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 | A TALE FOR ALL AGES: THE ODYSSEY An exploration of translation and literature |
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Questions asked
in this forum:
What is Odysseus' moral compass, and why are most of his lessons learnt at home ? How much of the Odyssey is history, and how much is poetic fiction? How do we know that Homer was blind? What explains the lack of colors in the Odyssey? How has James Joyce's "Ulysses" effected your reading of the "Odyssey"? Is a son incomplete without his father in much of Ancient Greek literature? ADDITIONAL COMMENTS
NewsHour Backgrounders
March 3, 1997:
Robert Fagles talks about his new translation of the Odyssey with Elizabeth Farnsworth.
OUTSIDE LINKS
Segments of The Odyssey translated by Robert Fagles.
The texts of many Greek translations including Aeschylus, Aristotle, Demosthenes, Euclid, Euripides, Homer, Plato, and Sophocles.
The text of "The Odyssey" translated by Samuel Butler.
The epic of the "Odyssey", one of the first Greek myths, has influenced Western culture and literature for more than 2,700 years. In the 4th Century BC, Aristotle summarized the journey of Odysseus as: "A certain man has been abroad many years; he is alone, and the god Poseidon keeps a hostile eye on him. At home the situation is that suitors for his wife's hand are draining his resources and plotting to kill his son. Then, after suffering storm and shipwreck, he comes home, makes himself known, attacks the suitors: he survives and they are destroyed."
That was the short version.
It was the poet Homer who immortalized Odysseus, his wife Penelope and son Telemachus in prolific verse.
Nobody really knows who or what Homer was--a singular poetic genius like Shakespeare or a collective of inspired voices like the King James version of the Bible. But we do know that when the epic cycle of the Iliad and the "Odyssey" came into being, the poems were meant to be heard, not read. Our guest, Robert Fagles, sought to bring back the song and cadence in his recent translation of the "Odyssey".
The effects of the "Odyssey" have been vast. According to Fagles, all of Western literature can be seen as a long footnote to Homer --the text required to explain so many subsequent references in so many subsequent works. So how did it feel to tackle such a towering masterpiece? Says Fagles, "It's daunting, and it's also a blessing. It involves a lot of arrogance, I'm afraid, and a lot of chastening humility. You have to kid yourself into thinking you are good enough to tackle these great works; and yet the works are so great that they make you feel quite small; they dwarf you."
Despite the widely reported demotion of Western "classics" and the now clichéed disparagement of "dead white male" authors, Homer's works, in the Fagles translations, have been not only critical, but also big commercial successes. The publisher Viking is shipping 27,000 copies of Fagles' 541-page translation of the "Odyssey" to bookstores. Fagles' "Iliad," published by Viking in 1990, is in its ninth soft-cover printing. Readers have purchased 140,000 copies in Penguin paperback. And 35,000 sets of tapes of an abridged reading by Derek Jacobi have been sold. Of Homer's recent popularity, a Time reviewer has written: "What can fairly be called the Fagles phenomenon forms an intriguing new chapter in the long saga of efforts to knead Homeric Greek into suitable English."
Your questions were answered by Professor Fagles, active department chair of the Comparative Literature Department at Princeton University. Fagles is the recipient of a 1996 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Message from Professor Fagles:
I send my best wishes to all the NewsHour viewers and your onliners, and I thank them for their very thoughtful, very stimulating questions.
Sincerely, Robert Fagles
Questions asked in this forum:
What is Odysseus' moral compass, and why are most of his lessons learnt at home ? How much of the Odyssey is history, and how much is poetic fiction? How do we know that Homer was blind? What explains the lack of colors in the Odyssey? How has James Joyce's "Ulysses" effected your reading of the "Odyssey"? Is a son incomplete without his father in much of Ancient Greek literature? ADDITIONAL COMMENTS
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