August 1 Word of the Day: Polytropos
Complicated Professor Emily Wilson is a
straightshooter about the meaning of the epithet for Odysseus. The first
epithet, that is, of many in Homer’s Odyssey, because it shows up, critically,
in the first line. Polytropos. This seemingly self-explanatory word, if you
know Greek, has gone viral on the internet, since the professor took the
necessary step of self-explanation in light of the release of a blockbuster new
film of the famous poem. Critics and promoters alike are wary of calling the
film a blockbuster, a word that possibly has an equivalent in classical Greek, Odysseus
himself being a ‘blockbuster’ of sorts, though he certainly meets a couple of
them on the way through to Ithaca. Actually, he meets all sorts of
‘blockbusters’, both male and female, mortal and god, depending on your
translation of the Greek for ‘blockbuster’. Not just the release of the film,
but the claim by the director that the professor’s translation inspired his
version, a claim the professor has taken exception to, given the film lacks
many of the elements essential to a satisfactory retelling of the original.
Anyway, polytropos. It is the word of the day on the internet. To open a big
poem, or any story, with a one-worder about the subject, is to set the scene,
to engender a trust with a reader, to say something vital that must register at
once. Fagles says ‘man of twists and turns’. Fitzgerald, ‘skilled in all ways
of contending’. ‘The man of many ways’, says Lattimore. The one word contains
meanings that describe his thought, his relationships, his prospective travels,
his cleverness and famed cunning, his skill and good fortune in getting out of
trouble, his survival and his future. Wilson wants simple. She chooses
complicated. One word, four syllables, itself a twisting and turning adjective.
Her Substack essay adds to his poly-epithets: Odysseus is a man of ‘many
stratagems’ (polymechanos), ‘much wiliness’ (polymetis), ‘much-smarts’
(polyphron). Polytropos is the first call of many related attributes in the
poem. The tropes are tripping off the tongue. She takes exception with the
director, it can be hazarded, precisely because he cites her as an inspiration
for his blockbuster, but doesn’t actually follow through on what is required to
make Odysseus complicated. Enter, Wilson the ‘blockbuster’. The fault of the
film is that it does not make Odysseus complicated, rather it reduces him
almost to the level of a sword-and-sandal guy, or an action hero, where action
takes precedence over heroism, it could be said. Poetry and film, two different
media, and here is where the professor-translator-movie-buff takes exception,
not just because the director has taken her name in vain, but because his film
lacks the human depth that she expects and Homer demands.
