'Anouilh is a poet, but not of words: he is a poet of words-acted, of scenes-set, of players-performing' Peter Brook Jean Anouilh, one of the foremost French playwrights of the twentieth century, replaced the mundane realist works of the previous era with his innovative dramas, which exploit fantasy, tragic passion, scenic poetry and cosmic leaps in time and space. Antigone, his best-known play, was performed in 1944 in Nazi-controlled Paris and provoked fierce controversy. In defying the tyrant Creon and going to her death, Antigone conveyed to Anouilh's compatriots a covert message of heroic resistance; but the author's characterisaation of Creon also seemed to exonerate Marshal Petain and his fellow collaborators. More ambivalent than his ancient model, Sophocles, Anouilh uses Greek myth to explore the disturbing moral dilemmas of our times. Commentary and notes by Ted Freeman.
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"Anouilh is a poet, but not of words: he is a poet of words-acted, of scenes-set, of players-performing."--Peter Brook, Director
About the Author
Jean Anouilh (1910-87) is regarded as one of France's best-known dramatists. ANTIGONE firmly established his popularity in France in 1944 and Peter Brook's 1950 production of Ring Round the Moon (1947) made his name in England. Twice married, he lived mainly in Switzerland for the last thirty years of his life.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
This is a very good English version of Jean Anouilh's Antigone. It includes notes and a commentary, which are very helpful, especially if you are studying this text. The translation stays true to the original text, so again, it is useful if you are studying it.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
a classic book which cleverly opens up deeper meanings of life Antigone, who serves as a kind of messenger to us all to look at the greater importance of responsability in life...a great read and a definite recommendation.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By Bob Ventos
Format:Paperback
It's a great play, as other people have said, but does anyone else agree that the translation looks dodgy? For a start, sometimes it loses specificity for no reason that was clear to me. 'Le rideau s'est leve' becomes 'the play started'. 'Ce soir' becomes 'in a few hours' time.' An iron spade becomes a tin one for no reason I could fathom. Shooting 'dans le tas'- into the crowd - is 'the first comer.' 'Dans un trou', with its ironic foreshadowing, becomes 'locked up in the dark' There's often an unnecessary wordiness, compared with Anouilh's precise, terse prose. 'Ou alors je refuse' becomes the mealy and cliched, 'or else I decline the offer, lock, stock and barrel.' And some translations simply look wrong. Nourrice/ nounou gets translated as the lower-class 'Nan' (meaning 'Grandmother') rather than 'Nanny' (Antigone is a princess, of course). The guards speak a bizarre fake-demotic of 'chap' and 'blotto.' And on p59 a whole speech by Creon about Eurydice is missed out, so that we never learn what he thinks of his wife.
The greatest shame is the disappearance of the repetitions of key words that Anouilh uses for his subtle and ironic effects. The three 'voilas' from the Chorus, at the start, middle and end of the play disappear. The guard - called 'une brute' by stage directions becomes 'a rough diamond.' This is not just an unwarranted softening of nastiness. It also loses the way the authorial judgements echo Creon's, who also uses the word 'brute' of the guard (translated 'louts') and of the whole populace (mildly translated 'clods'). Anouilh's hints of brother-sister incest through the word 'voyou' are also swept under the carpet. Used of Polynices it becomes 'good-for-nothing'; of Antigone's suspected lover 'young layabout'; of her young admirers 'the boys'; and of the two brothers 'gangsters'. As for the repeated word 'tranquille', used ironically of order under Nazism, it gets fudged so the whole point'll be completely missed.
There's plenty more in this vein. But the alternative, older Galantiere translation isn't that great either. Can anyone recommend a decent one?
The greatest shame is the disappearance of the repetitions of key words that Anouilh uses for his subtle and ironic effects. The three 'voilas' from the Chorus, at the start, middle and end of the play disappear. The guard - called 'une brute' by stage directions becomes 'a rough diamond.' This is not just an unwarranted softening of nastiness. It also loses the way the authorial judgements echo Creon's, who also uses the word 'brute' of the guard (translated 'louts') and of the whole populace (mildly translated 'clods'). Anouilh's hints of brother-sister incest through the word 'voyou' are also swept under the carpet. Used of Polynices it becomes 'good-for-nothing'; of Antigone's suspected lover 'young layabout'; of her young admirers 'the boys'; and of the two brothers 'gangsters'. As for the repeated word 'tranquille', used ironically of order under Nazism, it gets fudged so the whole point'll be completely missed.
There's plenty more in this vein. But the alternative, older Galantiere translation isn't that great either. Can anyone recommend a decent one?
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