View source for Robert Fitzgerald

{{Short description|American poet, critic and translator (1910–1985)}}
{{other people}}
{{Infobox writer
| name             = Robert Fitzgerald
| image            = Robert Fitzgerald portrait.jpg
| caption          = Robert Fitzgerald in 1943, by Walker Evans
| birth_name       = Robert Stuart Fitzgerald
| birth_date       = {{birth date|1910|10|12}}
| birth_place      = [[Geneva, New York]], U.S.
| death_date       = {{death date and age|1985|1|16|1910|10|12}}
| death_place      = [[Hamden, Connecticut]], U.S.
| education        = [[Harvard University]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|BA]])
}}
'''Robert Stuart Fitzgerald''' (12 October 1910 – 16 January 1985) was an American [[poet]], [[Literary criticism|literary critic]] and [[translator]] whose renderings of the [[Ancient Greek|Greek classics]] "became standard works for a generation of scholars and students".<ref name="nytobit">Mitgang, Herbert (January 17, 1985). Robert Fitzgerald, 74, poet who translated the classics. ''[[New York Times]]''</ref> He was best known as a translator of ancient [[Greek language|Greek]] and [[Latin]]. He also composed several books of his own poetry.

==Biography==
Fitzgerald grew up in [[Springfield, Illinois]], and graduated from [[Choate Rosemary Hall|The Choate School]] (now Choate Rosemary Hall) in [[Wallingford, Connecticut]]. He entered [[Harvard University|Harvard]] in 1929, and in 1931 a number of his poems were published in ''[[Poetry (magazine)|Poetry]]'' magazine. After graduating from Harvard in 1933 he became a reporter for the ''[[New York Herald Tribune]]'' for a year.

Later he worked for several years for ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]''. In 1940, [[William Saroyan]] lists him among "associate editors" at ''Time'' in the play, ''Love's Old Sweet Song''.<ref>
{{cite book
| first = William 
| last = Saroyan
| author-link = William Saroyan
| title = Love's Old Sweet Song: A Play in Three Acts
| publisher = Samuel French
| url = https://archive.org/stream/lovesoldsweetson013163mbp/lovesoldsweetson013163mbp_djvu.txt
| page = 72
| date = 1940
| access-date = 15 July 2017}}</ref><ref name="nytobit"/> [[Whittaker Chambers]] mentions him as a colleague in his 1952 memoir, ''Witness''.<ref>
{{Cite book| last = Chambers| first = Whittaker| title = Witness| publisher = Random House| year = 1952| location = New York| page = 478|lccn = 52005149 }}</ref>

In [[World War II]], he served in the [[U.S. Navy]] in [[Guam]] and [[Pearl Harbor]]. Later he was an instructor at [[Sarah Lawrence]] and [[Princeton University]], poetry editor of ''[[The New Republic]]''. He succeeded [[Archibald MacLeish]] as [[Ward Nicholas Boylston|Boylston]] Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard in 1965 and served until his retirement in 1981.<ref name="nytobit"/>

He was a member of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]], and a Chancellor of the [[Academy of American Poets]]. From 1984 to 1985 he was appointed Consultant in Poetry to the [[Library of Congress]], a position now known as [[Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry]], the United States' equivalent of a national poet laureate, but did not serve due to illness. In 1984 Fitzgerald received a L.H.D. from [[Bates College]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/poets/fitzgerald.php |title=Robert Fitzgerald |access-date=2009-06-22 |archive-date=2009-02-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090220064157/http://harvardsquarelibrary.org/poets/fitzgerald.php |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Fitzgerald is widely known as one of the most poetic translators into the English language. He also served as literary executor to [[Flannery O'Connor]], who was a boarder at his home in [[Redding, Connecticut]], from 1949 to 1951. <!-- Various sources incorrectly cite Ridgefield, Connecticut, as Fitzgerald's home from the 1940s into the 1960s. He, in fact, lived on Seventy Acres Road in adjacent Redding, Connecticut. He and Flannery O'Connor used a Ridgefield mailing address because, in those days, rural delivery to that portion of Redding was done by the Ridgefield post office. {{Citation needed|date=December 2008}} --> Fitzgerald's wife at the time, Sally Fitzgerald, compiled O'Connor's essays and letters after O'Connor's death. [[Benedict Fitzgerald]] (who co-wrote the screenplay for ''[[The Passion of the Christ]]'' with [[Mel Gibson]]), Barnaby Fitzgerald, and Michael Fitzgerald are sons of Robert and Sally.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-Fitzgerald|title=Robert Fitzgerald - American poet|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|access-date=February 1, 2019}}</ref>

Fitzgerald was married three times. He later moved to [[Hamden, Connecticut]], where he died at his home after a long illness.<ref name="nytobit"/>

==Works==

===Translations===
* {{cite book| title=The Alcestis of Euripides| author=Euripides| others=Translators [[Dudley Fitts]], Robert Fitzgerald| publisher=Harcourt, Brace and Company| year=1936 }}
* {{cite book| title=Oedipus Rex| author=Sophocles| others= Translators [[Dudley Fitts]], Robert Fitzgerald| publisher=Faber and Faber| year=1951 }}
* {{cite book| title=Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus; Antigone| author=Sophocles| others=Translators David Grene, Robert Fitzgerald, Elizabeth Wyckoff| publisher=University of Chicago Press| year=1954 }}
* {{cite book | title=Homer's The Odyssey | publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux | year=1961 }}
**{{cite book | title=The Odyssey| author=Homer| others=Translator Robert Fitzgerald| publisher=Houghton Mifflin Company| year=1965}}
** {{cite book| title=The Odyssey| author=Homer| others=Translator Robert Fitzgerald| publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux| year=1998| isbn=978-0-374-22438-7 }}
* {{cite book| title=The Iliad| author=Homer | publisher=Doubleday|year=1974}}
** {{cite book| title=The Iliad| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OT9pj8chUbQC&q=Robert+Fitzgerald| author=Homer| others=Translator Robert Fitzgerald| publisher=Oxford University Press| year=1998| isbn=978-0-19-283405-8 }}
* {{cite book| title=The Aeneid| author=Virgil| others= Translator Robert Fitzgerald| publisher=Random House| year=1983| isbn=0-394-52827-1 }}

===Poems===
* {{cite book| title=Poems| publisher=Arrow Editions| year=1935 }}
* {{cite book| title=A Wreath for the Sea| publisher=Arrow editions| year=1943 }}
* {{cite book| title=In the Rose of Time: Poems, 1931-1956| publisher=W W Norton & Co Inc| year=1956| isbn=978-0-8112-0279-4 }}
* {{cite book| title=Spring Shade: Poems, 1931-1970| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LRklaJVc_4cC&q=Robert+Fitzgerald| publisher=New Directions | year=1971| isbn=978-0-8112-0052-3 }}

===Editor===
* {{cite book| title=The Collected Poems of James Agee| editor=Robert Fitzgerald| publisher=Calder and Boyars| year=1969| isbn=978-0-7145-0887-0 }}
* {{cite book| title=The Collected Short Prose of James Agee| author=James Agee| editor=Robert Fitzgerald| publisher=Cherokee Publishing Company| year=1976| isbn=978-0-87797-302-7 }}
* {{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FL8O0mTosVUC&q=Robert+Fitzgerald| title=Mystery and manners: occasional prose| author=Flannery O'Connor| editor=Sally Fitzgerald, Robert Fitzgerald| publisher=Macmillan| year=1969| isbn=978-0-374-50804-3 }}
* {{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-Sd3OkSndXQC&q=Robert+Fitzgerald| title=Everything that rises must converge| author=Flannery O'Connor| editor=Sally Fitzgerald, Robert Fitzgerald| publisher=Macmillan| year=1965| isbn=978-0-374-50464-9 }}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{Wikiquote}}
* {{DBCS}}
* {{cite journal| url=http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2928/the-art-of-translation-no-1-robert-fitzgerald| title=Robert Fitzgerald, The Art of Translation No. 1| journal=Paris Review| date=Winter 1984| author= Edwin Frank, Andrew McCord | volume=Winter 1984| issue=94}}
* [http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15938 Interview from ''The Poet's Other Voice'']
* [http://harvardsquarelibrary.org/poets/fitzgerald.php Robert Fitzgerald biography and example of poetry. Part of a series of poets.]
*[https://rose.library.emory.edu/ Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library], Emory University: [http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/8z9ds Sally Fitzgerald papers, circa 1930-2000]
*[[hdl:10079/fa/beinecke.fitz|Robert Fitzgerald Papers]]. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

{{LOC Poets Laureate}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fitzgerald, Robert}}
[[Category:1910 births]]
[[Category:1985 deaths]]
[[Category:American poets laureate]]
[[Category:American poets of Irish descent]]
[[Category:Choate Rosemary Hall alumni]]
[[Category:Harvard Advocate alumni]]
[[Category:Greek–English translators]]
[[Category:Latin–English translators]]
[[Category:Writers from Springfield, Illinois]]
[[Category:Writers from Ridgefield, Connecticut]]
[[Category:20th-century American poets]]
[[Category:20th-century American translators]]
[[Category:American male poets]]
[[Category:Translators of Ancient Greek texts]]
[[Category:People from Redding, Connecticut]]
[[Category:20th-century American male writers]]
[[Category:Translators of Homer]]
[[Category:Translators of Virgil]]
[[Category:Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters]]