Word: iliad
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...Fagles phenomenon forms an intriguing new chapter in the long saga of efforts to knead Homeric Greek into suitable English. The first translator with access to the Greek texts and the gumption to try his hand at them was George Chapman (circa 1560-1634), whose complete version of the Iliad in English appeared in 1611, the same year that saw the release of the King James Version of the Old and New Testaments...
Robert Fagles, 63, has been teaching literature at Princeton since 1960. It was only after translating tragedies by Aeschylus and Sophocles that he began to consider "climbing back to the source" of Greek legends and taking on the herculean tasks of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Fagles knows that well-stocked bookstores will display plenty of competition for his forthcoming Odyssey, including the highly regarded verse renditions of Robert Fitzgerald (1961) and Richmond Lattimore (1965). But, says Fagles, "every generation needs a new translation of Homer. He was a performer, and he can be re-performed...
...allowing the bard to fill out his line of verse and get on with the story. The pressure on these performers, composing while they spoke or sang, must have been intense. Seen in this light, the poet's invocations to the Muse for inspiration at the beginning of the Iliad and the Odyssey have a dimension beyond the religious; these pleas could also represent a nervous bard, faced with a gathering of drowsy aristocrats, saying God help...
...Arnold commended Homer's "speed, directness and simplicity" in the original Greek, and these qualities abound in Fagles' translation. The problems the epic must resolve are quickly set forth. All the surviving Greek heroes from the 10-year siege and ultimate destruction of Troy--the subject matter of the Iliad--have long since returned to their homes except Odysseus, the King of Ithaca. There, 10 years after the fall of Troy, his faithful wife Penelope fends off a riotous band of suitors for her hand in marriage; his son Telemachus, an infant when his father went off to war, cannot...
...success of his Iliad, published six years ago, seems to him to confirm a long-held belief: "I think in this channel-surfing age people are famished for stories, for vivid accounts of humans who wrestled with their destinies and the gods. Homer is so inclusive and encyclopedic that he can relieve us of ourselves for a while." Fagles recalls a day during his long labors on the Iliad when he was standing in line at a Princeton, New Jersey, bank. "I suddenly thought, 'Don't these people know there's a war going on?'" The Trojan War, of course...