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Robert Fagles (; September 11, 1933 – March 26, 2008) Obituary from Princeton University Robert Fagles, Translator of the Classics, Dies at 74. The New York Times. 2008. March 29. was an American translator, poet, and academic. He was best known for his many of ancient Greece and Roman classics, especially his acclaimed translations of the Epic poetry of Homer. He taught English and comparative literature for many years at Princeton University.
From 1960 to 1962, Fagles was an English instructor at Princeton University. In 1962 he was promoted to assistant professor, and in 1965 became an associate professor of English and comparative literature. Later that year he became director of the comparative literature program. In 1970, he became a full professor, and from 1975 was the department chair. He retired from teaching as the Arthur W. Marks '19 Professor of Comparative Literature in 2002, and remained a professor emeritus at Princeton.
Between 1961 and 1996, Fagles translated many ancient Greek works. His first translation was of the poetry of Bacchylides, publishing a complete set in 1961. In the 1970s, Fagles began translating much Greek drama, beginning with Aeschylus's The Oresteia. He went on to publish translations of Sophocles's three Theban plays (1982), Homer's Iliad (1990) and Odyssey (1996), and Virgil's Aeneid (2006). In these last four, Bernard Knox authored the introduction and notes. Fagles's translations generally emphasize contemporary English language phrasing and idiom but are faithful to the original as much as possible.[3]
In 1978, Fagles published I, Vincent: Poems from the Pictures of Van Gogh. He was the co-editor of Homer: A Collection of Critical Essays (1962) and Alexander Pope's Iliad and Odyssey (1967).
Fagles died at his home in Princeton, New Jersey, on March 26, 2008, from prostate cancer.
In addition to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Fagles was also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.
He received a National Humanities Medal by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
On June 8, 2011, a resource center devoted to the study of the Classics was dedicated to Dr. Fagles at Princeton High School. At the dedication, students and teachers paid tribute to Dr. Fagles.[4]
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