UMass Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press

Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Kolonos, and Antigone

Book Jacket: "The Oedipus Plays of Sophocles" translated by R. Bagg

Translated by Robert Bagg,
with introductions and notes
by Robert and Mary Bagg

Vivid translations of three masterworks of Western literature

With this volume, poet Robert Bagg completes his translation of the three plays in which Sophocles dramatized the agony and destruction inflicted on Oedipus and his family, the royal house of Thebes. To the newly revised Oedipus the King, first published in 1982, Bagg adds Antigone and Oedipus at Kolonos. Composed decades apart in the fifth century BCE, these tragedies hold a central place in Western literature—not only because of the formal beauty and dramatic power of their poetry, but because of the shocking ironies that convey Sophocles’ understanding of divine malice and human vulnerability.

Bagg’s goal has been to make accurate but idiomatic renderings of the Greek originals that are suitable for reading, teaching, or performing. What makes his versions "leaner, tauter, more luminous and Sophoclean than other translations," writes classicist Richard P. Martin, is Bagg’s "decision to follow the American poetic tradition of Stevens, Pound, and Frost rather than the English tradition" of most other contemporary translators. Readers and actors alike will find these translations loyal to Sophocles’ characteristic directness and concision, his pervasive irony, his unsparing descriptions of physical violence, and the music of his choral songs. Each character speaks with a distinctive voice; each play possesses a tone expressive of the issues that preoccupied Sophocles during the stages of his long engagement with the fate of Oedipus, his wife/mother Jocasta, and their children.

In the introductions, Bagg and his wife Mary discuss factors in ancient Greek social and cultural life that are likely to be unfamiliar to the general reader but are central to interpreting Sophocles’ meaning. They have also annotated each play to clarify mythological references and points of interpretation and translation. In their general introduction they explore the origins of Greek theater, the nature of the Athenian festival of Dionysos at which Sophocles’ plays were first performed, and the characteristic ingredients of Greek drama in performance. They conclude with a discussion of the known facts and surviving anecdotes of the playwright’s life.

"Robert Bagg’s new renditions of the Oedipus plays are closer to the Greek, in their rhetorical power, precision of image, rhythm, pace, and tone, than any other versions I know. . . . Through his clear and bold translations, the radiant strength of the original shines through. They have the power of a distinctive personal voice, but a voice that never gets in the way of the ancient script by calling attention to itself."

Richard P. Martin, Stanford University

"A thrilling, accessible translation of Sophocles' Oedipus plays.

"While many in today's self-determined audience might have trouble swallowing the bitter pill of fate Sophocles serves up, one need only look to the nearest newsstand to find contemporary examples of the same tragedies he dramatized so powerfully nearly two-and-a-half millennia ago. In Bagg's capable hands, these shocking tales of lurid but unwitting acts pack the emotional force that rocked Sophoclean Athens. Bagg's supple translation, framed by illuminating commentary and notes co-authored by Mary Bagg, evokes deep sympathy for Oedipus, tragedy's most poignantly 'god-crushed man,' as well as members of his doomed household. Throughout, Bagg's language is spare yet unstilted, modernized but not so contemporary as to be colloquial; the stateliness os Sophocles' poetry sings out as Bagg captures the subtle nuances of acts both verbal and physical that distinguish these classic texts. Bagg's commentary reminds us that, for Aristotle, Oedipus epitomized tragedy, and one of the devices Sophocles so masterfully employed was irony. From Oedipus' early lament—'Yet, sick as you are, / not one of you suffers a sickness like mine' (Oedipus the King)—to Haimon's final warning to his father—'Then she will die, and dead, kill someone else' (Antigone)—Bagg reflects the full spectrum of Sophocles' dramatic irony. Through word and deed, these characters succumb to their fates with a painful wallop, and Bagg's winning collection of all three works allows readers to consider the entire Oedipal saga from a number of revealing angles.

"The only tragedy greater than those presented here with such rigorous beauty would be missing this collection."

Kirkus

"The authors provide illuminating commentaries, fully researched and well documented. They follow closely the ways in which each play unfolds; they comment perceptively on dramatic structure as well as on characterization. And always they are aware of performance, even to the extent of providing stage directions. Particularly helpful is the authors' attention to the dramatic exchanges among the various characters. . . .Robert Bagg has wisely written in a style of lucid and strong simplicity. His language is direct and forthright, yet dignified and eloquent. It is forceful and accessible, unpretentious and dramatically powerful, well designed for both reading and performance."

The North Dakota Quarterly

Robert Bagg taught English at the University of Massachusetts from 1965 until his retirement in 1996. He has published three volumes of poetry, including Body Blows: Poems New and Selected, as well as translations of Euripides’ Hippolytos and The Bakkhai. His translations have been staged in more than sixty productions in the United States and abroad. Mary Bagg is a freelance editor and writer whose book reviews appear in the Boston Globe.

Classics / Drama
304 pp., 7" x 10" format
$80.00s library cloth edition, ISBN 978-1-55849-453-4
$24.95s paper, ISBN 978-1-55849-454-1
September 2004
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