Classics and Religious Studies

 

Title

A New Prescription for a Lens to Homer: Review of Robert Fitzgerald's Translation of The Iliad

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

March 1975

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

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.