Heading to the Underworld...
Robert Fagles, celebrated translator of ancient epics, dies at age 74
"He was a quiet man, diligent and decorous, yet one who was unexpectedly equal to the swagger and savagery of Homer's 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey' in a way no one had managed before him," said Paul Muldoon, the Howard G.B. Clark '21 University Professor in the Humanities and chair of the Lewis Center for the Arts. "It was as if two key texts of Western literature had been adapted by a director of Westerns like [Sergio] Leone or [Sam] Peckinpah. Robert Fagles will be remembered for many reasons, not least of which being his extraordinary achievement in giving us not only a Homer, but a Virgil, who were true both to their own moments and ours."