Classics and Religious Studies, Department of
Date of this Version
3-21-1975
Abstract
HOMER, The Iliad, translated by ROBERT FITZGERALD, Doubleday.
One of the best things about this version was Fitzgerald’s decision to use the purist transliterations: the effect of this is to invite the reader to read as if he had never read an Iliad before. A single newly thought‐out rendering can nudge the reader into new thinking about Homer, thinking which he otherwise would not have done. The ultimate way to experience Homer will ever remain to become at home in Greek. Then the experience is your own. But for the price of fifteen dollars you can experience Fitzgerald’s experience of Homer. It is, now and again, a new experience, and worth it. Spend the money.
Comments
Published in Prairie Schooner, 49: (Spring 1975), pp. 81-83. Copyright 1975 University of Nebraska Press. Used by permission.
http://prairieschooner.unl.edu/psmain.htm