Antigonick by Anne Carson

Anne Carson's new translation of Sophocles' Antigone looks exciting. Attempting to modernize tragedy is nothing new ("How is a Greek chorus like a lawyer? / They're both in the business of searching for a precedent") but her simultaneous celebration of tragedy's convoluted language makes for an intriguing mix.

With the current emphasis on making classics 'relateable', it's nice to be reminded of that magical moment when you first learned Greek and were drawn to its weirdness (At least, that was the effect passages like this had on me):

"Many terribly quiet customers exist but none more / terribly quiet than man / his footsteps pass so perilously soft across the sea … and every Tuesday / down he grinds the unastonishable earth / with horse and shatter … Every outlet works but one / : Death stays dark."

See the Guardian's review for more. I'm planning to pick up a copy as soon as I'm done with The Song of Achilles.

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Greek tragedy and class issues

"It starts out slowly
but still the strength of the gods
is trustworthy. And it punishes
those mortals who honor foolish arrogance
and those who, in the madness
of their opinions, do not extol things divine."

Euripides, Bacchae, tr. Stephen Esposito, 882-887


I used to think life experiences were responsible for my inability to go along with certain stereotypes common to my line of work. As in, I don't think people who didn't go to college are my inferiors or at a permanent disadvantage in life (except 'on paper'). Ditto for those who have children before 30, have served in the military, etc.

But I've been reading a lot of Greek tragedy lately. And I'm wondering if 10+ years of immersion in the classical world is responsible for this attitude as well. Now, tragedy was composed and performed by the elite (and the male). But if a civilization that was even more stratified than ours can put profound speeches and sentiments in the mouths of slaves, foreigners and women, surely we can take people as individuals and accept that there can be many routes to becoming a well-rounded, thoughtful person. Pin It

Undergrad-friendly Greek drama films?

The Oedipus Rex movie my colleagues
 and I refer to as the "Burger King version".

Of all the great and glorious genres of Greek literature out there, my students seem to have the most trouble connecting with Greek drama. I'm not unsympathetic to their plight: Greek tragedy can seem austere and almost obsessively focused to a reader accustomed to reality TV and Twitter.

So I turn to the internet for a movie version of one of the dramas we are reading this semester. Let's not say a good movie version, so much as a version that won't instantly turn them off.

And I came up with ... nothing. Amazon Instant Video, Youtube, the school library, (Netflix is blocked on classroom computers)... all gave me zip.

The Bacchae? I could buy an 8-minute DVD of the film's conclusion. No thanks. Or I could show Dionysus in '69, an experimental (and 40+ years old) version of the Bacchae that looks as though it were filmed in black-and-white home video. Show that to the class that has trouble remembering that the Theogony is not called the Hymn to Zeus? Not so much.

The delightful Iphigenia is available (for a mere ninety-nine dollars).

So my plea to all of you Greek drama enthusiasts out there: please consider filming some of your stagings of these wonderful plays. Even if you just post them on Youtube, I promise you they will be gratefully received by classics-in-translation instructors everywhere. Pin It