The Iliad

"Mr. Fitzgerald has solved virtually every problem that has plagued translators of Homer. The narrative runs, the dialogue speaks, the military action is clear, and the repetitive epithets become useful text rather than exotic relics. Aside from the ability to write poetry, Mr. Fitzgerald's success derives from the use of a predominately Anglo-Saxon vocabulary, a concentration on specific meanings, and an occasional arbitrary, but highly effective, substitution of implication for literal sense. Odysseus becomes 'the great tactician,' which is not at all what Homer called him, but is almost certainly the modern equivalent of what Homer's audience understood."—The Atlantic Monthly

"[Robert Fitzgerald's Odyssey and Iliad] open up once more the unique greatness of Homer's art [and] the brilliant texture of Homeric verse."—The Yale Review

"What an age can read in Homer, what its translators can manage to say in his presence, is one gauge of its morale, one index to its system of exultations and reticences. The supple, the iridescent, the ironic, these modes are among our strengths, and among Fitzgerald's."—National Review

"This is a masterpiece and will surely rank as one of the best translations of a classic in the English language. It surpasses by far Richard Lattimore's, which has been heretofore the most popular modern version. Lattimore uses a cumbersome six-beat line which though euphonious is syntactically enslaved to the Greek. Fitzgerald's swift rhythms, bright images, and superb English make Homer live as never before . . . No quotations can do justice to the whole magnificent orchestration of poetic craft. This is for every reader in our time and possibly for all time."—Library Journal