Description
Poetry. Drama. Translated from the Greek by Keyne Cheshire. Cheshire's translation inhabits the territory of American myth—the Wild West. With its harsh landscapes and larger-than-life heroes, it is a world both familiar and distant, a world that still resonates within the American psyche. Says Kenneth J. Reckford, "I was first shocked, then moved and delighted by Cheshire's translation of Sophocles' Trachinian Women into an American vernacular and Wild West setting. Poetic and rhythmical speeches propel the reader forward and deeper into Sophocles' tragedy, while the choral odes give voice to lastingly powerful feelings of hope and fear, spiritual exultation and earth-bound sadness and pain."
Author Bio
Sophocles (c. 496 BCE-406 BCE) was the second of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose work has survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus and earlier than those of Euripides. According to the Suda, a 10th century encyclopedia, Sophocles wrote 123 plays during the course of his life, but only seven have survived in a complete form: Ajax, Antigone, Trachinian Women, Oedipus the King, Electra, Philoctetes and Oedipus at Colonus.
Keyne Cheshire is Associate Professor and Chair of Classics at Davidson College, N.C., and translator of Ancient Greek poetry and prose. Cheshire is also the author of Alexander the Great (Cambridge University Press), a translation of select ancient source material for the student. He has received Harvard's Loeb Classical Library Foundation grant and the Hunter-Hamilton Love of Teaching Award. The songs from MURDER AT JAGGED ROCK have been performed at Davidson College, set to the music of guitar, banjo, upright bass, fiddle, and mandolin. Currently, Cheshire is translating Aristophanes' Birds and Homer's Iliad.
Author City: USA