✍ Scribed by Sophocles;Oliver Taplin
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Sophocles stands as one of the greatest dramatists of all time, and one of the most influential on artists and thinkers over the centuries. His plays are deeply disturbing and unpredictable, unrelenting and open-ended, refusing to present firm answers to the questions of human existence, or to
provide a redemptive justification of the ways of gods to men or women. These three tragedies portray the extremes of human suffering and emotion, turning the heroic myths into supreme works of poetry and dramatic action.
Antigone's obsession with the dead, Creon's crushing inflexibility, Deianeira's jealous desperation, the injustice of the gods witnessed by Hyllus, Electra's obsessive vindictiveness, the threatening of insoluble dynastic contamination... Such are the pains and distortions and instabilities of
Sophoclean tragedy. And yet they do not deteriorate into cacophony or disgust or incoherence or silence: they face the music, and through that the suffering is itself turned into the coherence of music and poetry. These original and distinctive verse translations convey the vitality of Sophocles'
poetry and the vigour of the plays in performance, doing justice to both the sound of the poetry and the theatricality of the tragedies. Each play is accompanied by an introduction and substantial notes on topographical and mythical references and interpretation.
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Sophocles stands as one of the greatest dramatists of all time, and one of the most influential on artists and thinkers over the centuries. His plays are deeply disturbing and unpredictable, unrelenting and open-ended, refusing to present firm answers to the questions of human existence, or to provi
Antigone est la fille d'Œdipe et de Jocaste, souverains de Thèbes. Après le suicide de Jocaste et l'exil d'Œdipe, les deux frères d'Antigone, Étéocle et Polynice se sont entretués pour le trône de Thèbes. Créon, frère de Jocaste et – à ce titre – nouveau roi, a décidé de n'offrir de sépu
Oedipus' daughter protests the lack of funeral rites for her brother Polyneikes after his death in the civil war of Thebes, leading to a final tragedy. Timberlake Wertenbaker's translation of Sophocles' trilogy of Theban plays, including 'Oedipus Tyrannos' and 'Oedipus at Kolonos, was premiered by t