Found in Translation: Greek Drama in English 希腊戏剧的英语翻译

In considering the practice and theory of translating plays into English from Classical Greek from a theatrical perspective, Found in Translation also addresses wider issues of transferring any piece of theatre from a source into a target language. The history of translating classical tragedy and comedy, here fully investigated for the first time, demonstrates how through the ages translators have, wittingly or unwittingly, appropriated Greek plays and made them reflect socio-political concerns of their own era. Chapters are devoted to topics including verse and prose, mask and non-verbal language, stage directions and subtext and translating the comic. Among the plays discussed as ‘case studies’ are Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus and Euripides’ Medea and Alcestis. The book concludes with a consideration of the boundaries between ‘translation’ and ‘adaptation’, followed by an Appendix of every translation of Greek tragedy and comedy into English from the 1550s to the present day.

J. Michael Walton was a professional actor and director before joining the Drama Department at the University of Hull where he was Director of The Performance Translation Centre and is now Emeritus Professor of Drama. His books on Greek Theatre include Greek Theatre Practice, The Greek Sense of Theatre: Tragedy Reviewed, Living Greek Theatre: A Handbook of Classical Performance and Modern
Production and Menander and the Making of Comedy (with Peter Arnott). He was Editor for Methuen of Craig on Theatre and of the thirteen volumes of Methuen Classical Greek Dramatists, and three collec- tions of Greek and Roman plays. He has trans-
lated many Greek and Latin plays, several with Marianne McDonald with whom he has collabo- rated on a number of other publications including Amid Our Troubles: Irish Versions of Greek Tragedy and The Cambridge Companion to Greek and Roman Theatre.

Acknowledgements
Introduction: 'Summon the Presbyterians'
1 Finding Principles, Finding a Theory
2 Historical Perspectives: Lumley to Lennox
3 Aeschylus and the Agamemnon: Gilding the Lily
4 Translating the Mask: the Non-Verbal Language
5 Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus: Words and Concepts
6 Text and Subtext: From Bad to Verse
7 Euripides' Medea and Alcestis: From Sex to Sentiment
8 The Comic Tradition
9 Modernising Comedy
10 When is a Translation Not a Translation?
Appendix A Comprehensive List of all Greek Plays in English Translation
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index of Translators
General Index