#000543
Sophocles in English Prose
Sophocles
A prose rendering of the surviving tragedies of Sophocles, the fifth-century BCE Athenian playwright whose *Oedipus the King*, *Antigone*, and *Electra* remain touchstones of Western drama. Prose translations of the Greek tragedians flourished from the nineteenth century onward — most influentially Sir Richard Jebb's — offering readers the plays' argument and momentum without the strain of matching Greek meter in English verse. Stripped of the choral lyric's formal fireworks, a prose Sophocles foregrounds what has always made him gripping: the tightening vise of fate, the collisions between law and conscience, the terrible clarity with which his characters walk toward their ruin. This edition presents that inheritance for the general reader rather than the specialist, a serviceable door into some of the oldest and most durable stories in the theater.
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The author
Sophocles (c. 497–406 BCE) was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, alongside Aeschylus and Euripides. He is credited with adding a third actor to the stage and with seven surviving complete plays, among them the Theban plays (Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone) and Ajax, Electra, Trachiniae, and Philoctetes. Aristotle treated Oedipus the King as the model tragedy.
The book
This volume presents Sophocles "in English prose" — the tradition of translating the tragedies as continuous prose rather than verse. The most celebrated example is Sir Richard Claverhouse Jebb's, whose prose translations (published 1883–1896 with his monumental Greek edition, and reissued without the Greek in 1917) shaped how English readers met Sophocles; E. H. Plumptre worked in an earlier translation tradition as well. The specific translator of this copy is not identified here.
How to read it
Prose translations trade the music of the original for directness, which suits readers coming to the plays for plot, character, and moral argument. For the lyric power of the choral odes, a good verse translation (Fitzgerald, Fagles, or Grene) is the natural companion.
For more context
Pair with Aristotle's Poetics and with modern verse Sophocles for contrast.
Sources
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- Sophocles
- ISBN
- None
- Shelf
- Poetry
- Location
- Colorado