Robert Fagles | Classics scholar, 74
Robert Fagles, 74, a professor emeritus at Princeton University whose bold, flowing translations of Homer and Virgil made him an esteemed and best-selling classical scholar, has died. Mr. Fagles died Wednesday in Princeton of prostate cancer, the university said Friday. According to Mr. Fagles' publisher, Viking, his translations sold more than 4 million copies worldwide, and he enjoyed both an academic and a popular audience. He received numerous awards, including the National Humanities Medal, the Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the PEN/Ralph Manheim prize for lifetime achievement. Mr. Fagles' first published translation, of the lyric poet Bacchilydes, came out in 1961, around the time he joined the Princeton University faculty. He translated several Greek tragedies, including works by Aeschylus and Sophocles, and took on The Iliad in the 1970s. Mr. Fagles retired from the Princeton faculty in 2002.
Robert Fagles, 74, a professor emeritus at Princeton University whose bold, flowing translations of Homer and Virgil made him an esteemed and best-selling classical scholar, has died.
Mr. Fagles died Wednesday in Princeton of prostate cancer, the university said Friday.
According to Mr. Fagles' publisher, Viking, his translations sold more than 4 million copies worldwide, and he enjoyed both an academic and a popular audience.
He received numerous awards, including the National Humanities Medal, the Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the PEN/Ralph Manheim prize for lifetime achievement.
Mr. Fagles' first published translation, of the lyric poet Bacchilydes, came out in 1961, around the time he joined the Princeton University faculty. He translated several Greek tragedies, including works by Aeschylus and Sophocles, and took on
The Iliad
in the 1970s.
Mr. Fagles retired from the Princeton faculty in 2002.
- AP