Search results for ""author oliver taplin""

Oedipus the King * Aias * Philoctetes * Oedipus at Colonus Sophocles stands as one of the greatest dramatists of all time, and one of the most influential on artists and thinkers over the centuries. In these four tragedies he portrays the extremes of human suffering and emotion, turning the heroic myths into supreme works of poetry and dramatic action. Oedipus the King follows Oedipus, the 'man of sorrow', who has unwittingly chosen to enact his prophesied course by murdering his father and marrying his mother. In Aias, the great warrior confronts the harrowing humiliation inflicted upon him, while Philoctetes sees a once-noble hero nursing his resentment after ten years of marooned isolation. In Oedipus at Colonus the blind Oedipus, who has wandered far and wide as a beggar, finally meets his mysterious death. These original and distinctive verse translations convey the vitality of Sophocles' poetry and the vigour of the plays in performance. Each play is accompanied by an introduction and substantial notes on topographical and mythical references and interpretation. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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One of the foundational texts of Western literature, the Oresteia trilogy is about cycles of deception and brutality within the ruling family of Argos. In Agamemnon, queen Clytemnestra awaits her husband’s return from war to commit a terrible act of retribution. The next plays, radically retitled here as The Women at the Graveside and Orestes in Athens, deal with the aftermath of the regicide, Orestes’ search to avenge his father’s death and his ceaseless torment. A powerful discourse on the formation of democracy, The Oresteia illuminates the tensions between loyalty to one’s family and to the community. In this classic for future generations, Oliver Taplin captures the lyricism of the original.

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Though it wasn't successful at its first performance, in the centuries since then, Euripides's Medea has established itself as one of the most powerful and influential of the Greek tragedies. The story of the wronged wife who avenges herself upon her unfaithful husband by murdering their children is lodged securely in the popular imagination, a touchstone for politics, law, and psychoanalysis and the subject of constant retellings and reinterpretations. This new translation of Medea by classicist Oliver Taplin, originally published as part of the acclaimed third edition of Chicago's Complete Greek Tragedies, brilliantly replicates the musicality and strength of Euripides's verse while retaining the play's dramatic and emotional power. Medea was made to be performed in front of large audiences by the light of the Mediterranean sun, and Taplin infuses his translation with a poetry, color, and movement suitable to that setting. By highlighting the contrasts between the spoken dialogues and the sung choral passages, Taplin has created an edition of Medea that is particularly suited to performance, while not losing any of the power it has long held as an object of reading or study. This edition is poised to become the new standard, and to introduce a new generation of readers to the moving heights of Greek tragedy.

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Sophocles stands as one of the greatest dramatists of all time, and one of the most influential on artists and thinkers over the centuries. His plays are deeply disturbing and unpredictable, unrelenting and open-ended, refusing to present firm answers to the questions of human existence, or to provide a redemptive justification of the ways of gods to men or women. These three tragedies portray the extremes of human suffering and emotion, turning the heroic myths into supreme works of poetry and dramatic action. Antigone's obsession with the dead, Creon's crushing inflexibility, Deianeira's jealous desperation, the injustice of the gods witnessed by Hyllus, Electra's obsessive vindictiveness, the threatening of insoluble dynastic contamination... Such are the pains and distortions and instabilities of Sophoclean tragedy. And yet they do not deteriorate into cacophony or disgust or incoherence or silence: they face the music, and through that the suffering is itself turned into the coherence of music and poetry. These original and distinctive verse translations convey the vitality of Sophocles' poetry and the vigour of the plays in performance, doing justice to both the sound of the poetry and the theatricality of the tragedies. Each play is accompanied by an introduction and substantial notes on topographical and mythical references and interpretation.

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