Robert Fagles's stunning modern-verse translation—available at last in our black-spine classics line
Soon to be a major motion picture directed by Christopher Nolan
A Penguin ClassicThe 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.
When Robert Fagles' translation of The Iliad was published in 1990, critics and scholars alike hailed it as a masterpiece. Now one of the great translators of our time presents us with The Odyssey, Homer's best-loved poem, recounting Odysseus' wanderings after the Trojan War.
With wit and wile, the 'man of twists and turns' meets the challenges of gods and monsters, only to return after twenty years to a home besieged by his wife's suitors. In the myths and legends retold in this immortal poem, Fagles has captured the energy of Homer's original in a bold, contemporary idiom.
Wonderfully readable... Just the right blend of roughness and sophistication. (Ted Hughes)
Robert Fagles is the best living translator of ancient Greek drama, lyric poetry, and epic into modern English. (Garry Wills,
The New Yorker)
Mr. Fagles has been remarkably successful in finding a style that is of our time and yet timeless. (Richard Jenkyns,
The New York Times Book Review)
