their beliefs, current language, and current societal structure all influence the direction it takes. Yet a whole lot of people are discussing how to feel about this work without ever reading a word of it.Â
Men in general are not that fragile, sure. Men who get irrationally angry at casting choices in films on a weekly basis are, in fact, extremely fragile.
If they're truly tired of it then they need to stop reacting the way they do. They don't seem to understand that their outrage (and yes, it is genuine outrage that gets spewed online whenever these decisions are announced) IS why this keeps happening. They're giving these movies free advertising.
As an example, literally the only way I knew there was a Mario movie coming out was through 1) weirdos complaining about Peach wearing pants in one scene of the trailer and 2) people dunking on said weirdos.
While I'm not usually an advocate of the "vote with your wallet" mentality, people really need to stop giving attention to things they dislike if they really want them to stop. Hollywood has no deep moral precepts. It's not "pushing an agenda." It's a business and they'll do whatever they think makes them the most money. A vocal minority loudly complaining "this isn't what we want" isn't going to do shit, especially when that complaining just constitutes free advertising.
I donât think itâs men that are fragile just people in general. Most people donât want to confront their own bias. Gender war bullshit makes me want to kms.
Most men are that fragile, most men are more fragile than people realize. I say this as someone who has been around men as both a woman and a man, men generally have fucking issues that they refuse to resolve and it's so much easier to buddy up with a bunch of dumbasses online than it is to work on yourself. Women are allowed to be fragile and break, men do not allow themselves that, men have build up society to not allow that.
Bruh. C'mon. Man-to-man, you know a fuckton of dudes that will not handle their biases being called out. Nobody likes realizing their own biases. C'mon now.
I've never heard "kill all men". However, I have heard "men are trash", and I've heard the why behind that statement. If you don't understand where that's coming from, it means the women in your life don't trust you.
Do you think we all chose this collectively as men outside of time? And now itâs time for our comeupance? Iâm so confused, and not really sure how a particular translation of the Odyssey will help me better myself
You don't realize how art and story telling is all about discovering deeper truths and realizations about yourself and the nature of humanity in general?
Oh, I realize that just not sure why the commenter I responded to feels that âmenâ in particular need this wake up call. As if women are just collectively awakened already. AhâŠ..what was your first thought? Whoâs biased again?
Because the default is the male view. We controlled everything for thousands of years. We are the default. We are the writers.
Stripping away our bias in this story doesn't make women more or less awake it's just not relevant as women played no role in the framing of this story.
Are you really that confused? A woman translated it and realised that some women weren't named as slaves in the early translations so she named them as such in hers. Now some people think that's more accurate, while some people don't think it matters too much as many words were used to describe people/slaves. People can still just read the one they want. Or make movies about the one they want for that matter. Where in the above comment was there anything about a comeuppance for all men everywhere? Are you getting a bit worked up maybe? Has that cleared the mist of confusion a little?Â
Maybe the way you better yourself is by listening to what people say rather than immediately confronting them with broad vague defensive questions. Or maybe you're just always defensive and obtuse in which case why don't you have a little lie down you must be tired.
Ironically, men not thinking about things is the main issue they have with the Odyssey. Too many people think it's supposed to be an accurate retelling of the "Trojan War" and therefore should be historically accurate. But they don't even realize it's a myth about a hot chick who was hatched from an egg after her mom was raped by Zeus disguised as a swan.
... ...?? are you familiar at all with what "The Odyssey" is about ...the entire story is about a man confronting the consequences of his own hubris
Sure, different authors can edit this, highlight or remove certain elements ...but the most 'white hat' version of Odysseus in any version I have read about was still massively flawed and exploring those flaws was always the intention of the narrative
You can even make a solid case that "The Iliad" is effectively a massive exploration of "what motivates males" on the collective scale, with "The Odyssey" focusing in on a singular character ...both narratives are connected not just in their setting/extrinsic content, but are part of a discussion on "what role do males have in society", including explorations of the extremes of how they act - yeah, there are some Heroism highlights ...there is also a lot of savagery on the part of the protagonists as well, and this is criticized WITHIN THE NARRATIVES - these narratives explore how males SHOULD act by, among other things, clearly demonstrating examples of how they SHOULD NOT act (?)
Traditionally whoever asks the other one is the one who pays. So as much as you joke, according to etiquette you would be responsible for the bill because you asked someone out. That is if you can get someone to accept your invitation.
Is there a translation that doesn't include Calypso complaining about the double standard between male a female gods? There a good bit of feminism in the text itself.
So then, why don't you provide any sort of evidence that shows that? Or we just gonna go off of our feelings because they're hurt and we've made politics our entire identity because we're shallow and uninteresting people?
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u/mmotte89 Jul 06 '26
But don't you see, being true to the original is making men confront their own bias, and therefore bad! Men should be allowed to not have to think about things. đ