The Elegant Variation: R.I.P. ROBERT FAGLES

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March 28, 2008

R.I.P. ROBERT FAGLES

We're deeply saddened to learn that Robert Fagles has died.

Fagles, the Arthur Marks '19 Professor of Comparative Literature Emeritus at Princeton University, was widely acclaimed for his popular translations of Homer's "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey," both of which became best-sellers. He also created English renditions of "The Oresteia" by Aeschylus and "The Three Theban Plays" by Sophocles as well as "The Aeneid" by the Roman poet Virgil.

Here is the transcript of a 1997 interview in which he discusses his translation of The Odyssey.

Posted at 01:29 PM in Obit | Permalink

Comments

i suppose thats what u ll call an intellectual tycoon...mastering the greek and latin epics. RIP.

Posted by: blue cave | March 29, 2008 at 04:47 AM

From: http://onamissionunaccomplished.blogspot.com/2006/11/robert-fagles-aeneid.html

"The new translation of Vergil's Aeneid by Robert Fagles isn't bad at all. It's at least as much Vergil as it is Fagles, which is a big improvement over his paraphrases of Homer, but, like his Iliad and Odyssey, it's considerably longer than the original. As always with Fagles, it's highly readable, in fact, much more readable than most translations of the Aeneid.

"If you want to read what Vergil really wrote, the best translation I've ever seen is by Tony Kline. It's available for free download as a PDF at Poetry In Translation. So, save your money and enjoy Tony's very close and quite poetic work."

http://www.tkline.freeserve.co.uk/Virgilhome.htm

Posted by: Roy Beatty | March 29, 2008 at 08:37 PM

From: http://onamissionunaccomplished.blogspot.com/2006/10/aeneid-1203.html

"In his very interesting review of Robert Fagles' new translation of the Aeneid in the New York Times today (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/30/books/30fagl.html?th&emc=th), Charles McGrath twice states that the Aeneid has 12,000 lines. Fagles' translation may well be this long, since he probably felt Vergil needed the same kind of expansion he found necessary for Homer, but Vergil wrote only 9,510 lines. ..."

Just FYI

Posted by: Roy Beatty | March 29, 2008 at 08:43 PM

R. Fagles was the greatest translator of Homer . His translations were almost equal to the greek prototypes.

Posted by: nautilus | March 30, 2008 at 11:36 AM

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The Elegant Variation is "Fowler’s (1926, 1965) term for the inept writer’s overstrained efforts at freshness or vividness of expression. Prose guilty of elegant variation calls attention to itself and doesn’t permit its ideas to seem naturally clear. It typically seeks fancy new words for familiar things, and it scrambles for synonyms in order to avoid at all costs repeating a word, even though repetition might be the natural, normal thing to do: The audience had a certain bovine placidity, instead of The audience was as placid as cows. Elegant variation is often the rock, and a stereotype, a cliché, or a tired metaphor the hard place between which inexperienced or foolish writers come to grief. The familiar middle ground in treating these homely topics is almost always the safest. In untrained or unrestrained hands, a thesaurus can be dangerous."

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The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

March 28, 2008

R.I.P. ROBERT FAGLES

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog. A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog "Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

March 28, 2008

R.I.P. ROBERT FAGLES

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE: Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism