Robert Fitzgerald

Robert Fitzgerald was born in Geneva, New York and grew up in Springfield, Illinois. He earned a BA from Harvard University, where he studied English and classics. An educator, journalist, translator, editor, and author, Fitzgerald distinguished himself in several literary fields. He served as poet laureate of the United States from 1984 to 1985, and as chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 1968 to 1985. He was Boylston Professor of Rhetoric at Harvard University from 1965 to 1981.

Fitzgerald earned the Bollingen Award in 1961 for his verse translation of Homer’s The Odyssey. His translation of Homer’s epics and of such works as Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex and Euripedes’s Alcestis earned acclaim for their clarity. According to critics, these works have become classics in their own right.

His other honors include the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and grants from the Ford Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Fitzgerald is the author of the poetry collections Spring Shade: Poems, 1931–1970 and A Wreath for the Sea (1943), among others. In poems such as “Song after Campion,” Fitzgerald’s strong classical influence mixes with the English Renaissance tradition to create pristine lyrical poetry.

The New York Times called his critical volume Enlarging the Change (1985) “an invaluable, unique resource.” Fitzgerald also edited collections of poetry and prose by James Agee.

Fitzgerald died in Hamden, Connecticut in 1985.