Two Faces of Oedipus: Sophocles' "oedipus Tyrannus" and Seneca's "oedipus"
Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus is the most famous of ancient tragedies and a literary masterpiece. It is not, however, the only classical dramatization of Oedipus' quest to discover his identity. Between four and five hundred years after Sophocles' play was first performed, Seneca composed a fine, but neglected and often disparaged Latin tragedy on the same subject, which, in some ways, comes closer to our common understanding of the Oedipus myth. Now, modern readers can compare the two versions, in new translations by Frederick Ahl.Balancing poetry and clarity, yet staying scrupulously close to the original texts, Ahl's English versions are designed to be both read and performed, and are alert to the literary and historical complexities of each. In approaching Sophocles anew, Ahl is careful to preserve the richly allusive nature and rhetorical power of the Greek, including the intricate use of language that gives the original its brilliant force. For Ahl, Seneca's tragedy is vastly and intriguingly different from that of Sophocles, and a poetic masterpiece in its own right. Seneca takes us inside the mind of Oedipus in ways that Sophocles does not, making his inner conflicts a major part of the drama itself in his soliloquies and asides. Two Faces of Oedipus opens with a wide-ranging introduction that examines the conflicting traditions of Oedipus in Greek literature, the different theatrical worlds of Sophocles and Seneca, and how cultural and political differences between Athenian democracy and Roman imperial rule affect the nature and conditions under which the two tragedies were composed. This book brings two dramatic traditions into conversation while providing elegant, accurate, and exciting new versions of Sophocles' and Seneca's tragedies.
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Frederick Ahl is Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature at Cornell University, and is the translator of Seneca's Medea, Phaedra, and Trojan Women, all from Cornell, and of Virgil's Aeneid. He is active in the theater, and has directed numerous performances of Greek and Roman tragedies both in the United States and in Greece.
"Among the dozens of translations of the Oedipus tragedy available, very few provide the kind of close, elegant reading this one does, for both staging and teaching. Ahl recreates the authentic political and religious context for the often erroneously channeled Freudian take on the old identity vehicle, while paying scrupulous attention to the original language.... This is a new rendering for a new generation."
"Elegant, polished, easily readable and--no mean feat--performable, Frederick Ahl's versions of Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus--and Seneca's Oedipus--are likely to advance to the forefront of modern translations of these plays and to point the way for future work. Ahl is laudably clear and nontechnical. His book addresses the needs of college and university instructors and will appeal to general readers and stage professionals as well."
--Martin M. Winkler, George Mason University"Our view of Oedipus Tyrannus, the finest of all Greek tragedies, has been colored by Renaissance reception of the Senecan Oedipus, much better known until a couple of centuries ago. Frederick Ahl has successfully freed Sophocles' play from modern 'interference' as well as from Freudian misapprehension and error. He has also gone a long way toward placing Oedipus Tyrannus in its original political and religious context, and makes a case for seeing Oedipus as a product of Augustan Rome. The translations are superb: close, and not merely literal, but literate. A landmark in scholarship."
--Michael Vickers, University of Oxford
