author
Robert Fitzgerald
Best known for bringing Homer and Virgil vividly into modern English, this American poet and critic helped generations of readers discover the classics. His translations were admired for their clarity, music, and literary grace.
1 Audiobook
The Statesmen Snowbound
by Robert Fitzgerald
About the author
Born in Geneva, New York, in 1910 and raised in Springfield, Illinois, Robert Fitzgerald studied English and classics at Harvard. Over the course of his career, he worked not only as a poet and literary critic but also as a teacher, editor, and journalist.
He is most widely remembered for his translations of ancient Greek and Latin literature, especially Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid. Reference works and poetry organizations consistently describe those translations as major achievements, praised for making classical epics feel alive and readable for modern audiences.
Alongside his translation work, Fitzgerald published his own poetry and remained active in American literary life for decades. He died in 1985, leaving behind a body of work that connected classical literature with a broad twentieth-century readership.