Robert Fagles, celebrated translator of ancient epics, dies at age 74

Robert Fagles, renowned translator of Greek classics, died March 26 in Princeton of prostate cancer. He was 74. 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. "He was a quiet man, diligent and decorous, yet one who was unexpectedly equal to the swagger and savagery of Homer's 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey' in a way no one had managed before him," said Paul Muldoon, the Howard G.B. Clark '21 University Professor in the Humanities and chair of the Lewis Center for the Arts. "It was as if two key texts of Western literature had been adapted by a director of Westerns like [Sergio] Leone or [Sam] Peckinpah. Robert Fagles will be remembered for many reasons, not least of which being his extraordinary achievement in giving us not only a Homer, but a Virgil, who were true both to their own moments and ours." Robert Hollander, professor of European literature and French and Italian emeritus and a colleague for some 40 years, added, "No translator of major writers in the Western literary tradition has ever met with the kind of success that Robert Fagles has enjoyed.