Fagles faithful to Virgil's verse

While former University professor Robert Fagles was being awarded the National Humanities medal by President Bush earlier this month, he was also garnering praise from colleagues after his translation of Virgil's "The Aeneid," published by Viking, went on sale at bookstores.

Fagles' translation of "The Aeneid" is "much more colloquial than his translations of Homer's texts," said Denis Feeney, the chair of Princeton's classics department. "At the same time, [Fagles] conveys the emotional intensity and passion of Virgil's text."

This latest translation also differs structurally from previous versions. While other translators like Allen Mandelbaum have converted the poem into English blank verse, Fagles does not use meter at all in his translation. This allows him to make his translation more literal in some places in the poem and more expressive in others.

Alexander Nehamas GS '71, a professor in the comparative literature department, said that though he does not teach directly from Fagles' translations of Homer's "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey," he often quotes them. Nehamas described Fagles' translations as "the most musical" and "by far the best to be recited aloud, as they should be. They restore sound to those poems."

After reading Fagles' translation of "The Aeneid," notwithstanding that he does not teach Latin, Nehamas said that this translation was also "very natural," and that the language it used was "not stilted or artificial."

Feeney agreed, explaining that though Fagles' translation of "The Aeneid" is not as formal as the original text, this quality is beneficial to the reader. If the translation were as formal as the original, Feeney said, it would not be readable.

Feeney said he definitely would use Fagles' "The Aeneid" in teaching. He noted that, compared to other translators, "Fagles is more faithful. As a teacher, if I'm teaching a translation, it's very frustrating to have to stop and say, 'This is not really what Homer or Virgil said.' " Fortunately, Feeney says he does not have to do this with Fagles' translations. "You can walk through the text and actually pick up on signals Virgil is sending you." Feeney then cited repetition of a particular word as an example of a signal and explained, "Other translators just use synonyms for the same word." By contrast, "if students detect repetition [in Fagles' translation], it's very likely that it's actually there in the original."

Nehamas and Feeney agreed that Fagles did an excellent job of overcoming challenges translators face.

"The fundamental challenge is to be faithful to the style and overall feel of [the] original and at the same time make it seem like a worthwhile text in English," Feeney said. "Fagles is incredibly successful at producing something that reads like English poetry and at the same time gives you an idea of what Virgil is like." Feeney also applauded Fagles' ability to reach a compromise between making his translation of "The Aeneid" readable and still keeping it reminiscent of the original.

Nehamas added, "One of the greatest difficulties is producing a translation that is a worthy poem in its own light but is not a different poem from the original ... What Fagles does is he gives us as good a poem as possible while still staying as faithful to the original as possible."

Fagles' translations of "The Odyssey" and "The Iliad" have sold millions of copies. Nehamas said that Fagles' translations "are not only part of a new interest in Greek and Latin, they have actually spurred interest in Greek and Roman classics because they are used so broadly and are so lively."

Feeney predicts that Fagles' translation of "The Aeneid" will reach a large audience, appealing to both those who are already familiar with the poem and those discovering it for the first time.

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Robert Kaster, a professor in the classics department, also contributed his praise of Fagles' translation. He said, "The main point to convey about his 'Aeneid' is that it accomplishes three things: It reflects the meaning of the Latin very closely; it does this in very comfortable and accessible English; and it makes the poem sing. Doing any one of these things consistently is unbelievably difficult. That it does all three at once is astonishing. It is truly a great translation, which will make the poem readable for many people for the first time."

Fagles' other translations include "The Odyssey," "The Iliad," several Greek dramas such as "The Oresteia" and the "Oedipus" trilogy, and some of the poetry of Bacchylides. He has also published "I, Vincent: Poems from the Pictures of Van Gogh" and coedited "Homer: A Collection of Critical Essays" and "Pope's Iliad and Odyssey."