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.
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.
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.
Based on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves can properly recreate the celebrated and timeless tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the Greek Tragedy in New Translations series offers new translations that go beyond the literal meaning of the Greek in order to evoke the poetry of the originals. The series seeks to recover the entire extant corpus of Greek tragedy, quite as though the ancient tragedians wrote in the English of our own time. Under the editorship of Peter Burian and Alan Shapiro, each of these volumes includes a critical introduction, commentary on the text, full stage directions, and a glossary of the mythical and geographical references in the plays. This finely-tuned translation of Sophocles' Antigone by Richard Emil Braun, both a distinguished poet and a professional scholar-critic, offers, in lean, sinewy verse and lyrics of unusual intensity, an interpretation informed by exemplary scholarship and critical insight. Braun presents an Antigone not marred by excessive sentimentality or pietistic attitudes. His translation underscores the extraordinary structural symmetry and beauty of Sophocles' design by focusing on the balanced and harmonious view of tragically opposed wills that makes the play so moving. Unlike the traditionally gentle and pious protagonist opposed to a brutal and villainous Creon, Braun's Antigone emerges as a true Sophoclean heroine--with all the harshness and even hubris, as well as pathos and beauty, that Sophoclean heroism requires. Braun also reveals a Creon as stubbornly "principled" as Antigone, instead of simply the arrogant tyrant of conventional interpretations.
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
Here, for the first time in English, is celebrated French classicist Jacques Jouanna's magisterial account of the life and work of Sophocles. Exhaustive and authoritative, this acclaimed book combines biography and detailed studies of Sophocles' plays, all set in the rich context of classical Greek tragedy and the political, social, religious, and cultural world of Athens's greatest age, the fifth century. Sophocles was the commanding figure of his day. The author of Oedipus Rex and Antigone, he was not only the leading dramatist but also a distinguished politician, military commander, and religious figure. And yet the evidence about his life has, until now, been fragmentary. Reconstructing a lost literary world, Jouanna has finally assembled all the available information, culled from inscriptions, archaeological evidence, and later sources. He also offers a huge range of new interpretations, from his emphasis on the significance of Sophocles' political and military offices (previously often seen as honorary) to his analysis of Sophocles' plays in the mythic and literary context of fifth-century drama. Written for scholars, students, and general readers, this book will interest anyone who wants to know more about Greek drama in general and Sophocles in particular. With an extensive bibliography and useful summaries not only of Sophocles' extant plays but also, uniquely, of the fragments of plays that have been partially lost, it will be a standard reference in classical studies for years to come.
Presents a retelling of the classic Greek tragedy of Oedipus, who unknowingly murdered his father and married his mother and then puts out his own eyes when he discovers the truth.
Accessible edition with commentary of this widely read but highly complex and challenging play. Provides help with morphology, grammar and syntax and interpretation of the text in its historical, social, cultural and intellectual contexts. The introduction also gives an account of its reception from antiquity to the present day.
This book examines the lyrical voice of Sophocles' heroes and argues that their identities are grounded in poetic identity and power. It begins by looking at how voice can be distinguished in Greek tragedy and by exploring ways that the language of tragedy was influenced by other kinds of poetry in late fifth-century Athens. In subsequent chapters, Professor Nooter undertakes close readings of Sophocles' plays to show how the voice of each hero is inflected by song and other markers of lyric poetry. She then argues that the heroes' lyrical voices set them apart from their communities and lend them the authority and abilities of poets. Close analysis of the Greek texts is supplemented by translations and discussions of poetic features more generally, such as apostrophe and address. This study offers new insight into the ways that Sophoclean tragedy inherits and refracts the traditions of other poetic genres.
