Revisiting the Odyssey

Guest: Emily Wilson, PhD, Professor, Department of Classical Studies, and Chair, Comparative Literature, University of Pennsylvania The story has all the elements of a great superhero saga: battles with monsters, help from the gods, a homeland in need of saving. There’s even true love in the mix. But this isn’t a Marvel or DC Comics story. It’s maybe THE original epic in Western culture: Homer’s “The Odyssey.” For anyone groaning now at the memory of slogging through it in high school, The Odyssey’s out in a new translation accessible to an audience raised on a steady diet of comic books.