Crossing the wine-dark sea : journeys through ancient literature / Emily Wilson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wilson, Emily R., 1971- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Classical literature--History and criticism.

Classical literature.

Classical literature--Translations.

Genre:

Literary criticism.

Essays.

Physical Description:

280 pages ; 21 cm

Edition:

First American edition.

Other Title:

Journeys through ancient literature

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W. W. Norton & Company, 2026.

Summary:

"An enthralling and profoundly relevant book." --Salman Rushdie"I adored reading these joyful, illuminating, and engrossing journeys through ancient literature." --Madeline MillerFrom the most celebrated translator of our time comes a visionary exploration of how translation reshapes and enriches our understanding of the ancient world.

"In this sharp and often entertaining tour through antiquity, Emily Wilson--whose renditions of Homer's Odyssey and Iliad have captured a generation's imagination--explores the complicated terrain of reading and writing about the ancient past. Drawing on twenty years of scholarship and teaching, Wilson explores the difficult choices that translators must make, the pleasures of finding new solutions to old problems, and the inevitable frustrations of never fully capturing what is in the original work. Across chapters that range from the politics of Helen of Troy to the obscenities of Aristophanes, from Roman imitation of Greek models to contemporary debates over 'foreignizing' and 'domesticizing' styles, Wilson examines how modern norms of gender, sexuality, violence, humor, and power complicate our readings of ancient works, and how translation always risks denaturing what is unique and strange about the ancient world. Brilliant, erudite, and yet accessible to readers with no classical background, Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea is at once an introduction to the wonders of Greek and Roman literature, a manifesto for the value of translation in a rapidly changing world, and an invitation to encounter ancient cultures anew."-- W.W. Norton website.

Contents:

Introduction

Tongue breaks

The pleasures of translation

Web of Rome: how the Romans adopted Greek culture

The trouble with speeches: the birth of political rhetoric in an ancient democracy

Slut-shaming Helen of Troy

Punishment by radish

Ave, Jeeves!

Sparrows and scrubbers

Chill out with the Stoics

War music

Unwind the thread

Ancient worlds: Edith Hamilton and the popularisation of the classics

Translating the Odyssey

Afterword: Twenty rules.

Notes:

"First published in Great Britain in 2026 by Profile Books Ltd." --Title page verso.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Athenaeum copy: Beardwood Fund bookplate.

ISBN:

9781324099406

1324099402

OCLC:

1570210669