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If The Iliad is the world's greatest war story, then The Odyssey is literature's greatest evocation of every man's journey through life. Here again, Fagles has performed the translator's task magnificently, giving us an Odyssey to read aloud, to savor, and to treasure for its sheer lyrical mastery.
Each volume contains a superb introduction with textual and critical commentary by renowned classicist Bernard Knox.
Robert Fagles is Arthur W. Marks '19 Professor of Comparative Literature, Emeritus, at Princeton University. He is the recipient of the 1997 PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation and a 1996 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, to which he has been elected. His new translation of Virgil's Aeneid will be published in fall of 2006.
According to legend, Homer was blind, though scholarly evidence can neither confirm nor contradict the point.
The ongoing debate about who Homer was, when he lived, and even if he wrote The Odyssey and The Iliad is known as the "Homeric question." Classicists do agree that these tales of the fall of the city of Troy (Ilium) in the Trojan War (The Iliad) and the aftermath of that ten-year battle (The Odyssey) coincide with the ending of the Mycenaean period around 1200 BCE (a date that corresponds with the end of the Bronze Age throughout the Eastern Mediterranean). The Mycenaeans were a society of warriors and traders; beginning around 1600 BCE, they became a major power in the Mediterranean. Brilliant potters and architects, they also developed a system of writing known as Linear B, based on a syllabary, writing in which each symbol stands for a syllable.
Scholars disagree on when Homer lived or when he might have written The Odyssey. Some have placed Homer in the late-Mycenaean period, which means he would have written about the Trojan War as recent history. Close study of the texts, however, reveals aspects of political, material, religious, and military life of the Bronze Age and of the so-called Dark Age, as the period of domination by the less-advanced Dorian invaders who usurped the Mycenaeans is known. But how, other scholars argue, could Homer have created works of such magnitude in the Dark Age, when there was no system of writing? Herodotus, the ancient Greek historian, placed Homer sometime around the ninth century BCE, at the beginning of the Archaic period, in which the Greeks adopted a system of writing from the Phoenicians and widely colonized the Mediterranean. And modern scholarship shows that the most recent details in the poems are datable to the period between 750 and 700 BCE.
No one, however, disputes the fact that The Odyssey (and The Iliad as well) arose from oral tradition. Stock phrases, types of episodes, and repeated phrases -- such as "early, rose-fingered dawn" -- bear the mark of epic storytelling. Scholars agree, too, that this tale of the Greek hero Odysseus's journey and adventures as he returned home from Troy to Ithaca is a work of the greatest historical significance and, indeed, one of the foundations of Western literature.
Author biography from the Barnes & Noble Classics edition of The Odyssey.
This translation is fine, though rather dry, and it has one big problem: it uses the Roman names of the gods. Since this is a GREEK epic, it really should be using the Greek names (Zeus, not Jupiter; Hera, not Juno; Athena, not Minerva; and so forth). It will however, give you solid understanding of the events of the epic in an inexpensive format.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted April 17, 2012
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Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Garrett-Langen
Posted December 5, 2010
it is awsome really good epic
1 out of 9 people found this review helpful.
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Posted June 18, 2012
I give this an honest 4 stars for the fact that I love reading this kind of stuff. However, my one wish is that they could change the art cover for it. I also bought this book in Barnes and Noble Leather form and it has a nice rich, look to it. I was hoping they would just have that has the photo for the nook.
But again, don't get me wrong. I love the stories in it.
Anonymous
Posted May 27, 2012
Great format for Nook Simple Touch, true to books
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted May 15, 2012
I know alot of people enjoy this and other epic poems but i guess im just not one of em. Not my thing. Hence: eh.
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Posted March 31, 2012
There are dozens of translations of this classic. Nook doesn't list the translator, making it impossible to choose ....
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Overview
If The Iliad is the world's greatest war story, then The Odyssey is literature's greatest evocation of every man's journey through life. Here again, Fagles has performed the translator's task magnificently, giving us an Odyssey...