The Odyssey - by Homer (Paperback)

About the Book

Robert Fagles' stunning modern-verse translation is now available in this Penguin Classics edition.

Book Synopsis

The great epic of Western literature, translated by the acclaimed classicist Robert Fagles, hailed as "the best living translator of ancient Greek drama, lyric poetry, and epic into modern English" (Garry Wills, The New Yorker)

Now a major motion picture directed by Christopher Nolan

A Penguin Classic Black-spine Paperback

"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's magnificent translation of The Odyssey, literature's grandest evocation of an everyman's journey through life. Odysseus's reliance on his wit and wiliness for survival against divine and natural forces on his ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War is at once a timeless human story and an individual test of moral endurance.

Robert Fagles's translation of The Odyssey, enhanced with maps, genealogy tables, and pronunciation guides, has been the touchstone translation of Homer's epic for millions of readers. In the myths and legends 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. With an introduction and textual commentary by renowned classicist Bernard Knox, the Fagles translation of The Odyssey will continue to captivate the general reader and scholar alike.

Penguin Classics is the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world, representing a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Review Quotes

Praise for Robert Fagles Translation of The Odyssey

"Wonderfully readable... Just the right blend of roughness and sophistication."--Ted Hughes

"Robert Fagles is the best living translator of ancient Greek drama, lyric poetry, and epic into modern English."--Garry Wills, The New Yorker

"Mr. Fagles has been remarkably successful in finding a style that is of our time and yet timeless."--Richard Jenkyns, The New York Times Book Review

About the Author

Homer was probably born around 725BC on the Coast of Asia Minor, now the coast of Turkey, but then really a part of Greece. Homer was the first Greek writer whose work survives. He was one of a long line of bards, or poets, who worked in the oral tradition. Homer and other bards of the time could recite, or chant, long epic poems. Both works attributed to Homer - the Iliad and the Odyssey - are over ten thousand lines long in the original. Homer must have had an amazing memory but was helped by the formulaic poetry style of the time.

In the Iliad Homer sang of death and glory, of a few days in the struggle between the Greeks and the Trojans. Mortal men played out their fate under the gaze of the gods. The Odyssey is the original collection of tall traveller's tales. Odysseus, on his way home from the Trojan War, encounters all kinds of marvels from one-eyed giants to witches and beautiful temptresses. His adventures are many and memorable before he gets back to Ithaca and his faithful wife Penelope. We can never be certain that both these stories belonged to Homer. In fact 'Homer' may not be a real name but a kind of nickname meaning perhaps 'the hostage' or 'the blind one'. Whatever the truth of their origin, the two stories, developed around three thousand years ago, may well still be read in three thousand years' time.

Robert Fagles (1933-2008) was Arthur W. Marks '19 Professor of Comparative Literature, Emeritus, at Princeton University. He was the recipient of the 1997 PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation and a 1996 Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His translations include Sophocles's Three Theban Plays, Aeschylus's Oresteia (nominated for a National Book Award), Homer's Iliad (winner of the 1991 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award by The Academy of American Poets), Homer's Odyssey, and Virgil's Aeneid.

Bernard Knox (1914-2010) was Director Emeritus of Harvard's Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C. He taught at Yale University for many years. Among his numerous honors are awards from the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the National Endowment for the Humanities. His works include The Heroic Temper: Studies in Sophoclean Tragedy, Oedipus at Thebes: Sophocles' Tragic Hero and His Time and Essays Ancient and Modern (awarded the 1989 PEN/Spielvogel-Diamonstein Award).