The Reception of Minoritized Translators of Classical Epic Poetry

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Image of Ashira Sattar. Illustration by Ahmed Bilal.

The Reception of Minoritized Translators of Classical Epic Poetry

By Imaan Ansari

 

Translating without interpreting is nearly impossible. The primary factors affecting a translator’s decisions are the original work’s author, the author’s intended audience, and the audience receiving the translation upon publication. No translator is impartial; otherwise, all translations would be the same. For ancient literature, the progression by which translations are differently received throughout time can be understood through the prism of “Classical reception,” a phenomenon that also crafts the archetype of the accepted or ideal translator.1 Perceived legitimacy has an allure within the Classics since identity and background often have a greater effect than content on the authority of a Classicist or translator. Classical reception, in conjunction with perceived legitimacy, allows us to inquire how a person’s gender or race affects their reputation as a translator. The media and institutions of higher education promote Greco-Roman or “Western” Classics literature, which are then analyzed and translated overwhelmingly by authors of the same backgrounds. These texts become canonized, and so do their authors, but few translators are met with the same reverence.

Classical reception is a double-edged sword; a work of Classical literature elicits a reaction to its original and translated form. The authors of Classical antiquity have passed away, but their works have not. Although some may see “the death of the author” as a relinquishing of control over their work, the translator has the integrity of the original author’s work in their mind whether by choice or because of the pressures relating to reception.2  Translators must often balance pressures related to reception with faithfulness to the original text.3 For instance, a translator must consider thereception of their translation in addition to the reception of the ancient work that they are translating; in addition, the translator always has to keep faithfulness to the text in mind, within the larger context of faithfulness to the canon, as they are entering a conversation about texts that have stood the test of time. Trevor Ross asserts that the “stewardship of an established authority or institution” drives the loftiness of the canon forward.4 An elite class of literature and authors grandfather in specific translators, who then assume a spot in the hierarchy of the many people who have interacted with ancient texts.

In this essay, I will focus on how Classicists grapple with racism and sexism in ancient epics and the history of translating them. The experiences of translators influence either implicitly or explicitly how they choose to render a story. Using comparative analysis and recourse to translation theory, I will discuss how a growing group of marginalized translators in Classics emphasize the political valences of their craft in order to stand in solidarity against marginalization. They have shown that confident translation choices can perpetuate outdated dynamics without perfect translation. Ultimately, by exploring these dynamics, I intend to show that adopting this mindset allows translators to more effectively grapple with the multiple levels of marginalization that may be present in both the texts and their careers.

In a recent interview, Arshia Sattar, translator of the Ramayana from Sanskrit to English, spoke on the traditional and almost ritualistic aspect of translating the Classics.5 Sattar states that one is “rarely” the “first translator” of a Classical text.”6 The accomplishment of being the so-called “first” translator from a particular background—for example, the first female translator of a specific work, the first translator of color of a specific work—is often seen as merely symbolic. This reduction ushers in an acceptance that undermines previous scholarship with the original work, often from the demographic that the “first” person is alleged to represent. The translation industry then falls into a trap: making acertain individual speak for all who share their background, undervaluing and discouraging subsequent contributions with the fear that others do not have the stamp of validation that is “being first.”

Making someone a “first” permeates the media’s reception of translations. The earlier quote from Arshia Sattar is from an interview that solicited the contributions of three notable female translators of different Classical traditions. Words Without Borders, the publication that conducted this interview, strives to represent and give voice to thosetraditionally marginalized or silenced in literary fields.7 The interviewer, Alta Price, curated responses from Emily Wilson, translator of Homer’s Odyssey, and Sholeh Wolpé, translator of Sufi poet Attar’s The Conference of The Birds, in addition to Arshia Sattar. Words Without Borders dismantles the influence of tokenism–the practice of doing something symbolically to prevent criticism and give the appearance that people are treated fairly–by discussing a wide variety of works and pushes back on the notion of a “female translator” by allowing many different women to share their experiences.8 Words Without Borders chose these three women because they each grapple with how society views themin the context of their translations. It seems minoritized translators are more likely to fear how they will be received than how their translations will be received. Samia Mehrez (“Translating Gender”)9 and Sherry Simon (“Gender in Translation”)10 are also among the many female scholars who have theorized gender in translation.

Who is allowed to make mistakes and deviate from a distilled model of translation? How does one straddle faithfulness to an ancient text and response to or from a modern audience? Where is the balance a translator must actualize between the pull of the original author and their own, if any, creative license? Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Translator’s Task” has long been the canonical text against which answers to these questions are measured.11 Benjamin was a German philosopher, author, and translator who translated works of Proust and Baudelaire from French into German. In “The Translator’s Task,” Benjamin offers a manual for maintaining the “pure language” of the original work, steeped in its own history and culture, while embracing that of the target language in translation.

“The Translator’s Task” has served as a theoretical blueprint for how a translator should approach balancing both the source and target languages of their translation, a core difficulty of the practice.12 Simply put, leaning toward one language may result in being less faithful to the other. Translation is often considered a way of communicating or illuminating a conversation to someone in a second medium if they do not understand or cannot access the first. Benjamin argues that audience appeal is not an appropriate concern for the translator as it may cloud their translation’s integrity.13The translator’s role is to bridge the gap between writer and reader, though he acknowledges that the nuances of language make it impossible for a translation to line up perfectly with its original.14 Although a translation may demonstrate a basic resemblance with the source text, Benjamin advocates for a degree of creative license.

Benjamin exposes an inherent lack of accuracy that a translation presents even when deeply working to emulate the original. After all, the widely known English versions of “A Translator’s Task” are themselves translations, such as the one I am citing by scholar Steven Rendall. Rendall renders Benjamin’s words on the relationship between a source text and its translation as the following: “Translation is a form. In order to grasp it, we must go back to the original.”15Rendall’s word choice is ironic, since despite being grandfathered in by the name of Walter Benjamin, Rendall speaks with authority on the topic of translation but fails to acknowledge in this sentence that his scholarship on “A Translator’s Task” is translation.

According to Benjamin, the difficulty of objectivity lies in the fact that a translator cannot merely parrot the source text but must choose words that make it come alive in another language or medium. He writes, “It is clear that a translation, no matter how good, cannot have any significance for the original.”16 However, this position is paradoxical, given that the translator must pinpoint the first writer’s intention to stay true to what both author and translator work to connote. Benjamin believes translation exists in the “afterlife (Überleben) of the source text,” meaning that there is separation only in time between the source text and its imminent translations.17 It is interesting that Benjamin acknowledges the existence of “untranslatability”18 and conflates translation with art.19 Art fits into the metaphor ofuntranslatability, as the original artist is often thought to hold authority and license over their piece, granting them the ability to make and justify their artistic choices. Benjamin and Rendall, through translating “A Translator’s Task,” demonstrate that translators are also artists who cultivate their form of art inspired by original work. Benjamin’s original work, “Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers,” demonstrates that translators and their translations are compared with scrutiny to the source texts that inspired them. The literature of the Classics that has been “accepted” into the canon is overwhelmingly written by European men. The phrase “be faithful to the text” becomes a burden rather than a rule of thumb, especially for underrepresented translators.

This “faithfulness” that Benjamin and many other translation theorists call upon is almost always attributed to Robert Fagles. His translations of the Aeneid and Odyssey are considered classroom standards, although he does not preserve every aspect of what makes these ancient texts “epic,” such as the meter. Of course, maintaining the meter is a stylistic choice, but he has not been criticized for forgoing it. On the other hand, Shadi Bartsch-Zimmer, translator of a 2021 version of the Aeneid, held herself to dactylic hexameter by keeping every line of her English translation to six feet.20 She adds another dimension to the concept of faithfulness to the text by bringing the meter back to life in spoken English. However, Fagles is the one whom society deems synonymous with translation. The Los Angeles Times opens a 1991 article commemorating Fagles’ translation of the Iliad, with the words, “Robert Fagles’ translation of the Iliad opens with rage–the word he is certain is perfect, the English equivalent he believes Homer would have chosen to launch his epic poem.”21 The title of this article, “Practicing the Art of Losing Nothing in Translation,” also implies that Fagles is an artist who transcends barriers between languages.

Sexism emanates from the canon itself. Three especially canonized texts, the Iliad, Aeneid, and Odyssey, begin with a similar structure: discussing a man and a muse. Of course, female characters and their presence in each story profoundly impact the narrative’s course. For instance, Dido in the Aeneid is a mighty Queen who prolongs Aeneas’ stay in Carthage before he can reach the Western Land, Hesperia.

Classicist John Moles perpetuates a sexist viewpoint of antiquity in his article, “Aristotle and Dido’s Hamartia,”blaming the woman, Dido, for the man’s, Aeneas’, downfall.2 2 Moles clarifies that Dido is not at fault for falling in love with Aeneas; however, blames her for how she responds to that love. The line of which Dido is the subject, coniugium vocat, hoc praetexit nomine culpam—“she calls it a marriage and hid her fault with this name”—describes, to Moles, Dido’s fatal flaw (Vergil, Aen. 4.172). By using the language of Aristotelian hamartia, Moles reduces Dido to a trope. By isolating line 172, following the censored cave scene, Moles sees “shamelessness” in Dido, a trope of Greco-Roman tragedy often attributed to the woman in an “emotional entanglement.”23

Moles incorrectly places all the blame on Dido by citing the “illicit nature of her love-making with Aeneas.”24Moles assumes that Dido initiated sex even in his English sentence structure; the word “her” in the phrase is the English equivalent to a Latin subjective genitive, in conjunction with “love-making.” Aeneas corresponds to a Latin ablative of accompaniment, showing how Dido is the focus of Moles’ blame. Moles defaults to the sexist point of view that women are “shameless” for having sex outside of marriage rather than questioning why women are conventionally blamed, and men are not.25 Moles describes Dido as “over emotional,” imposing a standard on Dido to which he does not hold Aeneas. How Moles crafts this argument to demean Dido and suggest that she exclusively exhibits a fatal flaw demonstrates how he reduces her to a token “scorned female character.”

This idea of a “token” or “the only” female extends into the media reception of female translators. Emily Wilson is adamant that she is not the first woman to have translated the Odyssey, so much so it is stated in her Twitter bio.26 She is the first woman to have translated the Odyssey into English; however, this title of “the first” tends to minimize women’s contributions to the Classics and their interactions with the ancient texts. For instance, Anne le Fèvre Dacier translated the Odyssey into French prose as early as 1708 but is rarely recognized as “the first female translator or classicist” by Western media, perhaps because she did not write in English.27 Wilson’s activism in raising awareness for female translators extends profoundly into the Classical texts that she translates herself, namely, humanizing the enslaved women who sleep with the suitors during the Odyssey. Telemachus executes these women at Odysseus’ order (Homer, Od, 22.471-473). The translation from Greek to English perpetuates the brutality and disdain with which they were treated. On International Women’s Day in 2018, Emily Wilson exposed the choices that best-selling male English translations of the Odyssey make about how to render enslaved women. The wrongdoings and shortcomings of male Classicists are often ignored, perhaps because of perceived male domination in the field. Wilson turned straight to bestselling translated works by authors such as Fagles, Lombardo, and Fitzgerald, all of whom used slurs to describe these women. Wilson embraces alternative knowledge sharing to correct these injustices with a broader audience.28 By choosing Twitter as her platform, she joined a movement of scholars working to demystify Classics as a field- one that younger generations and marginalized groups can access. This mission is in keeping with Wilson’s attitude to raise awareness for issues in the Classics, such as gender inequality, in tandem with extending appreciation and involvement in Classical literature to youth. She holds herself and other translators by demonstrating that translation and identity are inextricably interwoven.

The New Yorker presents Wilson as risking her reputation to give voice to a more critical movement: women’s rights in the Classics. Returning to the scene of the hanged slave women, Wilson believes Fagles to have conflated the death of these women to a forgettable, inconsequential event; Fagles presented what Wilson calls a “childish half-rhyme” between the words “cozy…grisly” to describe the circumstances and appearances of the enslaved women.29 The mentality of blaming the victim—or, at least, disregarding the victim—is exacerbated here. Wilson acknowledges the dilemmaposed by the heroic homecoming of Odysseus; certain translators take it upon themselves to regard Odysseus as the focus, protagonist, and essence of the entire Odyssey; however, such a view minimizes the presence of other characters. The personhood of these women gets lost, not only in translation but within the scene itself.

Classical reception makes it vital for translators to have the implications of their words in mind since their audience differs from that of the original canonized work. The Odyssey was intended to be received by a more patriarchal society. Today, translators must understand the platform that they are given: to relay words of the past into the framework of the now. The social justice, inclusivity, and awareness for which Wilson campaigns and champions in translation need institutional recognition.

The question of race is ever-present in the Classics and certainly applies to the scene of the enslaved women that Wilson points out. There is a constant distinction based on social strata between suitors and herders throughout the Odyssey. The suitors are the men who attempt to pursue Penelope while he is away. In “Racecraft in the Odyssey,” Jackie Murray defines the herders as a “group socially constructed as the racial opposites of the heroes.”30 This idea of “proto-racism” that Murray picks up on highlights the fact that “otherness” in terms of ethnic and cultural differences in ancient Greece differentiated “races”; however, enslaved people generally shared the same skin color as their enslavers.31 Murray says, “Heroes treat the herders as having alienated humanity.”32 Race being used as justification for dehumanization, segregation, maltreatment, and violence is a common theme throughout history, from which the Classics are by no means exempt. Murray brings up a double standard when Odysseus kills the suitors and the enslaved women.33 The suitors’ deaths needed to be masked by a celebration so that a civil war between Odysseus and other powerful families would not erupt. Race precluded proximity to power, wealth, and status. The herders did not have the access that the suitors would, so, in the words of Jackie Murray, “they can be murdered without consequence.”34 Racially charged scenes such as these within the Odyssey planted seeds for modern racism and constructions of race.

Race may affect how Classicists of color frame their scholarship and interaction with Greco-Roman culture, literature, and society. The diversity within translation lies not only in the logic that different translators will choose different words—ultimately producing their respective and unique translations—but also in the fact that the choices a translator makes are due to their own judgment, tendencies, and even bias, all of which are affected by lived experiences. In the cases of marginalization and racism, the status of translated Latin and Greek works by scholars of color are less likely to be accepted into the modern literary canon, since these Classicists are often questioned for their motivations to engage with the Classics.

Jhumpa Lahiri, recipient of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, is a Classicist of color currently working on a new translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses alongside professor Yelena Baraz. They will join Stephanie McCarter as women who have published translations of the Metamorphoses into English.35 There is also a forthcoming translation of the Metamorphoses by C. Luke Soucy, who labels himself the first biracial person and queer man to translate this epic into English.36 He subtitles his scholarship of the Metamorphoses as “A New Translation, confronting the sexuality,violence, and politics that so many previous translations have glossed over.”37 Soucy’s cognizance of the lack of recognition for these themes in translation, coupled with his own experiences of being marginalized, are among the many reasons that motivate him to illuminate the power dynamics of epic and their relationship to sexuality and proto-racism.

Minoritized translators often grapple with and process personal experiences of marginalization by advocating for an institutional push toward equity and representation in translation. McCarter, in “How (Not) to Translate the Female Body,” surveys different translations of Latin poets to demonstrate the pervasive tendency of translators to oversexualizefemale characters through the double standard that adds a physical description lacking from the original. McCarter begins this essay with a lived experience, a story about her daughter, which opened her own eyes to how specific (especially anatomical) words sexualize women despite lacking a specifically gendered denotation, thereby defining the female body and the female, in general, as “other.”38 Lahiri, too, frames her piece, “Why Italian?” on her experience of feeling as though she must have a valid reason for her interest in the language. This preemptive justification—that she must rationalize or even apologize for her engagement with European or Western culture—stems from what the environment around her influenced her to believe: that “no one expected [her] to speak Italian.”39 Her passion for Italian was reduced to an anomaly because of her ethnicity. Being a woman of Indian descent made her interaction with the Classics too “unconventional,” as explored in her book chapter “In Praise of Echo: Reflections on the Meaning of Translation.”40 Lahiri’s story, as a translator who is cognizant of her translations, shows that even the most accomplished Classicists are questioned due to factors besides the impressive body of their work.

Ultimately, the hierarchical stereotyping between power and race exists within the word and linguistic distinction of “Classic” itself. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the etymology of the word “Classics” back to the Latin word classicus, meaning “of the first class and highest rank of importance.”41 This definition preserves superiority in studying a “Classic,” whether a well-known book or an ancient language, over a non-canonical work. I would take the metaphor of “canonization” further to argue that Western society has canonized Latin and Greek. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “Classics” and the “Classical” as “of or relating to the ancient Greeks or Romans and their culture.”42 Merriam-Webster also echoes the “recognized value” that Classical institutions hold over those without such name recognition. Students of underrepresented and underfunded communities, disproportionately those of color, often lack what is thought of as a “Classical” education. Furthermore, Arabic, classical Chinese, and Sanskrit—to name a few—are among the time-honored languages of the East, however, they are rarely encompassed under the umbrella of Classics, with a capital C, that is reserved in European studies for Latin and Greek. This Eurocentric conception of “the Western Classics” is inherently exclusionary to people of color.

I want to close by considering another so-called “first” in the translation of the ancient epic, one that is less discussed. In her translation of the Ramayana, Sattar demonstrates gratitude for the traditional aspect of translation, ushering the translator into discourse about how their choices compare to those of other translators. Sattar is deeply interested in the relationship between Ancient and Modern Indian society, and she uses Sanskrit as a vehicle of connection.43 Translating the currently unspoken into accessible words allows Sattar to engage in a transhistorical conversation. In this, she gestures towards the thesis of Classical reception: since translations must change as time passes, newer translations are continually needed to reflect newer priorities.44 Not only does the original work provoke thought and interpretation, but the many translations that writers put forth are their own “originals.” This means that translations spark a conversation and environment around them with a comparable richness to the work from which they initially took inspiration. Every translation brings something to the table, and in Sattar’s view, the table of translation has infinite chairs. Sattar demonstrates optimism by seeing translation as exciting rather than nerve-wracking. Vulnerability does lie in translation and its reception; the translator must stand by their work and defend the choices that they have made. In no way does Sattar undermine the difficulty of translating an ancient text; instead, she yearns to take on the inter-lingual compromise challenge.

Sattar is by no means deterred by the fact that her language receives less representation in mainstream media through the title of a Classical thread. Emily Wilson’s activism is fueled by the neglect to recognize the personhood of women as equal to that of their male counterparts. When reading the Classics in translation, the stories of the minorities to which the institution has historically paid tend to be further silenced. Prejudice and inequality are undoubtedly present in the canon, comprising an echelon of books penned by elite writers in their respective “Classical” languages. The act of translation reminds us of the importance of being intentional and unpacking the origins of the most taken-for-granted, seemingly mundane words. In turn, the words that society adopts are telling of the people whom society favors. Re-examined answers to the question, “What is a Classic?” must therefore be articulated while the question itself must be reformulated.

 

Imaan Ansari is a high school junior at Trinity School in New York City. 

 

Endnotes:

  1. Martindale, C. (1993) Redeeming the text: Latin poetry and the hermeneutics of reception. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  2. Barthes, R. (1967) The birth of ‘the death of the author’ – JSTOR. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24238249 (Accessed: 14 August 2023).
  3. Irigaray, L. (2002) “On Faithfulness in Translating,” in Luce Irigaray presents international, intercultural,intergenerational dialogues around her work. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 32–41.
  4. Ross, T. (1996) “Dissolution and the making of the English literary canon,” JSTOR, Renaissance and Reformation. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43445609 (Accessed: 13 August 2023).
  5. Price, A. (2018) “Women Translating the Classics,” Words Without Borders. Available at: https://wordswithoutborders.org/read/article/2018-08/women-translating-the-classics-emily-wilson-sholeh-wolpe-ars hia-sattar/ (Accessed: 13 August 2023).
  6. Ibid.
  7. Words Without Borders. (2003) Available at: https://wordswithoutborders.org/about/mission/ (Accessed: 23 August 2023).
  8. Sherrer, K. (2018) “What is tokenism, and why does it matter in the workplace?” Vanderbilt Business School.Available at: https://business.vanderbilt.edu/news/2018/02/26/tokenism-in-the-workplace/#:~:text=lined%20up%20well.”-,Tokenism%3A%20“the%20practice%20of%20doing%20something%20(such%20as%20hiring,Merriam%20Webster(Accessed: 13 August 2023).
  9. Mehrez, S. (2007) “Translating gender,” Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/97559176/Translating_Gender (Accessed: 20 August 2023).
  10. Simon, S. (1996) “Taking Gendered Positions in Translation Theory,” in Gender in Translation. Hoboken, NJ: Taylor and Francis.
  11. Benjamin, W., and Rendall, S. (2012) “The Translator’s Task,” in The Translation Studies Reader, L. Venuti (ed.). Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, pp. 69–75.
  12. Ibid., 75.
  13. Ibid., 76.
  14. Ibid., 77.
  15. Ibid., 76.
  16. Ibid.
  17. Ibid., 71.
  18. See also Apter, E.S. (2006) “Nothing is Translatable,” in The Translation Zone: A new comparative literature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 85–94.
  19. Nabugodi, M. (2014) Pure language 2.0: Walter Benjamin’s theory of language and Translation Technology, Feedback. Available at: https://openhumanitiespress.org/feedback/literature/pure-language-2-0-walter-benjamins-theory-of-language-and-tra nslation-technology/ (Accessed: 13 August 2023).
  20. Demanski, L. (2021) “A New Aeneid translation channels Vergil’s ‘pure Latin,’” University of Chicago News. Available at: https://news.uchicago.edu/story/new-aeneid-translation-channels-vergils-pure-latin (Accessed: 13 August 2023).
  21. Sandomir, R. (1991) “Practicing the Art of Losing Nothing in Translation,” Los Angeles Times, 6 January. Available at: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-01-06-vw-10476-story.html (Accessed: 13 August 2023).
  22. Moles, J. (1984) “Aristotle and Dido’s ‘hamartia,’” Jstor. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/642369 (Accessed: 13 August 2023).
  23. Ibid., 52-53.
  24. Ibid., 52.
  25. Ibid.
  26. Bao, J. (2019) “Emily Wilson: Not the first woman to translate the Odyssey,” 34th Street Magazine. Available at: https://www.34st.com/article/2019/10/emily-wilson-penn-classical-studies-translation-the-odyssey-macarthur-found ation-genius-grant-fellowship (Accessed: 22 August 2023).
  27. Hepburn, L. (2022) “Anne Le Fèvre Dacier: Homer’s first female translator,” Peter Harrington Journal – The Journal. Available at: https://www.peterharrington.co.uk/blog/anne-le-fevre-dacier-homers-first-female-translator/ (Accessed: 22 August 2023).
  28. Chiasson, D. (2018) “The classics scholar redefining what Twitter can do,” The New Yorker. Available at: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/rabbit-holes/the-classics-scholar-redefining-what-twitter-can-do (Accessed: 13 August 2023).
  29. Wilson, E. (2018) “@EmilyRCWilson scholia,” Emily Wilson. Available at: https://www.emilyrcwilson.com/emilyrcwilson-scholia (Accessed: 13 August 2023).
  30. Murray, J. (2021) “Race and sexuality: Racecraft in the Odyssey,” in: A Cultural History of Race in Antiquity, ed. D. McCoskey. London: Bloomsbury. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/55515239/Race_and_Sexuality_Racecraft_in_the_Odyssey (Accessed: 13 August 2023).
  31. Hunt, P. (2015) “Trojan Slaves in Classical Athens,” in Communities and Networks in the Ancient Greek World, C. Taylor (ed.), K. Vlassopoulos (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 128–154. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198726494.003.0006 (Accessed: 13 August 2023).
  32. Murray, J. (2021) “Race and sexuality: Racecraft in the Odyssey,” in: A Cultural History of Race in Antiquity, ed. D. McCoskey. London: Bloomsbury. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/55515239/Race_and_Sexuality_Racecraft_in_the_Odyssey (Accessed: 13 August 2023).
  33. Ibid., 150.
  34. Ibid., 151.
  35. McCarter, S. (2022) Metamorphoses. London: Penguin Classics.
  36. Soucy, C.L. (2023) Ovid’s metamorphoses: A new translation. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.
  37. “C. Luke Soucy: Classical translator for the modern day” (2020) Luke Soucy. Available at: https://www.clukesoucy.com/ (Accessed: 23 August 2023).
  38. McCarter, S. (2019) “How (not) to translate the female body,” Sewanee Review. Available at: https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/729297 (Accessed: 20 August 2023).
  39. Lahiri, J. (2022) “Why Italian?”, in” Translating myself and others. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 9–23.
  40. Lahiri, J. (2022) “In Praise of Echo: Reflections on the Meaning of Translation,” in: Translating Myself and Others. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 44–60.
  41. Simpson, J.A. (1991) ‘classics’, The oxford english dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  42. ‘classics; classical’ (1989) The new Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster Inc.
  43. Sattar, A. (2017) “Continuities between Ancient and Contemporary India,” Economic and Political Weekly. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44166821 (Accessed: 23 August 2023).
  44. Martindale, C. (1993) Redeeming the text: Latin poetry and the hermeneutics of reception. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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https://www.34st.com/article/2019/10/emily-wilson-penn-classical-studies-translation-the -odyssey-macarthur-foundation-genius-grant-fellowship (Accessed: 22 August 2023).

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https://wordswithoutborders.org/read/article/2017-08/women-in-translation-an-interview with-margaret-carson-alta-l-price/ (Accessed: 13 August 2023).

Chiasson, D. (2018) “The classics scholar redefining what Twitter can do,” The New Yorker. Available at:

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/rabbit-holes/the-classics-scholar-redefining-what-twi tter-can-do (Accessed: 13 August 2023).

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Demanski, L. (2021) “A New Aeneid translation channels Vergil’s ‘pure Latin’,” University of Chicago News.Available at:

https://news.uchicago.edu/story/new-aeneid-translation-channels-vergils-pure-latin (Accessed: 13 August 2023).

Hepburn, L. (2022) “Anne Le Fèvre Dacier: Homer’s first female translator,” Peter Harrington Journal – The Journal.Available at:

https://www.peterharrington.co.uk/blog/anne-le-fevre-dacier-homers-first-female-translat or/ (Accessed: 22 August 2023).

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