Found in Translation: Greek Drama in English

In considering the practice and theory of translating Classical Greek plays into English from a theatrical perspective, Found in Translation also addresses the wider issues of transferring any piece of theatre from a source into a target language. The history of translating classical tragedy and comedy, here fully investigated, demonstrates how through the ages translators have, wittingly or unwittingly, appropriated Greek plays and made them reflect socio-political concerns of their own era. Chapters are devoted to topics including verse and prose, mask and non-verbal language, stage directions and subtext and translating the comic. Among the plays discussed as 'case studies' are Aeschylus' Agamemnon, Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus and Euripides' Medea and Alcestis. The book concludes with a consideration of the boundaries between 'translation' and 'adaptation', followed by an appendix of every translation of Greek tragedy and comedy into English from the 1550s to the present day.

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; Notes; Select Bibliography; Indexes.