Overview

Sophocles’ great tragic play dramatises the clash between family and the city and, through high poetry and deep tragedy, presents an irreconcilable but equally balanced conflict. Sophoclean heroine Antigone has become a cultural archetype - the personification of personal integrity and political freedom, and the play has been staged and adapted numerous times over the centuries. It is published here in Don Taylor’s classic translation with commentary and notes by David Bullen. The commentary looks at the original performance conditions that would have shaped the impact of Antigone in 441 BCE; key choices made by the translator; key ideas in the play taken up by philosophers such as Hegel and Butler; and more recent translations and adaptations by the likes of Bertolt Brecht, Anne Carson, Moira Buffini, Kamila Shamsie and Inua Ellams.

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9781350510425

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Reviews

A world of self-regarding power that falls apart through its neglect of instinctive human feeling * Guardian * Antigone the play moves on from the realm of the position paper to stir emotions that run very deep, indeed. One looks on at once gripped and appalled as Creon’s defensive armor gives way, this most implacable of men discovering the extent to which the letter of the law has its limitations, too. * New York Times * Sharply relevant to our times * Evening Standard * The enduring power of ancient Greek tragedies to speak to us so directly almost 2,500 years after they were written is one of the great wonders of civilisation ... This is perhaps the greatest play ever written about the tension between the duties we owe the state and those we owe to our personal values. It would work just as powerfully were the cast dressed in togas and sandals, for Sophocles’ moral debate is timeless ... The fact that Sophocles packed so much wisdom, intricate plotting and emotional depth into a play lasting a mere 90 minutes strikes me as miraculous and should serve as an object lesson. * Daily Telegraph *

Author Information

Sophocles (c. 496 - 406 BCE) was one of the three great tragic playwrights of ancient Greece, along with Aeschylus and Euripides. He wrote 123 plays during a career of 60 years and was still writing at the age of 90. Only seven of his tragedies survive in their entirety. David Bullen is a lecturer in drama and theatre at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. His research interests centre on myth, adaptation, feminist and queer theatre practice, and eco-dramaturgies. He is the author of Greek Tragedy in 21st Century British Theatre.

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