Odyssey (Robert Fagles translation)

Robert Fagles (1933–2008) was an academic and a translator. He gained his undergraduate degree at Amherst College in 1955 and his his Ph.D. in English literature at Yale University. He joined Princeton University's English department in 1960.{{Cite web |last=Stevens |first=Ruth |title=Robert Fagles, celebrated translator of ancient epics, dies at age 74 |url=https://www.princeton.edu/news/2008/03/28/robert-fagles-celebrated-translator-ancient-epics-dies-age-74 |access-date=2025-05-16 |website=www.princeton.edu |language=}} During his career, he produced English versions of the Oresteia, Sophocles' Theban plays, and Roman poet Virgil's epic poem Aeneid. He was one of the few to translate Iliad, Odyssey and Aenid,{{Cite news |last=McGrath |first=Charles |date=2008-03-29 |title=Robert Fagles, Translator of the Classics, Dies at 74 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/books/29fagles.html |access-date=2025-05-16 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}} forming a kind of trilogy.

Fagles based his translation on a version of the Greek text by David Munro and Thomas Allen, first published in 1908 by Oxford University Press.{{Cite book |last=Knox |first=Bernard |title=The Odyssey |last2=Fagles |first2=Robert |date=1996 |publisher=Penguin |series=Penguin Classics |chapter=Introduction}} Fagles' translation has an irregular meter, typically 6 beats per line but sometimes ranging from 4 to 8.{{Cite news |last=McManus |first=James |date=December 15, 1996 |title=A new translation of The Odyssey makes it harder to decide whose version to read |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/168612481/ |work=Chicago Tribune |page=339}}

His translation of the first line reads: "Sing me to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns".{{Cite web |last=North |first=Anna |date=2017-11-20 |title=Historically, men translated the Odyssey. Here’s what happened when a woman took the job. |url=https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/11/20/16651634/odyssey-emily-wilson-translation-first-woman-english |access-date=2025-05-16 |website=Vox |language=en-US}}

Viking Press published the translation in 1996. It sold for {{Currency|35|USD}} in the United States and {{Currency|25|GBP}} in the United Kingdom.{{Cite news |last=Gagney |first=Reg |date=November 28, 1996 |title=Ancient hero has timeless vitality |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/228921725/ |work=Daily World}}{{Cite news |last=Fiennes |first=William |date=December 22, 1996 |title=It's got everything – power, sex, suspense. Who is this Homer guy? |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/258289934/ |url-status=live |work=The Observer}}

Fagles said that he aimed in his translation to emphasize what he called the "sympathetic" depiction of women in the Odyssey.{{Sfn|Wilson|2019|p=295}}

Robert Fagles Iliad and Odyssey were best-sellers, with C. K. Williams describing him as the most widely read poet-translator of the 20th century. It had sold over 150,000 thousand copies by December 1996, and eventually sold over a million copies. His Odyssey frequently featured as an assigned reading for American high-school classes, likewise introducing parents to the texts.{{Sfn|Feeney|2008|p=541}}

It was praised upon release by Garry Wills for being "politically correct" and for its sympathetic treatment of the poem's female characters, particularly elite females.{{Cite web |last=Wilson |first=Emily |date=2017-11-06 |title=First Woman to Translate Homer's 'Odyssey' Into English: How Modern Bias Is Projected Onto Antiquity |url=https://time.com/5008920/odyssey-translation-gender-history/ |access-date=2025-05-16 |website=TIME |language=en}} Classicist Emily Wilson described Fagles' Odyssey as representing the relationship between Odysseus and Penelope as a marriage between intellectual equals,{{Cite news |last=Wilson |first=Emily |date=2017-12-08 |title=A Translator’s Reckoning With the Women of The Odyssey |url=https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/a-translators-reckoning-with-the-women-of-the-odyssey |access-date=2025-05-16 |work=The New Yorker |language=en-US |issn=0028-792X}} but she also criticized Fagles' comments on his work for ignoring the "huge inequality of economic and social power" in their relationship and for assuming that the "heteronormative institution of marriage is always a positive force for women."{{Sfn|Wilson|2019|p=295-296}} The New York Times notes that Fagles was not "exactingly literal", instead being poetic, while preserving the spirit of the original with "Homeric swagger".{{Cite news |last=McGrath |first=Charles |date=2008-03-29 |title=Robert Fagles, Translator of the Classics, Dies at 74 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/books/29fagles.html |access-date=2025-05-16 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}} The translation uses exciting verbs and military imagery.{{Cite web |last=Stivers |first=Valerie |date= |title=Emily Wilson’s Sack of Homer |url=https://www.compactmag.com/article/emily-wilson-s-sack-of-homer/ |access-date=2025-05-16 |website=Compact |language=}}

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• {{Cite journal |last=Feeney |first=Denis |date=2008 |title=Robert Fagles (1933-2008) |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25471977 |journal=The Classical World |volume=101 |issue=4 |pages=541–542 |issn=0009-8418}}
• {{Cite book |last=Wilson |first=Emily |chapter=Epilogue: Translating Homer as a Woman |pp=279-298 |editor1-last=Cox |editor1-first=Fiona |url=https://books.google.be/books?id=GR6yDwAAQBAJ |title=Homer's Daughters: Women's Responses to Homer in the Twentieth Century and Beyond |editor2-last=Theodorakopoulos |editor2-first=Elena |date=2019-10-03 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-252353-2 |language=en}}

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Category:Ancient Greek religion

Category:Trojan War literature

Category:English translations of Homer