I often wonder this as I read classic and Shakespearean plays. Would translating the play into the most modern speaking language take from or add to the reader's experience? I found myself having to reread many passages to fully understand their meaning.
Since this was a story well-known to Sophocles' audience, an audience who believed in such things as multiple gods, what feelings to you think they might have had that we do not and vice versa?
I was quite taken back by Oedipus' reaction to death of whom he believes is his real father. He is so wrapped up in believing the prophecy now to be false he does not take time to mourn the death of his own father though he is demanding the murder of a man he never knew to be brought to justice.
"And as for this marriage with your mother - have no fear. Many a man before you, in his dreams, has hared his mother's bed." Uh, nope not me. Again, is this something that is more in tune with the past Greek society or have I totally missed the boat on this so-called fantasy?
I pretty sure this play was translated in terms that were better than if we would have read the original version. It does say that Thomas Gould translated it. I agree that some parts were hard to understand and I had to reread a lot of it to really figure it out.
ReplyDeleteSigmund Freud came up with the Oedipus complex and he concluded that many children grow up favoring on parent over the other. Usually the boy favors the mother and the girl favors the father, hence the Daddy's girl and Momma's Boy. Yet the Oedipus complex was explaining the children who took it to a higher level of wanting that parent and wanting to rid of the other. This was a sign of neurosis or mental handicap. So don’t worry you didn’t miss out on anything but if you start feeling those motherly desires you might want to take a trip to Morganton!