Series 1: Writings, 1959-2007
This series includes Robert Fagles's working files for all of his major translations of the works of Homer, Virgil, Sophocles, Aeschylus, Pindar, and Bacchylides, as well as for his book of original poetry, I, Vincent. Materials document his writings over the complete span of his professional career as a translator and poet from the early 1960s until the late 2000s. Fagles kept thorough documentation of his own creative process, as well as of the life of his works following their publication, as reflected in his extensive collection of reviews, productions, permissions files, and mentions of his work in the press. Accordingly, files in this series largely follow the original arrangement imposed on them by their creator in that they are grouped by major work rather than by format, reflecting Fagles's own work habits.
This series is arranged into seven subseries following Fagles's major works in chronological order, retaining the original groupings of materials.
Bacchylides: Greenwood, 1966-1983
Pindar: Adam Milman, 1964
Pindar: In the Works, undated
Pindar: Gods, Heroes, Men, undated
Pindar: "Olympian I", undated
Pindar: "Olympian II", 1964
Pindar: "Olympian III", undated
Pindar: "Olympian IV", undated
Pindar: "Olympian VI", undated
Pindar: "Olympian VII", undated
Pindar: "Olympian XI", undated
Pindar: "Olympian XII", undated
Pindar: "Olympian XIII", undated
Pindar: "Olympian XIV", undated
Pindar: Drafts, undated
National Translation Center, 1968
Oresteia Master Copy with Revisions: Introductory Notes, "The Serpent and the Eagle", undated
Oresteia: Penguin Sales, 1991-2005
Oresteia: Viking Press, 1971-2001
Oresteia: Viking Sales, 1985-1994
Oresteia: Penguin Books, 1976-1988
Oresteia: Reviews, 1975-1994
Oresteia: Response, 1976-1996
Oresteia: Bantam Books, 1976-1984
Oresteia: Wildwood House, 1973-1985
Oresteia: Anthologies, 1979-1985
Oresteia: Correspondence, 1975-2005
Oresteia: Performances, 1969-2005
Oresteia: Wesleyan, 1979
Oresteia: Revisions, 1978-1979
Oresteia: Correspondence, 1966-1972
Oresteia: Bantam Promotion, 1977
Oresteia: Revisions, 1976
Oresteia: Paperback Edition, undated
Oresteia: Copies Sent, 1975-1976
Oresteia: Revisions, 1975-1976
Oresteia: Production, 1973-1975
Oresteia: Cover Design, 1974-1978
Oresteia: Penguin Classics, 1976
Oresteia: Notes, Glossary, 1973
Oresteia: Page Proofs, 1975 June
Oresteia: Galleys, 1974 December
Subseries 1C: I, Vincent: Poems from the Pictures of Vincent van Gogh, 1975-2002 (mostly 1975-1983)
I, Vincent: Sales, 1979-2002
I, Vincent: Responses, 1978-1996
I, Vincent: Reviews, 1979-1980
I, Vincent: Rights, Legal, 1977-2002
I, Vincent: Copies Sent, 1979-1981
I, Vincent: Alumni College, 1981
I, Vincent: Plates, undated
I, Vincent: Galley Proofs, undated
I, Vincent: Promotion, 1977-1979
Three Theban Plays: Early Draft: "Greece and the Theater", "Introduction to Antigone", 1981
Three Theban Plays: Early Draft: "Introduction to Oedipus the King", Oedipus the King, undated
Three Theban Plays: Early Draft: "Introduction to Oedipus at Colonus", Oedipus at Colonus, undated
Three Theban Plays: Reviews, 1982-1985
Three Theban Plays: Theatre, 1982-2005
Three Theban Plays: Allen Lane, 1982
Iliad: Viking Penguin Sales, 1990-2006
Iliad: BBC Broadcast, 2001-2002
Iliad: Publication, 1988-1990
Iliad: The Folio Society, 1990-2005
Iliad: Norton Anthology, 1991
Iliad: Translation Awards, 1989-1991
Iliad: Publicity, 1990-1991
Iliad: Production, 1989-1990
Iliad: Correspondence, 1991-2006
Iliad: Homer at Texas, 1994-1995
Iliad: Stage Reading, 1990-1991
Iliad: Correspondence, 1986-2005
Iliad: Commentaries, 1989-1990
Iliad: Design by Anu Gold, 1988-1991
Iliad: Promotion, 1990-1991
Iliad: Publicity, Radio, 2003
Iliad: Aquila Productions, 1995-1999
Iliad: Clown Theatre, 1999
Iliad: Bannon and Company, 1996
Iliad: Joseph Strick, 2000
Iliad: Book I-VI Commentary, 1986
Iliad: Book I-VI Typescript, undated
Iliad: Bernard's Comments, 1985-1988
Odyssey: Correspondence, 1990-2006
Odyssey: Contents, undated
Odyssey: Introduction, 1995
Odyssey: Jackets, 1996
Odyssey: Source Maps, 1989
Odyssey: Genealogies, undated
Odyssey: Notes, Variants, 1996-1997
Odyssey: Bibliography, 1981-1996
Odyssey: Names, Glossary, undated
Odyssey: Bibliography, 1991-1994
Odyssey: Promotional, 1990-1998
Odyssey: Words and Phrases, undated
Odyssey: Penguin Covers, 1998
Odyssey: Penguin Editions, 1997-1998
Odyssey: Engagements, 1993-1999
Odyssey: Television, 1997
Odyssey: Princeton Humanities Symposium, Football, Comparative Literature Dinner, 2003-2005
Odyssey: Princeton Day School, 2002
Odyssey: Bryn Mawr, 2005
Odyssey: Onassis Center, 2004
Odyssey: Choate Rosemary Hall, 2004
Odyssey: Baylor University, 2004
Odyssey: Lawrenceville School, 2000
Odyssey: 92nd Street Y, 1998-2005
Odyssey: West Point, 2001-2004
Odyssey: SUNY Purchase, 2003
Odyssey: Brooklyn Museum, 1996
Odyssey: Bohemian Club, 1998
Odyssey: Stratford Festival, 1999
Odyssey: Bard College, 1999-2001
Odyssey: Dartmouth College, 1996
Odyssey: Princeton Paideia, 2000
Odyssey: University of Texas, 1997
Odyssey: The Learning Channel, 1996
Odyssey: The New Yorker, 1997
Odyssey: The New Republic, 1997
Odyssey: The News Hour, 1997
Odyssey: Interviews, Stories, 1996-2005
Odyssey: To Vima, 1996
Odyssey: Interviews, Seminars, 1997
Odyssey: Troy, NPR, 2004
Odyssey: Book Clubs, 1996-1998
Aeneid: Promotion, 2006-2007
Aeneid: Los Angeles Times, 2006-2007
Aeneid: Serials, 2006
Aeneid: Correspondence, 2006-2007
Aeneid: Penguin Totals, 2003-2007
Aeneid: Stephen Wadsworth, 2006
Aeneid: Reviews, 2006-2007
Aeneid: Book Jacket, 2006-2007
Aeneid: Book I Drafts, undated
Aeneid: Book II Drafts, undated
Aeneid: Book III Drafts, undated
Aeneid: Book IV Drafts, 1999
Aeneid: Book V Drafts, 2000
Aeneid: Book VI Drafts, 2004
Aeneid: Book VII Drafts, 2002
Aeneid: Book VIII Drafts, undated
Aeneid: Book IX Drafts, 2002
Aeneid: Book X Drafts, 2002
Aeneid: Book XI Drafts, 2003
Aeneid: Book XII Drafts, 2003
Aeneid: Correspondence, 2004
This series includes Robert Fagles's correspondence with a variety of friends, colleagues, former students, and poets, as well as a small amount of family correspondence. As a whole, much of the correspondence is of a mixed nature, covering both professional and personal topics, and reflects Fagles's close working relationships with his colleagues and fellow classicists and his willingness to serve as a mentor to many former students and younger scholars interested in ancient Greek and Latin literature. Notable correspondents include Louise Glück, Anne Carson, Robert Fitzgerald, Harold Shapiro, James Dickey, Joyce Carol Oates, William Meredith, Francine du Plessix Gray, Rachel Hadas, Robert Hollander, Francis Fergusson, George Steiner, Robert Goheen, and Charles Tomlinson. Letters often regard Fagles's responses to various translations and poems sent to him for comments, as well as recommendations he provided for colleagues and students for various positions and grants; accordingly, some files also contain writings, clippings, and other print materials regarding works of others. Letters from Fagles often contain lengthy discussions of his ideas about the art of translation and his readings of Greek texts. Of particular interest is a large group of detailed and intimate letters that Fagles wrote to his mother Vera Fagles during his undergraduate years at Amherst and graduate study at Yale in the 1950s, which provide insights into his early encounters with translation studies and ancient literature.
This series includes a file group of alphabetical correspondence followed by a file group of chronological correspondence, in keeping with original order.
Aciman, André, 1996-2006
Alpens, Paul, 1976-2003
Alter, Robert, 1984-2004
Bellos, David, 1982-1993
Ben-Tov (Muir), Sharona, 1976-2004
Beye, Charles, 1977-2003
Brombert, Victor, 1973-1999
Brown, Clarence, 1974-2001
Burke, Kenneth, 1973-1975
Bushnell, Rebecca, 1980-1988
Carson, Anne, 1988-2001
Connor, Robert, 1979-2000
Cohen, Julius, 1972-1995
Core, George, 1985 July 2
Cross, Theodore, and Mary, 1983-2006
Davis, Kit, 1995-2005
Dickey, James, 1996-1999
Donoghue, Denis, 1979-1981
Ezrahi, Sidra, 1990-1995
Fagles, Vera, 1951-1963
Fergusson, Francis, 1968-1986
Freedman, Ralph, 1967-2006
Fitzgerald, Robert, 1971-1985
Frank, Joseph, 1967-1988
Giamatti, Angelo Bartlett, 1967-1989
Glück, Louise, 1995 July
Gray, Francine du Plessix, 1995-2004
Green, Peter, 1990-1997
Hadas, Rachel, 1978-2003
Hamilton, John, 1999-2000
Hoggard, Lynn, 1999
Hollander, Robert, 1971-2006
Howard, Richard, 1976-1983
Hughes, Kate, 1981-2004
Hynes, Samuel and Liz, 1988-1996
Johnston, Sir Charles, 1978-1983
Kahler, Erich, undated
King, Kate, 1975-1978
Knight, Douglas, 1990-2003
Komar, Kathy, 2002-2003
Krevans, Nita, 1982-1984
Lee, Chang-rae, 2003-2005
Lemovick, Aaron, 1972-2003
Lenson, David, 1971-2004
Lipking, Lawrence, 1982
Ludwig, Richard, 2003
Mack, Maynard, 1960-2001
Martin, Robert, 1991-2000
McGuire, William, 1989-1999
Meredith, William, 1965-2000
Miner, Earl, 1966-2004
Moser, Barry, 1998
Mullen, William, 1981
Nehamas, Alexander, 1981-2003
Oates, Joyce Carol, 1978-2003
O'Brien, Edna, 2004-2005
Owen, Jan, 2003-2005
Parry, Anne, and Adam, 1961-1976
Perl, Jeffrey, 1978-2000
Pouncey, Peter, 1995
Prins, Johanna (Yopie), 1987-2004
Quint, David, 1978-1991
Renault, Mary, 1975-1982
Radice, Betty, 1980-1987
Sahl, Michael, 1990-2006
Scanlan, Robert, 1999-2000
Shankman, Stephen, 1982
Shapiro, Harold, 1989-2000
Sifton, Elisabeth, 1982-1993
Simmons, Ruth, 1995-2002
Smith, Mack, 1979-1987
Sonnenberg, Benjamin, 1986-1989
Sonnenfeld, Albert, 1978-2006
Steiner, George, 1965-1998
Strouse, Jean, 2000
Voznesensky, Andrei, 1977
Wills, Garry, 1997-2001
Weinstein, Arnold, 1979-2006
Weiss, Theodore, and Rene, 1978-2003
Wolfson, Mitchell, 1988-2004
Wolosky, Shira, 1977-2001
Family Correspondence, 1965-2005
Correspondence, 1964-1968
Correspondence, 1968-1971
Correspondence, 1970-1973
Correspondence, 1973-1974
Correspondence, 1974-1975
Correspondence, 1975-1976
Correspondence, 1976-1977
Correspondence, 1977-1978
Correspondence, 1978-1979
Correspondence, 1979-1980
Correspondence, 1980s
Correspondence, 1980-1981
Correspondence, 1981-1982
Correspondence, 1982-1983
Correspondence, 1983-1984
Correspondence, 1984-1985
Correspondence, 1985-1986
Correspondence, 1986-1987
Correspondence, 1987-1988
Correspondence, 1988-1989
Correspondence, 1989-1990
Correspondence, 1990-1991
Correspondence, 1991-1992
Correspondence, 1992-1993
Correspondence, 1993-1994
Correspondence, 1994-1995
Correspondence, 1995-1996
Correspondence, 1996-1997
Correspondence, 1997-1998
Correspondence, 2005-2008
This series contains files from Robert Fagles's home office regarding publishing and permissions for republication and quotation of his translations, as well as regarding his professional awards and service in various academic organizations. Materials document his professional relationships with his publishers at Viking Penguin, with his literary agent Georges Borchardt, and with his long-term collaborator Bernard Knox, as well as the use of his translations in works by others and later revisions of works for Penguin Classics. Fagles's many honors and awards are also represented by a group of topical correspondence, brochures, itineraries, speech drafts, and printed materials, as is his participation in various selection committees and as a speaker at public events. Although Fagles's teaching and course files are not contained in the collection, this series does include a few files that hold copies of Fagles's lectures for seminars and conferences on the classics in Princeton University's Department of Comparative Literature.
This series is arranged into the following two subseries: Subseries 3A: Publishing and Permissions, and Subseries 3B: Honors, Awards, and Talks.
Bernard Knox, 1975-1993
Bernard Knox, 1992-2003
Georges Borchardt, 1979-1980
Georges Borchardt, 1977-1988
Georges Borchardt, 1971-2004
Permissions, 1996-1997
Permissions, 1997-2010
Permissions, 1998-2000
Permissions, 1999-2002
Permissions, 2001-2003
Permissions, 2002-2007
Permissions, 2003-2006
Penguin Correspondence, 1998-2005
Penguin Revisions '02-'03, 2000-2005
Penguin Revisions '01, 1992-2005
Penguin Classics Relaunch, 2002-2005
Penguin Revisions, 2001
- Scope and Contents
The papers consist of Robert Fagles's professional correspondence and translation files, primarily including revised manuscript and typescript drafts, corrected proofs and galleys, notes, financial documents, permissions files, reviews, and promotional materials for his English translations of ancient Greek and Latin texts, including Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil's Aeneid, Aeschylus's Oresteia, Sophocles's Three Theban Plays, and poems by Bacchylides and Pindar, as well as files on Fagles's book of original poetry I, Vincent. The papers provide a comprehensive picture of Fagles's career as a translator and poet from the early 1960s until his death in 2008, and most materials in the papers reflect these creative and scholarly aspects of his life. While the papers do include occasional drafts of talks at various seminars, conferences, and events that Fagles led at Princeton, his papers largely do not include files devoted to his teaching and administrative roles in the Department of Comparative Literature at Princeton.
Fagles kept extensive files on each of his major writing and translation projects, which include his drafts and preliminary writings, as well as related correspondence, publishing and production files, royalties and sales statements, reviews, files on theatrical productions and works in print referencing his translations, awards, and events. Correspondence files include Fagles's correspondence with fellow classicists, scholars, poets, former students, and family members, including Robert Fitzgerald, Joyce Carol Oates, Louise Glück, James Dickey, Robert Hollander, Francis Fergusson, George Steiner, and many others, primarily regarding various writing projects, although much of the correspondence is of a mixed personal and professional nature. Professional files regarding publishing, permissions, talks, and awards that Fagles kept in addition to his files on specific works are also present.
- Arrangement
The papers are arranged into the following three series: Series 1: Writings, Series 2: Correspondence, and Series 3: Professional Files.
- Collection Creator Biography:
Fagles, Robert
Robert Fagles (1933-2008) was a renowned translator of Greek and Latin classics, whose bestselling translations of Homer and Virgil's epics are recognized for reinterpreting the classics in a contemporary idiom. Fagles was also the Arthur Marks '19 Professor of Comparative Literature at Princeton University, where he taught English and classics from 1960 until 2002 and founded the Department of Comparative Literature, which he chaired for two decades.
Born in Philadelphia on September 11, 1933, Fagles attended Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, where he studied German. He first developed an interest in the classics during his freshman year at Amherst College in 1952 and eventually switched his major from pre-med to English. Graduating summa cum laude in 1955, Fagles went on to complete his Ph.D. in English literature at Yale University in 1959, where he taught as an instructor for one year. At Yale, Fagles met Bernard Knox, a classicist who became a lifelong friend and later edited and wrote introductions to his published translations. After joining the Princeton faculty in the Department of English in 1960, Fagles became the director of Princeton's Program in Comparative Literature in 1966. Upon the program's inception as an official department in 1975, Fagles served as its founding chair until 1994, where he was credited with integrating literary study with translation and the creative arts. Throughout his career at Princeton, Fagles taught both undergraduate and graduate courses, including freshman seminars, specializing in the classical tradition in English and European literature, the theory and practice of translation, and forms of poetry. After his retirement in 2002, he remained an emeritus professor. Princeton awarded him an honorary doctorate in humane letters in 2007.
Fagles began his career as a translator with the publication of the Complete Poems of the Greek lyric poet Bacchylides, released by Yale University Press in 1961, followed by Pindar's Olympian Odes, which appeared serially in the journal Arion in 1964 and 1965. Moving on to the Greek tragedies, Fagles then translated Aeschylus's Oresteia (Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides), published in 1975, and Sophocles's Three Theban Plays (Antigone, Oedipus the King, and Oedipus at Colonus), published in 1982, both with Viking Penguin. Fagles remains best known for his popular translations of the three great classical epics, Homer's Iliad (1990) and Odyssey (1996) and Virgil's Aeneid (2006). In 1979, Fagles also published a book of original poems titled I, Vincent: Poems from the Pictures of Vincent Van Gogh, billed as a collection of translations of paintings by Vincent Van Gogh. Fagles's original poems have also appeared in various literary journals, including The Sewanee Review, The Yale Review, The Southern Review, Antaeus, and Grand Street.
Fagles was the recipient of many awards over his lifetime, including the Howard T. Behrman Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Humanities from Princeton University (1989), the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award of the Academy of American Poets (1991), an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1996), the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation (1997), and the National Humanities Medal (2006). He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters and holds honorary degrees from Amherst College, Bowdoin College, Yale University, and Princeton University.
Robert Fagles was married to Lynne Fagles (née Marilyn Duchovnay) for 51 years, with whom he had two daughters, Katya and Nina. He died in 2008 at age 74.
- Acquisition:
Gift of Lynne Fagles in 2015 (AM 2015-63). Typescript drafts and proofs of Fagles's translations of Sophocles's Three Theban Plays and Aeschylus's Oresteia were an earlier gift of Robert Fagles in 1986; these materials, which were previously described as the Robert Fagles Translations of Greek Drama (TC014), were transferred to his papers in 2015.
- Appraisal
Nothing was removed from the collection during 2015 processing.
- Processing Information
This collection was processed by Kelly Bolding in April 2015, with assistance from Kristine Gift (GS) and Fiona Bell '18. Finding aid written by Kelly Bolding in April 2015.
- Conditions Governing Access
The collection is open for research.
- Conditions Governing Use
Single copies may be made for research purposes. To cite or publish quotations that fall within Fair Use, as defined under U. S. Copyright Law, no permission is required. For instances beyond Fair Use, it is the responsibility of the researcher to determine whether any permissions related to copyright, privacy, publicity, or any other rights are necessary for their intended use of the Library's materials, and to obtain all required permissions from any existing rights holders, if they have not already done so. Princeton University Library's Special Collections does not charge any permission or use fees for the publication of images of materials from our collections, nor does it require researchers to obtain its permission for said use. The department does request that its collections be properly cited and images credited. More detailed information can be found on the Copyright, Credit and Citations Guidelines page on our website. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us through the Ask Us! form.
- Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
For preservation reasons, original analog and digital media may not be read or played back in the reading room. Users may visually inspect physical media but may not remove it from its enclosure. All analog audiovisual media must be digitized to preservation-quality standards prior to use. Audiovisual digitization requests are processed by an approved third-party vendor. Please note, the transfer time required can be as little as several weeks to as long as several months and there may be financial costs associated with the process. Requests should be directed through the Ask Us Form.
- Credit this material:
Robert Fagles Papers; Manuscripts Division, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library
- Permanent URL:
- http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/37720g305
- Location:
-
Firestone LibraryOne Washington RoadPrinceton, NJ 08544, USA
- Storage Note:
- ReCAP (scarcpxm): Box 1-28
- Subject Terms:
- Ancient Greek literature -- Translations into English.
Classical drama -- Translations into English.
Epic poetry, Greek -- Translations into English.
Epic poetry, Latin -- Translations into English.
Greek drama (tragedy) -- Translations into English.
Poets -- United States -- 20th century -- Manuscripts.
Translation Studies -- United States -- 20th century -- Sources.
Translators -- United States -- 20th century -- Correspondence.
Translators -- United States -- 20th century -- Manuscripts. - Genre Terms:
- Correspondence -- 20th century
Translations (documents) -- 20th century - Names:
- Fagles, Robert
Knox, Bernard