The Burial at Thebes: A Version of Sophocles' 'Antigone' by Seamus Heaney
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Seamus Heaney is a great poet, and his new
version
of this ancient play is both timeless and strikingly contemporary:
Antigone's
brothers, traitors or revolutionaries, have died attacking their home city.
Against all custom, the city's leaders have forbidden their burial. Antigone
defies the law to inter her brothers and thereby sets off a series of
escalating
horrors. The story may be familiar, but Heaney's forceful words invite us to take another look at the conflict between individual rights and state security. His new translation was written for the centenary of Dublin's Abbey Theatre, founded in 1904 as a cornerstone of Irish cultural nationalism, and it arrives as decades of strife in Northern Ireland have yielded to a fragile peace. Born into a Roman Catholic family in Northern Ireland, poet Seamus Heaney received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995. His writing has long been rooted in his native soil, with Irish politics and the Irish landscape playing prominent roles in his poems. Irish and Middle Eastern conflicts echo through The Burial at Thebes: in the figure of Antigone, a modern reader might see the posture of either a civil libertarian or a suicide bomber. Refusing compromise, she is energizing and threatening, dangerous and brave. Heaney’s fresh telling of Antigone is invitingly accessible. His skill as a succinct, poignant wordsmith continues to impress us, and we love his telling of Antigone’s opening few lines: “‘Ismene, quick, come here! What’s to become of us? Why are we always the ones? There’s nothing, sister, nothing Zeus hasn’t put us through Just because we are who we are – The daughters of Oedipus’” (lines 1-7). If you enjoyed Heaney’s translation of the more verbose Beowulf, you’ll savor the bittersweet brevity of The Burial at Thebes. It’s the perfect fireside companion for a gloomy winter evening and a thrilling gift for lovers of Greek literature, modern poetry, or contemporary theatre. Review by Jessica Stroope and Mark Bradshaw, December 1, 2004 Back to Reviews |