What is there to say that has not already been said about The Odyssey? Is it even possible to calculate its effect on Western Literature? There are echoes of it in almost everything you ever read, and I’ve set myself the task of reading Odyssey-related books this year (one of them is causing me some difficulty; no prizes for guessing which one).
Of course, above anything else, The Odyssey is a wonderful story, full of adventure and exploits. It’s must less realistic than The Illiad, strange as it may sound to say that considering the gods that fill Homer’s other great epic. In The Odyssey, we have the Cyclops, the Sirens, Aeolus and his bag containing the winds and Circe’s magic to name only a few of the characters who are neither gods nor men.
Odysseus is a wonderful hero, full of intelligence and guile – “wily Odysseus” as he is frequently referred to by Homer. Fagles’s translation has the feel of a great epic, and is at pains to keep the ritualistic elements of the text – “wine-dark sea”, “Dawn with her rose-red fingers”, “deathless gods” and so on. In his introduction, Bernard Knox speculates that these formulaic passages were key to the process of recitation and improvisation, giving the poet a framework within which to work. Here it emphasises the epic form, and gives the text a lovely rhythm.
Fagles favours translation into blank verse, and tries to retain the metre of the original text. Obviously I can’t judge whether he’s succeeded there, but it does have a wonderful lilting quality to it.
The structure of The Odyssey is fascinating. It starts with Telemachus (Odysseus’s son) at home on Ithaca desperate for news of his father and humiliated by his mother’s suitors. Only some way in do we join Odysseus, and his story is told partially in the present, partially in the past and partially through his own reminiscences of his journey home from Troy. For most of the time, he’s incognito, reluctant to reveal himself in case he angers men in addition to the gods. The final books deal with Odysseus’s revenge on the suitors, and only the final book seems out of place (there is some debate about its authenticity).
The morality of Homer’s time is very different from our own. Odysseus thinks nothing of savage revenge and punishment. No man can escape the fate decided for them by the gods, not even Odysseus himself, and yet we know that his fate is to avenge himself on his enemies. Homer’s ability to sustain the dramatic tension even though we know the outcome is remarkable.
Everyone should read The Odyssey, and I’ve never read a better version of it than the one by Robert Fagles.
No related posts.
Comments
3 Comments so far. Leave a comment below.James, this is your Book 27 – you’ve got two Book 24s!
Cathy X
Whoops! Fixed now, thanks!
Yay! It’s wonderful to see that admiration for The Odyssey is alive and well.
I think that The Odyssey is simply timeless and will continue to be a staple for readers everywhere.
Thanks for your thoughtful review and your disection of the translation; I was especially interested in your observation that “Fagles favours translation into blank verse, and tries to retain the metre of the original text.” I would be interested to look at Fagles translation alongside a translation from 50 years ago and see the difference.
Anyways, thanks again for the great post!
- The Wandering Reader