The poet and scholar Allen Mandelbaum (1926-2011) was best known for his award-winning verse translations of the classics--Virgil's
Aeneid, Dante's
Divina Commedia, Homer's
Odyssey, and Ovid's
Metamorphoses--as well as of modern Italian poets (Ungaretti, Quasimodo, and Montale). He also published four major volumes of verse:
Journeyman (1967),
Leaves of Absence (1976),
Chelmaxioms: the Maxims, Axioms, Maxioms of Chelm (1977), and
The Savantasse of Montparnasse (1987). His distinguished teaching career included the chairmanship of the English Department at the City University of New York Graduate Center and the Kenan Professorship of the Humanities at Wake Forest University, North Carolina.
