I've now done a substantial part of the reading for the first bit of this course, so it seems a good time to put some impressions down.
Firstly the set texts for the module, the first of which is the latest Cambridge University Press translation of Sophocles' Antigone, about which I can’t improve on my comment elsewhere, so apologies for the cut and paste:
Firstly the set texts for the module, the first of which is the latest Cambridge University Press translation of Sophocles' Antigone, about which I can’t improve on my comment elsewhere, so apologies for the cut and paste:
‘I'm sure it's highly accurate and great for study, but for
general reading - reading for pleasure - I would advise anyone to avoid. You'd
barely know it was meant to be poetry and little emotion is coming through.’
I’m sure I read a Penguin translation before which was much
more lively, but perhaps I shouldn't confuse things by reading it
again; although there’s a fascinating line of study there I’m sure – different
translations for different purposes and the tension between accuracy of meaning
and accuracy of (for want of a better word) rhythm and effect.
The second text for the course is also Antigone, this time by Jean Anouilh, which has some substantial differences from Sophocles' version. The same things happen but the intentions and motivations
are different. It’s also much more readable, the speech unstilted and the
characters rounded.
From what I can glean from my secondary reading the idea of studying both versions is to explore something
called intertextuality, which as a concept used to be called influence but isn’t anymore
because that implies intention on the part of the first author, who wouldn’t actually
have known about the later works and couldn’t have been trying to influence
them.
Incidentally it has just taken me about a sentence to
explain what it takes three pages for my textbook to tell me. I can't work out if it's showing off or just natural long-windedness, but sometimes the language makes me feel like I've accidentally wandered into a campus novel.
Something from David Lodge’s early oeuvre, before he hit the 80s and started sending people into steelworks.
Anouilh was good though (by which I mean I enjoyed reading it) and interesting in the historical
context. I read it as a defence of pragmatism at first, but I’ve since learnt it was first performed in 1944 when France was occupied and now I’m not so sure. Maybe it’s
more about however pragmatic you are the sky still falls, and you’ve lost all
respect as well.
It also struck me that unless the Sophocles I read fell (or
is destined to fall) through a wormhole back to 1943 there is no way it can be
the version Jean Anouilh actually read before writing his own play. Even leaving aside the fact he would be far more likely to have read it in French or Greek.
Perhaps these are all the things I’m meant to be thinking
about, but it still tickles me that I’m starting an English lit qualification
with two books in translation.
I also missed the first group tutorial (it’s fine, they’re not
compulsory) because the email regarding it said Franklin-Wilkes building, Kings
College, and it turned out to be at the LSE. Still there’s a good chip shop at
Waterloo and I spent the intervening hour after work in Kensington library
reading Post War World, so it wasn’t
wasted (what do people who don’t read do with these inadvertent gaps and
delays? Shop? Fret? Go for a coffee and rinse the wifi?).
I will go to at least one lecture or tutorial though. I want a nosy at the LSE
if nothing else. I also have good reason for
joining the British Library now, which is very tempting, although I think Kensington
Reference will be my go to place for actual study. There’s something about the
atmosphere of a proper library that slows the pulse and seeps into the pores
and lends me focus. Also their desks are bigger than mine.
And now for some completely unrelated pictures from my trip to Greece.
And now for some completely unrelated pictures from my trip to Greece.
Athens
Patra
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