Sophocles «Electra»

James Noonan is an adjunct professor of English at Carleton University
and the author of Biography and Autobiography: Essays on Irish and
Canadian History and Literature.

This translation of Sophocles’ Electra is part of a series called
Greek Tragedy in New Translations, begun in the 1970s by William
Arrowsmith, and now edited by Burian and Shapiro. The translation was
done by Anne Carson, a McNaughton professor of classics at McGill
University and an award-winning poet whom Michael Ondaatje has called
“the most exciting poet writing in English today.” Carson also
provides a translator’s foreword entitled “Screaming in Translation:
The Electra of Sophocles.” The introduction and notes on the text are
by Michael Shaw, associate professor of classics at the University of
Kansas. The book also contains a glossary of mythical and geographical
references.

In addition to being faithful to the Greek original, Carson’s
translation is rhythmic, dramatic, crisp, and contemporary. She renders
immediate and horrifying Electra’s suffering, and her and Orestes’
revenge on their mother Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus for
murdering their father Agamemnon. Shaw’s 38-page introduction provides
a detailed analysis of the play and its development, with frequent
references to the Greek of the original. We could not ask for more in a
short, one-volume translation and commentary on a Greek tragedy. Only a
fine production of this translation of the play would increase the
general reader’s pleasure.