The Odyssey

What Translator Emily Wilson Thinks of Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey'

Plain English with Derek Thompson, 22 July 2026. The book comes up at 16 min 12 sec in.

Pope's Odyssey translation is read aloud and then analyzed by Emily Wilson. She observes that Pope, like herself, wrote a bestselling translation that both responded to and reshaped his culture's norms. She notes his ornate rhyming couplets are characteristic of Augustan culture and that, before Pope, English readers were suspicious of Homer. She draws a sharp distinction between his ornateness and Shakespeare's.

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