As a reader, I tend to be an opponent of neoclassicism, and have historically not been impressed with the original Greek and Roman works I have read, although my experience with the literature has been rather slight, and my views are slowly becoming more charitable. I had encountered the three plays that make up Sophocles’s Oedipus cycle (Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone) in high school; the first and last were required, and I read the middle one to get the full story. At the time, I was quite impressed by these works, and now, years later, my appreciation for these incredible plays has only grown. I would opine that one of the greatest tragedies regarding “works now lost” is the fact that only seven plays out of well over one hundred authored by Sophocles survive today.
Many people know at least some parts of the Oedipus story, but some summary is called for. Oedipus, the hero-king of Thebes, must unravel a mystery that reveals him to be the murderer of his father and the despoiler of his own mother, a monstrous crime for which his city suffers. Upon realizing that the gods and fate cannot be circumvented, he gouges his eyes out, his mother/wife kills herself, and he goes into exile, leaving his friend Creon as king and guardian of his two young daughters, Antigone and Ismene. In Oedipus at Colonus, Oedipus is…at Colonus…in the company of his now-teenage daughters and Theseus, King of Athens. His sons Eteoclês and Polyneicês decide to contest Creon’s rule, and Oedipus finally achieves rest. Antigone, the final play in the series, takes place after the brothers are both dead, Creon is on the throne, and Antigone and Ismene are fully grown. Antigone defies Creon’s law proclaiming Polyneicês a traitor to the city and secretly buries her brother, thereby provoking Creon’s wrath. Creon sentences her to death before reversing his decision, but Antigone does not learn of this in time and kills herself, which leads to the suicide of her suitor Haemon and Creon’s wife Eurydice. And there we have it.
The structure of the plays is highly formal and ritualized, as was the practice of the earliest Western theatre. Choral odes punctuate the action, and the action largely occurs offstage and is related by messengers or other witnesses. Throughout the plays, the cantankerous seer Teiresias tells the truth, which is met with varied enthusiasm at various points in the drama. Although the tone is lofty and poetical, “low comedy” is present, as well as a certain dark humor. The Oedipus story certainly achieves catharsis, both as a cycle and individually, which is impressive considered they were not written as a trilogy, and were composed over a roughly forty-year period towards the end of Sophocles’s extraordinarily long life.
Although I am not a Classics major like my mother and thus do not have the knowledge required to assess the skill of the translation, I will say that the words are beautiful and the flow is excellent. Hearing a recital or viewing a skilled performance of these plays would be a treat indeed. The translation by Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald, two of the leading classicists of this century, dates from 1949, but does not feel clunky or dated in the slightest. The diction, while free from slang and excessive colloquialism, is not ‘elevated’ in an artificial or boring sense.
The edition is also to be praised. Harcourt, being a major publisher, can be expected to deliver from a publishing perspective, and this is the case. The cover is pleasing, the type is readable, and the back material fails to annoy. The translators have included short commentaries that complement the plays well, plus a helpful index of person and place names. Since this is a “three-in-one” package, the price is not unreasonable.
I heartily recommend these plays to any reader, whether Greek literature expert or complete novice in the field. Sophocles was a very gifted writer, and his plays resonate powerfully with a surprisingly diverse audience. I would go so far as to say that if you read nothing else from the Greeks and Romans, you should at least read this dramatic cycle.
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I love the flow in the translation made by Robert Fitzgerald
Reviewed in India on April 1, 2018