![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Robert Fagles
Apr. 21st, 2015 08:10 amFagles is, of course, the celebrated translator of Homer's two epics, Iliad and Odyssey.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
INTERVIEWER
You also spoke about imagining the American Civil War as a path into Homer’s song.
FAGLES
Very much so, and largely because of Shelby Foote’s three-volume narrative of the Civil War. When I began translating the Iliad my friend George Garrett asked if I knew Foote’s great work. No, I said, and he replied, Well, drop everything and read it! At the end of Foote’s labors—a magnificent piece of writing—he credits Homer as a model for his volumes. And when I think of that “defining moment” in American history I think of a sentiment expressed by Oliver Wendell Holmes (in his Memorial Day address in Keene, New Hampshire, 1884): “Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing.” That’s Homer through and through.
-- Robert Fagles at The Paris Review
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
INTERVIEWER
You also spoke about imagining the American Civil War as a path into Homer’s song.
FAGLES
Very much so, and largely because of Shelby Foote’s three-volume narrative of the Civil War. When I began translating the Iliad my friend George Garrett asked if I knew Foote’s great work. No, I said, and he replied, Well, drop everything and read it! At the end of Foote’s labors—a magnificent piece of writing—he credits Homer as a model for his volumes. And when I think of that “defining moment” in American history I think of a sentiment expressed by Oliver Wendell Holmes (in his Memorial Day address in Keene, New Hampshire, 1884): “Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing.” That’s Homer through and through.
-- Robert Fagles at The Paris Review
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
