A collection that includes the complete texts of Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone—translated by Paul Roche.
Revising and updating his classic 1958 translation, Paul Roche captures the dramatic power and intensity, the subtleties of meaning, and the explosive emotions of Sophocles’ great Theban trilogy. In vivid, poetic language, he presents the timeless story of a noble family moving toward catastrophe, dragged down from wealth and power by pride, cursed with incest, suicide, and murder.
William Carlos Williams called the Roche translation of Antigone “brilliantly successful…as spirited and powerful as the original must have been.” Roche’s versions of the Oedipus plays are both stunning and sympathetic, awe-inspiring and intimate, and bring the elemental myths of ancient Greece to life for modern readers.
Included in this edition are a glossary of classical names, notes on pronunciation and meter, suggestions for production and acting, and historical material, which offer the reader a greater appreciation of Sophocles’ dramatic genius.
Sophocles, the Greek tragic dramatist, was born at Colonus near Athens about 496 B.C. Although hopelessness and misfortune plague the characters in his great plays, Sophocles’s own life was a long, prosperous one. He was from a good family, well… More about Sophocles
