Synopsis
A retelling of Homer's epic that describes the adventures of the hero Odysseus as he encounters many monsters and other obstacles on his journey home from the Trojan War.
Perhaps the most celebrated of all Western narratives, the Odyssey tells the story of Odysseus's roundabout voyage home to Ithaca where his beloved Penelope awaits. In stories along the way, he famously encounters Circe, the Sirens, the Cyclops, and many, many others. This translation renders the classic more economically than others.
Retells in simple language five episodes in the voyage of the Greek hero Odysseus from Troy to his home in Ithaca.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 1997-11-01 |
| Size | | Length: | 560 pages | | Height: | 8.3 in | | Width: | 5.8 in | | Thickness: | 1.5 in | | Weight: | 20.8 oz |
Publisher's Note
In the myths and legends that are magnificently retold here, Fagles has captured the energy and poetry of Homer's original in a bold, contemporary idiom, and given readers an "Odyssey" to read aloud, to savor, and to treasure for its sheer lyrical mastery.
Robert Fagles, winner of the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation and a 1996 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters presents us with Homer's best-loved and most accessible poem in a stunning new modern-verse translation. Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy. So begins Robert Fagles' magnificent translation of the Odyssey, which Jasper Griffin in The New York Times Review of Books hails as "a distinguished achievement." If the Iliad is the world's greatest war epic, the Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of everyman's journey through life. Odysseus' reliance on his wit and wiliness for survival in his encounters with divine and natural forces, during his ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, is at once the timeless human story and an individual test of moral endurance. In the myths and legends that are retold here, Fagles has captured the energy and poetry of Homer's original in a bold, contemporary idiom, and given us an Odyssey to read aloud, to savor, and to treasure for its sheer lyrical mastery. Renowned classicist Bernard Knox's superb Introduction and textual commentary provide new insights and background information for the general reader and scholar alike, intensifying the strength of Fagles' translation. This is an Odyssey to delight both the classicist and the public at large, and to captivate a new generation of Homer's students.
Industry Reviews
"The Odyssey is the part of Homer we are best equipped to appreciate, in this time of women's newly asserted dignity, and Fagles is the person best equipped to bring the epic to us."
New Yorker - Garry Wills (01/27/1997)
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