An innovative teaching tool for beginning students and text for comparatists lacking facility in Greek, this inter­linear translation of seven related pas­sages provides an introduction to the art of Sophocles. In addition, a long introductory essay on the dimensions of the play analyzes Antigone’s androgy­nous nature.

 

The passages chosen readily illustrate Sophocles’ diction and style and the play’s ironic structure. They also reveal the characters of the antagonists. Three are character studies of the heroine. Another, the famed Ode on Man, re­veals some of the dramatist’s deepest thoughts.

 

O’Brien provides summaries of inter­vening portions of the play, the Greek alphabet, and a grammatical appendix. A transliteration of two passages—the Prologue and the Ode on Man—is de­signed to help the beginner learn the Greek alphabet and to show combined or elided words in their complete form.