Sophocles: Antigone (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics)

This is the standard and also the best critical edition of Sophocles' tragedy ANTIGONE, written and performed in Athens in 441BC. It includes the full text, philological explanation and commentary, as well as essays by leading scholars of classical literature.For my new translation (into Finnish) of the play, this edition is the best and the most reliable. ANTIGONE is the story of various conflicts between state and individual, between gods and men, between men and women, and it has spoken its clear message to audiences through generations.

This commentary is endlessly useful. The only bummer is the replacement of the iota subscript with normal iotas, though I do understand the reason for it.

Look. This overpriced volume may be Cambridge's sincere attempt to update its classical scholarship on Sophocles. But for average students of classics, you will be far better served by looking for a copy of "The Antigone of Sophocles" (with greek text and commentary) by Richard C. Jebb (Author) and E. S. Shuckburgh (abridgment editor). It is an abridged version of Jebb's famous commentary on Antigone. It has the right amount of information for a learner to gain a better comprehension of the greek text. I compared the two commentaries and found myself using Jebb's commentary almost exclusively. Jeff's commentary came out in 1928 and has long been out of print. But if you are quick, there are still used copies in good condition available from Amazon sellers. I got mine for just $ 4.50 and I love it. The current commentary by Griffith is not all that bad. It incorporates "new scholarship" on greek tragedy. But I find it unbearably verbose. The truth is that classics study reached its peak at around the period from the beginning of the 20th century till Second World War. Best commentaries were produced around that time. Modern classical scholarship doesn't quite match the rigor of what it used to be 60-70 years ago. The survival of classics should mean making scholarly works from the first half of the 20th century (whose copyright has expired) available at affordable prices. Sadly, our education institutions have squarely refused to do that. They keep making poorer commentaries and demand exorbitant prices from students all the time.

Good Commantary

An excellent commentary. I read it twice - missing out the sections on versification, which I shall return to at a later date. It begins with an excellent introduction of 68 pages, covering many aspects, including the meaning of the play, its structure and its style and the transmission of the text itself. There follows the Greek text with comments at the end of the book. These comments are extremely comprehensive and explain most of the difficulties a student is likely to encounter. Difficult passages are translated into English. It covers grammar as well as uncertainties over which is the most likely version of a particular piece of text. I have not yet got round to the study of metre and versification but for those who have this commentary is extremely comprehensive. I myself will return to these pages when I study it. I had previously read Oedipus Rex in this Cambridge series and found the commentary abstruse and unhelpful for understanding much of the text. This came as a welcome contrast. A work of great scholarship which will be useful for any student of Greek who wishes to understand this work.

Reviews like mine are for buyers, not literary critics. It’s is a book produced to the highest standards, as you would expect from this publisher. But it is an ancient Greek text of the play, albeit with top notch commentary in English. Buy an English version and cross-reference the notes, and you have something very useful.

This makes the text SO EASY to understand so if you wanna cry in your Ancient Greek seminars because it's literally like an alien language and you don't understand it then this is perfectus.

This is a splendid commentary. It's utterly scholarly, but realistic about students' needs, and not above giving grammatical help in trickier passages, unlike many suck books which find this beneath them. It also challenges too-easy assumptions, e.g. making the valid point that Antigone's insistence on Ismene's broadcasting the illegal burial isn't only a Look at me being a martyr and oh-so-righteous death wish. For a burial to be effective, it had to be publicly acknowledged. I cannot praise this book too highly. I used to loathe this play. This commentary has taught this old teacher a great deal.