Book at Lunchtime: Sophocles – Antigone and other tragedies

TORCH Book at Lunchtime event on Sophocles: Antigone and other
tragedies by Professor Oliver Taplin. With panellists Professor
Karen Leeder and Dr Lucy Jackson. Book at Lunchtime is a series of
bite-sized book discussions held during term-time, with
commentators from a range of disciplines. The events are free to
attend and open to all. Sophocles stands as one of the greatest
dramatists of all time, and one of the most influential on artists
and thinkers over the centuries. His plays are deeply disturbing
and unpredictable, unrelenting and open-ended, refusing to present
firm answers to the questions of human existence, or to provide a
redemptive justification of the ways of gods to men-or women. These
three tragedies portray the extremes of human suffering and
emotion, turning the heroic myths into supreme works of poetry and
dramatic action. Professor Oliver Taplin's original and distinctive
verse translations of Antigone, Deianeira and Electra convey the
vitality of Sophocles' poetry and the vigour of the plays in
performance, doing justice to both the sound of the poetry and the
theatricality of the tragedies. Panel includes: Professor Oliver
Taplin is an Emeritus Professor of Classics at Oxford University.
His research has focused on the reception of poetry and drama
through performance and material culture in both ancient and modern
times. He co-founded the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman
Drama, and has collaborated on a number of high-profile theatre
productions. In recent years he has turned his attention to
translating Greek Drama as verse to be spoken and performed.
Professor Karen Leeder is a Professor of Modern Languages at Oxford
University and a Fellow of New College, Oxford. She has published
widely on modern German culture and is a prize-winning translator
of contemporary German literature, most recently winning the
English PEN award and an American PEN/Heim award for her
translation of Ulrike Almut Sandig. She was a TORCH Knowledge
Exchange Fellow with the Southbank Centre from 2014-15 and she
currently works with MPT, Poet in the City, and The Poetry Society
on her project Mediating Modern Poetry. Dr Lucy Jackson is an
Assistant Professor in Classics and Ancient History at Durham
University. Her research focuses on ancient Greek and Roman theatre
and performance, neo-Latin translations of Greek drama and the
reception of classical theatre in the sixteenth century, and
translation studies and theory in the ancient and modern worlds.
Her most recent publication is The Chorus of Drama in the Fourth
Century BCE.