This volume offers an extensive overview of the various ways in which Sophocles’ use of the Greek language is currently being studied. Greatly admired in antiquity, Sophocles’ style only became a serious subject of investigation with Campbell’s Introductory essay On the language of Sophocles (1879). Fourteen chapters, divided into three sections (diction, syntax, pragmatics), discuss the linguistic register and use of gnomai in Ajax’ deception speech, Homeric intertextuality, the style of the Sophoclean satyr-plays in relation to tragedy and comedy, the relation between the repetition of words and focalization, the language of blindness, the image of ‘fire’, the use of deictic pronouns, the semantics of the middle-passive and of counterfactuals, the historic present and the constitution of the text, the suggestive power of descriptions, speech-acts, and strategies of politeness.
Written by one of the best-known interpreters of classical literature today, Sophocles and the Language of Tragedy presents a revolutionary take on the work of this great classical playwright and on how our understanding of tragedy has been shaped by our literary past. Simon Goldhill sheds new light on Sophocles' distinctive brilliance as a dramatist, illuminating such aspects of his work as his manipulation of irony, his construction of dialogue, and his deployment of the actors and the chorus. Goldhill also investigates how nineteenth-century critics like Hegel, Nietzsche, and Wagner developed a specific understanding of tragedy, one that has shaped our current approach to the genre. Finally, Goldhill addresses one of the foundational questions of literary criticism: how historically self-conscious should a reading of Greek tragedy be? The result is an invigorating and exciting new interpretation of the most canonical of Western authors.
A landmark anthology of the masterpieces of Greek drama, featuring all-new, highly accessible translations of some of the world’s most beloved plays, including Agamemnon, Prometheus Bound, Bacchae, Electra, Medea, Antigone, and Oedipus the King Featuring translations by Emily Wilson, Frank Nisetich, Sarah Ruden, Rachel Kitzinger, Mary Lefkowitz, and James Romm The great plays of Ancient Greece are among the most enduring and important legacies of the Western world. Not only is the influence of Greek drama palpable in everything from Shakespeare to modern television, the insights contained in Greek tragedy have shaped our perceptions of the nature of human life. Poets, philosophers, and politicians have long borrowed and adapted the ideas and language of Greek drama to help them make sense of their own times. This exciting curated anthology features a cross section of the most popular—and most widely taught—plays in the Greek canon. Fresh translations into contemporary English breathe new life into the texts while capturing, as faithfully as possible, their original meaning. This outstanding collection also offers short biographies of the playwrights, enlightening and clarifying introductions to the plays, and helpful annotations at the bottom of each page. Appendices by prominent classicists on such topics as “Greek Drama and Politics,” “The Theater of Dionysus,” and “Plato and Aristotle on Tragedy” give the reader a rich contextual background. A detailed time line of the dramas, as well as a list of adaptations of Greek drama to literature, stage, and film from the time of Seneca to the present, helps chart the history of Greek tragedy and illustrate its influence on our culture from the Roman Empire to the present day. With a veritable who’s who of today’s most renowned and distinguished classical translators, The Greek Plays is certain to be the definitive text for years to come. Praise for The Greek Plays “Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm deftly have gathered strong new translations from Frank Nisetich, Sarah Ruden, Rachel Kitzinger, Emily Wilson, as well as from Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm themselves. There is a freshness and pungency in these new translations that should last a long time. I admire also the introductions to the plays and the biographies and annotations provided. Closing essays by five distinguished classicists—the brilliant Daniel Mendelsohn and the equally skilled David Rosenbloom, Joshua Billings, Mary-Kay Gamel, and Gregory Hays—all enlightened me. This seems to me a helpful light into our gathering darkness.”—Harold Bloom
This book contains thirteen essays by senior international experts on Greek tragedy looking at Sophocles' dramas. They reassess their crucial role in the creation of the tragic repertoire, in the idea of the tragic canon in antiquity, and in the making and infinite re-creation of the tragic tradition in the Renaissance and beyond. The introduction looks at the paradigm shifts during the twentieth century in the theory and practice of Greek theatre, in order to gain a perspective on the current state of play in Sophoclean studies. The following three sections explore respectively the way that Sophocles' tragedies provoked and educated their original Athenian democratic audience, the language, structure and lasting impact of his Oedipus plays, and the centrality of his oeuvre in the development of the tragic tradition in Aeschylus, Euripides, ancient philosophical theory, fourth-century tragedy and Shakespeare.
Originally published in 1944, this book examines how Sophocles' inventive use of the ancient Greek language and style justifies his place as, arguably, the greatest Athenian tragedian. Earp analyses in great detail Sophocles' use of Greek words by listing those words used in the plays that appear nowhere else in the canon of ancient literature, as well as linguistic overlap between Sophocles and other ancient authors, and his use of idiom and metre. This thoroughly-researched book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Sophoclean tragedy and textual criticism.
Sophocles I contains the plays “Antigone,” translated by Elizabeth Wyckoff; “Oedipus the King,” translated by David Grene; and “Oedipus at Colonus,” translated by Robert Fitzgerald. Sixty years ago, the University of Chicago Press undertook a momentous project: a new translation of the Greek tragedies that would be the ultimate resource for teachers, students, and readers. They succeeded. Under the expert management of eminent classicists David Grene and Richmond Lattimore, those translations combined accuracy, poetic immediacy, and clarity of presentation to render the surviving masterpieces of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides in an English so lively and compelling that they remain the standard translations. Today, Chicago is taking pains to ensure that our Greek tragedies remain the leading English-language versions throughout the twenty-first century. In this highly anticipated third edition, Mark Griffith and Glenn W. Most have carefully updated the translations to bring them even closer to the ancient Greek while retaining the vibrancy for which our English versions are famous. This edition also includes brand-new translations of Euripides’ Medea, The Children of Heracles, Andromache, and Iphigenia among the Taurians, fragments of lost plays by Aeschylus, and the surviving portion of Sophocles’s satyr-drama The Trackers. New introductions for each play offer essential information about its first production, plot, and reception in antiquity and beyond. In addition, each volume includes an introduction to the life and work of its tragedian, as well as notes addressing textual uncertainties and a glossary of names and places mentioned in the plays. In addition to the new content, the volumes have been reorganized both within and between volumes to reflect the most up-to-date scholarship on the order in which the plays were originally written. The result is a set of handsome paperbacks destined to introduce new generations of readers to these foundational works of Western drama, art, and life.
This book is a wide-ranging study of the language of the tragedian Sophocles. From a detailed analysis of sentence-structure in the first chapter, it moves on to discuss how language shapes the perception of characters, of myths, of gods and of choruses. All chapters are united by a shared concern: how does Sophoclean language engage readers and spectators? Although the book focuses on the original Greek, translations make it accessible to anybody interested in Greek tragedy.
Literary historians have long held the view that the plays of the Greek dramatist, Sophocles deal purely with archetypes of the heroic past and that any resemblance to contemporary events or individuals is purely coincidental. In this book, Michael Vickers challenges this view and argues that Sophocles makes regular and extensive allusion to Athenian politics in his plays, especially to Alcibiades, one of the most controversial Athenian politicians of his day.Vickers shows that Sophocles was no closeted intellectual but a man deeply involved in politics and he reminds us that Athenian politics was intensely personal. He argues cogently that classical writers employed hidden meanings and that consciously or sub-consciously, Sophocles was projecting onto his plays hints of contemporary events or incidents, mostly of a political nature, hoping that his audience's passion for politics would enhance the popularity of his plays. Vickers strengthens his case about Sophocles by discussing other authors - Thucydides, Plato and Euripides - in whom he also demonstrates a body of allusions to Alcibiades and others.
