Books by Sophocles

Precise yet fluent translations of the timeless Theban tragedies.

Over the years, Grene and Lattimore's "Complete Greek Tragedies" have been the preferred choice of millions of readers - for personal libraries, individual study, and classroom use. This title presents Sophocles' searing tale of jealousy, rage, and revenge.

One will do well to read these hymns, these poems, and find nourishment in them in Slavitt's translations."-Anglican Theological Review, reviewing Slavitt's translation of Hymns of Prudentius

This elegant and uncommonly readable translation will make these seminal Greek tragedies accessible to a new generation of readers.

Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus is the most famous of ancient tragedies and a literary masterpiece. It is not, however, the only classical dramatization of Oedipus' quest to discover his identity. Between four and five hundred years after Sophocles' play...

Locked into a bloody cycle of murder and reprisal, Electra, haunted by her father's assassination, is consumed by grief and a thirst for vengeance. When her brother Orestes at last returns, she urges him to a savage and terrifying conclusion. Frank McGuinness's charged adaptation of Sophocles' powerful tragedy was first performed at the Chichester Festival Theatre in 1997 and was revived at the Old Vic, London, in 2014.

Sophocles was the dominant Athenian playwright of the fifth century BCE. This translation includes his best-known work, such as the "Oedipus cycle" ("Oedipus the King", "Oedipus at Kolonos", and "Antigone"), "Elektra and the Women of Trakhis" "Philoktetes" and "Aias".

Based on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves can properly re-create 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. Under the general editorship of Peter Burian and Alan Shapiro, each volume includes a critical introduction, commentary on the text, full stage directions, and a glossary of the mythical and geographical references in the play. En route to fight the Trojan War, the Greek army has abandoned Philoctetes, after the smell of his festering wound, mysteriously received from a snakebite at a shrine on a small island off Lemnos, makes it unbearable to keep him on ship. Ten years later, an oracle makes it clear that the war cannot be won without the assistance of Philoctetes and his famous bow, inherited from Hercules himself. Philoctetes focuses on the attempt of Neoptolemus and the hero Odysseus to persuade the bowman to sail with them to Troy. First, though, they must assuage his bitterness over having been abandoned, and then win his trust. But how should they do this--through trickery, or with the truth? To what extent do the ends justify the means? To what degree should personal integrity be compromised for the sake of public duty? These are among the questions that Sophocles puts forward in this, one of his most morally complex and penetrating plays.

This text of Sophocles is the product of close collaboration between the two editors and discussions in graduate seminars held in Oxford. The evidence of the manuscript tradition has been assessed and the results of one important discovery have been exploited.

Sophocles' tragedies - from "Antigone" to "Oedipus Tyrannus" - are filled with highly wrought, vivid, and emotionally powerful poetry. Paying attention to the structure, language, and rhythm across Sophocles' writings, the author has translated a selection of odes from Sophocles' surviving plays as well as fragments from his lost works.

Sophocles' "Electra" tells the story of the revenge Orestes and Electra take on their mother, Clytemnestra, for he murder of their father Agamemnon, after he returns from the Trojan War. This edition of the play is preceded by a critical introduction and is accompanied by explanatory notes.

The Penn Greek Drama Series presents original literary translations of the entire corpus of classical Greek drama: tragedies, comedies, and satyr plays. It is the only contemporary series of all the surviving work of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Arist

This elegant and uncommonly readable translation will make these seminal Greek tragedies accessible to a new generation of readers.

The latest title to join the acclaimed Greek Tragedy in New Translations series, Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus tells the story of the last day in the life of Oedipus.

Antigone, defying her uncle Creon's decree that her brother should remain unburied, challenges the morality of man's law overruling the laws of the gods. The clash between her and Creon with its tragic consequences have inspired continual reinterpretation. This translation was made for a BBC TV production of the "Theban Plays" in 1986.

A Student Edition of Sophocles' greatest tragedy in Don Taylor's acclaimed translation. With full commentary, notes and questions for further study this is the perfect edition for every student of drama, literature and classics.

Full-scale 2007 commentary exploring afresh long-standing controversies such as the moral status of the killing of Clytemnestra, while also investigating subjects such as the place of rhetoric and the use of typical scenes. It provides original metrical analyses of the lyrical sections of the play and a revised Greek text.

This book is, in the editor's words, 'a subtle and sophisticated play about primitive emotions'. Making full use of recent Sphoclean scholarship, Mrs Easterling attempts in her Introduction a detailed literary analysis of Trachiniae, helping the reader to understand better its intricate structure, the treatment of Deianira and Heracles, and the meaning of the final scenes.

Love and loyalty, hatred and revenge, fear, deprivation, and political ambition: these are the motives which thrust the characters portrayed in these three Sophoclean masterpieces on to their collision course with catastrophe. Recognized in his own day as perhaps the greatest of the Greek tragedians, Sophocles's reputation has remained undimmed for two and a half thousand years. His greatest innovation in the tragic medium was his development of a central tragic figure, faced with a test of will and character, risking obloquy and death rather than compromise his or her principles: it is striking that Antigone and Electra both have a woman as their intransigent `hero'. Antigone dies rather thanneglect her duty to her family, Oedipus's determination to save his city results in the horrific discovery that he has committed both incest and parricide, and Electra's unremitting anger at her mother and her lover keeps her in servitude and despair. These vivid translations combine elegance and modernity, and are equally suitable for reading or theatrical performance.

Echoing through Western culture for more than two millenia, Sophocles' Antigone has been a touchstone of thinking about human conflict, and the degree to which men and women are the creators of their own destinies.

A revised edition of Dr Dawe's bestselling edition. As in the first edition, the commentary tackles problems of language and expression, but is added to by reflections on the text developed in the twenty years since the first edition's publication, most notably recognizing the spurious nature of the play's ending.