Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: ‘Summon the Presbyterians’
- 1 Finding Principles, Finding a Theory
- 2 Historical Perspectives: Lumley to Lennox
- 3 Aeschylus and the Agamemnon: Gilding the Lily
- 4 Translating the Mask: the Non-Verbal Language
- 5 Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus: Words and Concepts
- 6 Text and Subtext: From Bad to Verse
- 7 Euripides' Medea and Alcestis: From Sex to Sentiment
- 8 The Comic Tradition
- 9 Modernising Comedy
- 10 When is a Translation Not a Translation?
- Appendix: A Comprehensive List of all Greek Plays in English Translation
- Notes
- Select Bibliography
- Index of Translators
- General Index
Introduction: ‘Summon the Presbyterians’
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: ‘Summon the Presbyterians’
- 1 Finding Principles, Finding a Theory
- 2 Historical Perspectives: Lumley to Lennox
- 3 Aeschylus and the Agamemnon: Gilding the Lily
- 4 Translating the Mask: the Non-Verbal Language
- 5 Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus: Words and Concepts
- 6 Text and Subtext: From Bad to Verse
- 7 Euripides' Medea and Alcestis: From Sex to Sentiment
- 8 The Comic Tradition
- 9 Modernising Comedy
- 10 When is a Translation Not a Translation?
- Appendix: A Comprehensive List of all Greek Plays in English Translation
- Notes
- Select Bibliography
- Index of Translators
- General Index
Summary
ma ubu: You are married, Mister Ubu?
pa ubu: Too true. To a vile hag.
ma ubu: You mean to a charming lady.
pa ubu: An old horror. She sprouts claws all over, it's impossible to get one's hand up her anywhere.
ma ubu: You should give her a hand up kindly and gently, honest Mr Ubu, and, were you to do so you would see that she is just as appealing as Aphrodite.
(Alfred Jarry, Ubu Rex, translated by Cyril Connolly)Most of us wedded to translating Greek tragedy or comedy have experienced Ubu's marital problems. Translating anything from one language and culture into another is tough enough. Translation of drama adds a new dimension of risk; translators of classical plays find claws sprouting wherever they lay a finger. Ubu's wife (who is appropriately enough disguised as a ghost) offers scant consolation to anyone who recalls the fate of most mortals who tried to get their hands up a goddess.
The title of this Introduction reflects the complexity of finding language in a theatre that is becoming ever more cross-cultural, something which, for better or worse, seems to be inevitable. At the XIth International Meeting on Ancient Drama in Delphi in 2002 one of the most exciting productions was a Beijing Opera performance called Thebais, based on Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes and Sophocles' Antigone. Subtitles were screened in modern Greek and in English.
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- Information
- Found in TranslationGreek Drama in English, pp. 1 - 8Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006