Robert Fagles's stunning modern-verse translation-available at last in our black-spine classics line A Penguin Classic The Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of everyman's journey through life. In the myths and legends that are retold here, renowned translator Robert 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. This is an Odyssey to delight both the classicist and the general reader, and to captivate a new generation of Homer's students. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents 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.
Robert Fagles Book order (chronological)
Robert Fagles was renowned for his vibrant and dynamic translations of classic Greek works. His approach to ancient Greek poetry and drama, characterized by contemporary phrasing and sensitivity, brought these timeless narratives to new audiences. Fagles' renderings are prized for their fidelity to the original texts while capturing the spirit and energy of the source material. Through his work, he significantly enriched modern engagement with classical literature.






A translation of Homer's poem of war which is a magnificent testimony to the power of the Iliad. This volume retells the story of Achilles, the great warrior, and his terrible wrath before the walls of besieged Troy, and the destruction it wreaks on both Greeks and Trojans.
The tragedy of Oedipus' daughter - a wise, fearless heroine who shuns society's laws - from the master Greek dramatist.
Homer's Odyssey
- 247 pages
- 9 hours of reading
In this new translation of the "Odyssey," Norbert Albertson has succeeded in crafting a vivid and thoughtful English version of Homer's great work. Both true to the original and resonant in the present day, it is a masterful work of story-telling for readers of our time. Translator's note: The Greek "Odyssey" is one of the supreme achievements of the human mind and spirit. This book is not "that" Odyssey, but a translation, which-like all other translations of the Odyssey-like any translation of any work of literature-is a re-creation in a different language of "some" of the qualities of the original work. So at the very beginning, a translator must ask himself: "Which qualities of this work can I hope to re-create?" If you look at a number of translations of the Odyssey, you soon see that each translator has answered that question in his own way, a way that differs-and usually differs greatly-from that of all the others. In "On Translating Homer," Matthew Arnold, the great Victorian poet and critic, famously says that the qualities of Homer are four: he is rapid; he is plain and direct in thought and expression; he is plain and direct in substance; and he is noble. In this translation I have aimed at the first three, hoping (and partly believing) that, if I succeeded to some degree in those first three, the fourth would take care of itself.
Aristotle called "Oedipus The King," the second-written of the three Theban plays written by Sophocles, the masterpiece of the whole of Greek theater. Today, nearly 2,500 years after Sophocles wrote, scholars and audiences still consider it one of the most powerful dramatic works ever made. Freud sure did. The three plays--"Antigone," "Oedipus the King," and "Oedipus at Colonus"--Are not strictly a trilogy, but all are based on the Theban myths that were old even in Sophocles' time. This particular edition was rendered by Robert Fagles, perhaps the best translator of the Greek classics into English