Aias (Greek Tragedy in New Translations) - Softcover

Sophocles, Sophocles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0195128192 ISBN 13: 9780195128192

Publisher: Oxford University Press, U.S.A., 1999

Synopsis

In this new translation, Sophocles early masterpiece comes boldly to life. In Greek tradition, Aias is the outmoded warrior whom time passes by. In Sophocles play, he becomes the man who moves resolutely beyond time. Most previous versions and interpretations have equivocated over Sophocles bold vision. This version attempts to translate precisely that transformation of the hero from the bygone figure to the man who stops time. In Homer, Aias is the immovable bulwark of the Achaians, second only to Achilles in battle prowess and size. But when Achilles dies, his armor is given to the wily Odysseus, not Aias. Shamed, and driven to madness, Aias dies a dishonorable death by suicide. He becomes, in death, the symbol of greatness lost; his death signals the end of a heroic age; in the visual arts, draped hideously over his huge sword, he becomes a momento mori. Sophocles plays upon his audiences expectation of all this. In the first scene Aias appears as the Homeric warrior turned mad butcher. It is harder to imagine a more degraded image of the hero. But with each scene, Aias moves from darkness into greater and greater light, and speaks, contrary to the audiences expectations, more like a Heraclitean philosopher of the worlds flux than the laconic figure known from Homer. In fact, Sophocles Aias clearly sees his madness and the betrayal by the Greeks as merely symptomatic of a world in which nothing remains constant, not loyalties, not oaths, not friendship, not love. Not content to live in a world where nothing lasts, he resolves to live and therefore to die in accord with the more absolute law of his own inner nature. He thereby transforms his death into destiny, dying with his grip on the absolute rather than living on in a world of uncertainties. In death, he thus becomes the paradigm of permanence, of the human possibility of snatching the eternal from the desperately fleeting. This version embodies, and the introduction and notes hope to elucidate, how Sophocles brings this tragic vision of human greatness powerfully to life.

About this title

Review:

"This book is a brilliant addition to a distinguished series. For the long iambic lines so often used to represent the meter of the original, Richard Pevear substitutes a sprung rhythm--three stressed syllables per line. The result is a great success, an easily speakable version....Herbert Golder's eloquent and incisive analysis of the play locates the controversial figure of Aias in the political and intellectual context of the Athenian fifth century and also explores those aspects of his character that make him unique among the Sophoclean tragic heroes."--Bernard Knox "The beauty and power of this clear, clean version cannot be denied....poet Richard Pevear, writing in a style reminiscent of the spare, stoic, puritan power of Robert Lowell's famous translations, makes the work sing."--Booklist "A jewel for modern English readers. The scholarly critical introduction by Golder provides an excellent background and analysis of this tragedy."--Library Journal

About the Author:

Herbert Golder is Professor of Classics at Boston University. Richard Pevear is a poet and translator.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press, U.S.A.
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0195128192
• ISBN 13: 9780195128192
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 112