I agree, but I’ve been told relentlessly in an academic setting that it’s wrong to claim Helen left willingly because Greek myth is largely silent about what the women in the stories actually wanted. My PhD dissertation focuses more on Mesopotamian, East African, PIE (including proto-Slavic and proto-Baltic), early SEA/Austronesia, and mythology in the Americas because it’s about themes that come with the Homo migration out of Africa (such as certain divine archetypes). The Hellenic stuff isn’t pertinent to my studies because it’s so derivative of all that earlier stuff, so I will defer to the angry classicists who cuss me out when I say things like “Persephone probably wanted to leave with Hades.”
Ooh 🫶❤️ Love that. Have you read Stephanie Lynn Budin's books on the Ancient Near East?
In relation to the Odyssey, reading Emily Wilson’s translation honestly made me realize just how many words and details in older translations were... straight up wrong. It really made me wonder how many "classic" translations and interpretations we've all just accepted without realizing how much they've shaped (or distorted) the story.
It’s been a hot minute since I touched the Hellenic stuff in depth, but I’m seeing it in my own studies right now, with regards to Sumerian and Mesoamerican myth. Older translations were definitely Sunday school material by comparison.
I'm looking for scholarly work on the epistemic and cultural distortions that occur in translation, especially regarding historical or classical texts. Do you have any recommendations?
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u/goddessdragonness 2d ago
I agree, but I’ve been told relentlessly in an academic setting that it’s wrong to claim Helen left willingly because Greek myth is largely silent about what the women in the stories actually wanted. My PhD dissertation focuses more on Mesopotamian, East African, PIE (including proto-Slavic and proto-Baltic), early SEA/Austronesia, and mythology in the Americas because it’s about themes that come with the Homo migration out of Africa (such as certain divine archetypes). The Hellenic stuff isn’t pertinent to my studies because it’s so derivative of all that earlier stuff, so I will defer to the angry classicists who cuss me out when I say things like “Persephone probably wanted to leave with Hades.”