Odyssey (Robert Fagles translation)

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The Odyssey
Front cover of Robert Fagles translation of Odyssey.jpg
First edition cover
Author Robert Fagles
LanguageEnglish
Publisher Viking Press
Publication date
1996

The Odyssey is a 1996 translation of Homer's Odyssey by American academic Robert Fagles. It is not a literal translation, using non-rhyming lines with an uneven poetic meter. Widely praised for Fagles' poetic skill, it became part of many American high-school curricula and sold over a million copies. Fagles was a prolific translator of ancient literature, previously translating works by Bacchylides, Aeschylus and Sophocles.

Contents

Translation

Author

Robert Fagles (1933–2008) was an academic and a translator. He gained his undergraduate degree at Amherst College in 1955 and his Ph.D. in English literature at Yale University. He joined Princeton University's English department in 1960. [1] During his career, he produced English versions of the Oresteia , Sophocles' Theban plays, and Roman poet Virgil's epic poem Aeneid . [1] He was one of the few to translate Iliad, Odyssey and Aenid, [2] forming a kind of trilogy. [1]

Style

Fagles said that he aimed in his translation to emphasize what he called the "sympathetic" depiction of women in the Odyssey. [3] In recent years, this has been speculated on by feminist critics; especially with regard to Fagles' treatment of Odysseus and Penelope's slave-girls. [4] Notably, in Book 18 of the Odyssey, Fagles refers to the slave-girls as "sluts" and "whores", and in doing so adds derogatory language that is not present in the original Greek text. [5]

Fagles based the translation on a version of the Greek text by David Munro and Thomas Allen, first published in 1908 by Oxford University Press. [6] Fagles' translation has an irregular meter, typically 6 beats per line but sometimes ranging from 4 to 8. [7]

His translation of the first line reads: "Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns". [8]

Publication

Viking Press published the translation in 1996. [2] It sold for US$ 35 in the United States and £ 25 in the United Kingdom. [9] [10]

Reception

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. [1] It had sold over 150,000 copies by December 1996, [10] and eventually sold over a million copies. [2] His Odyssey frequently featured as an assigned reading for American high-school classes, likewise introducing parents to the texts. [11]

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. [12] Classicist Emily Wilson described Fagles' Odyssey as representing the relationship between Odysseus and Penelope as a marriage between intellectual equals, [13] 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." [14] The New York Times notes that Fagles was not "exactingly literal", instead being poetic, while preserving the spirit of the original with "Homeric swagger". [2] The translation uses exciting verbs and military imagery. [15]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Stevens, Ruth. "Robert Fagles, celebrated translator of ancient epics, dies at age 74". www.princeton.edu. Retrieved 2025-05-16.
  2. 1 2 3 4 McGrath, Charles (2008-03-29). "Robert Fagles, Translator of the Classics, Dies at 74". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2025-05-16.
  3. ↑ Wilson 2019, p. 295.
  4. ↑ Wilson 2019.
  5. ↑ Homer (1996). Odyssey. Translated by Fagles, Robert. Viking Press. Book 18.
  6. ↑ Knox, Bernard; Fagles, Robert (1996). "Introduction". The Odyssey. Penguin Classics. Penguin.
  7. ↑ McManus, James (December 15, 1996). "A new translation of The Odyssey makes it harder to decide whose version to read". Chicago Tribune . p. 339.
  8. ↑ North, Anna (2017-11-20). "Historically, men translated the Odyssey. Here's what happened when a woman took the job". Vox. Retrieved 2025-05-16.
  9. ↑ Gagney, Reg (November 28, 1996). "Ancient hero has timeless vitality". Daily World .
  10. 1 2 Fiennes, William (December 22, 1996). "It's got everything – power, sex, suspense. Who is this Homer guy?". The Observer.
  11. ↑ Feeney 2008, p. 541.
  12. ↑ Wilson, Emily (2017-11-06). "First Woman to Translate Homer's 'Odyssey' Into English: How Modern Bias Is Projected Onto Antiquity". TIME. Retrieved 2025-05-16.
  13. ↑ Wilson, Emily (2017-12-08). "A Translator's Reckoning With the Women of The Odyssey". The New Yorker. ISSN   0028-792X . Retrieved 2025-05-16.
  14. ↑ Wilson 2019, p. 295-296.
  15. ↑ Stivers, Valerie. "Emily Wilson's Sack of Homer". Compact. Retrieved 2025-05-16.

Bibliography

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