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I agree that a good translation of Homer ought to be linguistically accessible. The best critiques of Wilson's translation have less to do with the style of language and more to do with the complete loss of meaning in many cases - particularly when it suits her feminism.
I haven't read the translation, so I don't know how egregious this is.
But if she brings the poem to life for a few million new readers, then I would think some cultural bias is a fair trade off.
Besides, this begs the question of whether these people care more about the literature or arguing about protecting people from so called woke brainwashing.
Besides, this begs the question of whether these people care more about the literature or arguing about protecting people from so called woke brainwashing.
Seriously... although I share in the sentiment that progressive ideology has gotten a bit out of control in the last 10 years, I kinda think the backlash to that is going a bit overboard too. Some people are seeing woke boogeymen everywhere. (I'm not making any claim one way or another on Wilson's actual translations since I haven't read it, and wouldn't be qualified to judge its fidelity to the sources anyway.)
wouldn't be qualified to judge its fidelity to the sources anyway
That's what makes me most interested in the source of very strong feelings about this.
The only problem I would have with this is if it stopped people from actually engaging with the text. I'm not that interested in the culture war you are referring to.
My point is that I prefer the linguistically accessible one, because these were folk poems. That might be my standard of "true to the historical core."
There are others that are syntactically complex, verbose and hard to read, written for a literati to pore over. I don't believe this to be in the true spirit of the poems.