A Fresh and Tragic 'Iliad'

The Iliad and the Odyssey have been translated into English again and again over the past several centuries, and about once every two decades a translator emerges as Homer’s standard-bearer for a generation. E. V. Rieu astonished the English-speaking world with his simple, direct prose translation of the Odyssey in 1945, which was to the world of classics what the GI Bill was to a college education: a ticket in for the common man who wanted to know more. Robert Fitzgerald and Richmond Lattimore became the darlings of classics-in-translation syllabi in the 1960s, where they have remained, though challenged for supremacy in the 1990s by Robert Fagles. Excellent translations followed — Lombardo, Alexander, Mitchell, all with virtues — without ever matching the sales numbers of the standard-bearers. Then, in 2018, Emily Wilson issued her Odyssey, which became a sensation.