YouSaid · the spoken record

Emily Wilson

lines on the record: 83
first: 2019-03-27
most recent: 2019-03-27
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“You know, I see Seneca and Marcus Aurelius as very, very different characters. I think Marcus Aurelius was militaristic and bloodthirsty, an expander of the Roman Empire. He was happy to slaughter many barbarians, but that's not he was fairly consistent about thinking that was a good idea and also fairly consistent in associating his dream of cultural and military imperialism with stoic models of virtue. Whereas Seneca was very much constantly unable to fully act out the ideals that he had. And I think one of the reasons he's so interesting as a writer is that he's so precise in articulating what it means to have a very, very clear vision of the good life and to be completely unable to follow through on living the good life.”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To be in charge I would try and find ways to make it both more attractive and more inclusive to people from different backgrounds. I would talk to more different people about what it might be that might entice them to learn about cultures and languages that are totally different from any that are nowadays extant. I think we should stop selling classics as these are the societies that formed modern America or that formed the Western canon, which is really bogus kind of argument and instead start saying we should learn about ancient societies because they're different from modern societies and that means that we can learn things by learning about alterity. We can learn about what would it be to be just as human as we are and yet be living in a very, very different society.”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know. I think it's going to have to look different because you're right, enrolments are declining, and I think there's also a lot of sort of questioning from within by classicists about the elitist legacy of classics, I mean, about the ways that it's been sort of tied up with the people who end up being classicists, especially in Britain, but this is true in the States too, are those who've gone to the fancy private schools and who've learned Latin since they were five years old. And then it's sort of tied up with being of a particular class means that you can speak Latin or you can read Latin. And that is inevitably, if we can't give a better reason to learn Latin and Greek or to read the ancient text, then this is going to be entry to a particular social class within our own society, which it no longer is, then of course that's not going to be a good reason for people in the future.”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And the critique that you find in Plato, for example, has a lot to do with the idea that because it depends so much on the will of the people and the people aren't necessarily educated people, they're easily swayed by demagoguery. And of course, in an age of the internet, we can see how people are still easily swayed by all kinds of different voices.”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it was in a way much more, I mean, for those who were citizens, it was in a way much more democratic than our system, which is representational democracy, because, of course, everybody who was a citizen had a voice in the Assembly was able to speak directly to those who were in power. Several offices were elected by lot such that anybody, regardless of background, aristocratic or not aristocratic background, or regardless of wealth, could in theory become one of the generals or one of the leaders of the Assembly. Of course, also it was a tiny fraction of the population of Athens that was a citizen, of course, most of the population were enslaved and were not citizens. Women weren't being appointed to be generals or leaders in the assembly. The critique that many of our sources from Athens are in a number of different ways hostile to democracy.”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh no, I think it's good. I'm just saying that I can't speak from personal digging, but I think that seems to be what happened. It seems to be that combination of war, environment and who knows what, chance as well, presumably”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Warren environment seems to be the best guess, but I'm just echoing what I've learned from archaeologists. It's not like I've actually excavated any of these cities.”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There are different theories about that. I mean, there seems to have been various cataclysmic events. There may have been weather events. There were clearly conflicts. I mean, there were clearly sieges and sackings of cities.”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, no, I mean it can tell us that there are linguistic differences which we already knew, but then there are linguistic differences partly because they're different poems. So couldn't somebody, I mean, also author might not be the right term. If we're imagining that it could be an oral poet who's collaborating with a scribe, is that an author? I don't know.”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that written poems, so obviously the puzzle is how did these written poems come into being? I feel that writing must have been involved in the composition, not just in the recording of something which was already present entire in one genius' mind, because I think having something present entire without any use of writing versus monumental as these poems are seems to me implausible. Beyond that, I don't really have a clear view about Bosit, a pair of people, was it a single person? Did the same person do the Iliad and the Odyssey? I don't see how we can possibly know that. I think they're very different poems, but I also think the chances are that they seem to be composed, the Odyssey seems to be composed with some kind of awareness of the Iliad, but to what extent can that fully be proved? I'm not sure.”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Iliad, yes, I'm doing the Iliad. No, not a translation. But a fictional derivation. I've thought about it. I'm not ready to do it right now. I don't have a good big concept, but maybe one day.”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the panella period, I don't remember what date it is, but it's about 20 years old. But I think you're right that there are a lot of retellings of myth right now. And I think part of it has to do with a sort of turning back to possible alternative archetypes. I mean, we don't quite know what to do with the great religious books. So let's look for something else which has cultural authority and is going to be meaningful and recognizable to many, many different people from different religious traditions. And we can somehow have a space of cultural sharedness over that.”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm not sure if everybody did. I mean, Dryden criticizes the Iliad for being too warmongering. I mean, for being too much, and Homer for the same reasons. It's not like it's been a universal preference of the Eliad of the Odyssey until 20th century when it all changed around, though I think maybe that is part of the trend. So Longina, pseudo-longinus, on the sublime says that the Iliad is like Homo at the height of his power, and then the Odyssey is like the setting sun. It's the old man's poem. It has all these cute incidents, and it's like a poem where you learn about character rather than learning about this very, very intense dramatic arc. So I think it's partly about thinking a poem of warfare with fewer female characters is more impressive, more important than a poem which is more domestic and has more to do with survival than with killing. Beyond that, I'm not sure. I mean, I think they were both very highly valued and most periods.”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's correlated with, I think it's about mood partly. I mean, the Odyssey is much more varied just in terms of scenes and in terms of, I think if you're easily bored, you may prefer the Odyssey because it has more different characters, more different scenes, more different types of things happen. I mean, in the Iliad, it's Semena angry. Some people get killed. Semena angry. Some people get killed. And it's that relentlessly over and over and over. And it's in this very, very small space, small stretch of time. Whereas the Odyssey has far more variety in terms of what kinds of people are speaking, what kinds of events are happening.”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Two years my hero took twenty years to get home and then look how he managed to come back from this absolute loser position of being one man against over 100, looking like an old beggar and so on, that it means the whole narrative arc is all the bigger the longer it takes.”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What role does You're absolutely right. So it is just gets back home geographically in book 13, and yet the poem isn't over. We've still got a whole half of the poem to go. We've still got another almost 12 books. I think it has to do both with the poet's self-glorification. Look how amazing this is that I can spin out the story of a Nostos of a Journey Home such that it isn't even about the journey anymore. It's about all these elaborately different recognitions between Odysseus and each important member of the household. And it's also about Athena's plot, right? Athena's plot is to glorify herself and her special mortal. And the best way to glorify Odysseus is not just to have the maximum body count, but also to do it in a way that's as massive and as both temporarily and geographically as possible, that she's spinning it out so it's even more impressive. Look how your hero got home in only a year.”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the critique of Homer that makes the most sense to me is to do with there is some intense valorizing even though I think there's also questioning of that valorizing of the warrior code whereby you get maximize honor by killing as many people as possible, which doesn't seem to me a particularly good model for how a community should function, that we should be thinking that that level of military prowess should be put quite so high on the evaluative scale.”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Grow in some way which doesn't necessarily have to be, I agree with X, Y, Z political gnomon that's articulated in this line or that line of Homer. I think it's a limiting way of reading a poem.”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The It's also too dreary, and also, of course, the gods behave abysmally in Homer. So for all these reasons, it's both theologically and ethically and psychologically and also metaphysically wrong. And which is actually your worry. Do you agree with any? I think Homer is psychologically truthful and ethically helpful. And I mean, I think the whole question about is it literature's job or poetry's job to train a politician, I'm not sure that's quite the right way to see it. I think by inhabiting worldviews which aren't our own, we can”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He's burned from the second best ideal in the Republic, right? He's not banned from Callipolis, is that necessarily the ideal republic? It's a second best compromise ideal. And Socrates in that book says that, of course, both Homer and the Traidians are problematic for several different reasons. It's both that they water the emotions which would be better dried up and also that they make us... Want to pretend to be in the mindset or the persona of people that we shouldn't want to be in the persona of, and also they're not representing reality.”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think so. I mean, I can't give you the expert vision on the expert account of Hobbes'. But it's a lot of work, as you know, right? A lot of work, yes. Yes. I mean, I think both Thucydides and Homo were projects for Hobbes that had to do with trying to figure out what kinds of models and also what kinds of counter models, what kinds of wrong society can be represented by the ancient political worlds.”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, there's tons of humor, yes. I mean, I guess we were just talking about the Phaatians, so I think one of the funniest parts is when Odysseus has been shipwrecked and he lands on the land of Scaria, the land of the Phaeacians. And of course, has lost all his clothes in the shipwreck and ends up having to pop up from behind a bush wearing no clothes in front of a beautiful princess. And in order to try and impress her, he has to cover himself up with branches and give a very long speech to distract her from the fact that she's being accosted by a dirty naked man. It's a funny scene.”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Which are proto city states, I guess you could say. Well, I think there are different kinds of potentially idealized societies. So I think it's sort of unclear, does the poem think Nestor's more traditional palace in which the wife doesn't have a name and there are many children and that they seem to spend most of their time performing elaborate sacrifices, is that better than the rich palace of Menelaus? Is that better than the poor but somehow heroized warrior society of Ithaca? Is that better than the matriarchal societies of Calypso or Circe? I think the poem is laying out for us these possible alternatives. I think in some ways the quasi-magical land of the Phaeacians where Odysseus visits in some ways maybe that's the best possible state. But I think the poem is more interested in controsting than necessarily ranking.”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Politics is a tricky word, right? Because, of course, this is a poem which is set before the city-state. It's before the police.”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think one thing that, I mean, I think the crucial thing that's changed is that he's got to spend time with his father doing something they both love, which is killing people. And so, in fact, he's been spending time with his father throughout the previous few days, I think is very important in terms of his fashioning into some kind of masculinity, some kind of adulthood.”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exposed to different elite households, different marriages, different potential paternal figures, and also being exposed to the experience of having a brother or a quasi-brother in spending time with Nestor's son Pisistratus. So he's had certain experiences which in theory could be formative or helpful for him. I think it's unclear in what way exactly do they affect him, if any.”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, before he leaves, he has an attempt to stand up among the, in the Council of Men speaking out both to the suitors of his mother and also to the men of Ithaca. And it's an attempt at being an adult man in a peaceful environment to speak out in the council. And it's a speech which doesn't go very well because he explains fairly vehemently what his problem is that he's surrounded by all these bullies, nobody's helping him, his whole inheritance is being wasted. But he ends the speech bursting into tears. So it obviously is not a particularly successful model of public speaking and of male adulthood. When he gets back from his trip, I think it's unclear whether he's grown up at all. I mean, he certainly had the experience of meeting his father's age mates, of meeting alternative father figures. And of course, he's grown up without a father figure. He's had the experience of being...”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Lie in wait to ambush and try to murder him is a very dangerous and in the end futile journey because he finds out nothing in the way of concrete information about his father. He does it because he's inspired by the goddess Athena who wants him to go on a quest which in some way will parallel the quest of his father. Maybe it's a way to have some, the Odyssey is a poem which he's very interested in parallel narratives in showing us one way this could go down and then another way this could go down. Here's one journey around the Mediterranean, here's another way, here's another way that this same story could be both the same and very different.”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's a very good question. And ancient commentators on the Odyssey were puzzled over it because it seems both undermotivated and if anything, a stupid idea, right? Because he puts himself in danger. It's because he's left home that the suitors are then able to... It's because”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He loses 100% of the men under his care, yes. Yes. It's a pretty bad track record. And of course, as the father of one of the suitors says to him in book 24 after he's slaughtered all his wives harassing suitors, says, you have this unfortunate habit of killing young men. First you killed this whole batch of young men who left with you to go to Troy, of whom Zero returned. And now you get back home, you kill a whole bunch more young men. It seems as if there were certain problems with that in terms of both leadership and just being a human being.”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He's a hero, which, of course, in an archaic Greek context doesn't necessarily mean an admirable figure. He's a figure who's, as I translate Polytropos, he's complicated. There's many sides to him. He has the extraordinary qualities, which is part of what makes him heroic, that he's different from the rest of us. He's smarter than any other mortal. He's better at disguising, better at telling stories, better at fictionalizing his own life, better at coming up with a plausible way to get out of any impossible situation. Does that make him admirable? In a way it does. He's a survivor. He has impressive qualities that enable him to survive.”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This, of course, is lying all the time, so it's very hard for the reader to get a firm grasp on what are his motives. Also, when he tells Calypso that he desperately wants to get back home, it's very striking to me that he doesn't give his motives. He says, to Calypso, you're much more beautiful than my wife is, and you've promised to make me immortal. It's a great offer, but I want to go home, and he doesn't explain what it is that drives that desire to go home. And you're quite right, he makes many detours. He spends another year quite willingly with Calypso, with Circe and other goddess. So it seems if he's easily distractible from the quest for sure.”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He does as the poem starts, he spent the last seven years on the island of a goddess called Calypso. Originally the poem implies quite willingly. So it seems if he's changed his mind about whether or not he wants to go home. But as the poem begins, he does want to get back home to Ithaca to his wife Penelope and his son, Telemachus.”
2019-03-27 · Conversations with Tyler · Emily Wilson on Translations and Language · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source