Masters of Latin Literature
3 total works
This free and eloquent translation skillfully reproduces the imagery, power, and frequent irony and sarcasm of Seneca's language.
Ahl's translations of three Senecan tragedies will gratify and challenge readers and performers. With stage performance specifically in mind, Ahl renders Seneca's dramatic force in a modern idiom and style that move easily between formality and colloquialism as the text demands, and he strives to reproduce the richness of the original Latin, to retain the poetic form, images, wordplays, enigmas, paradoxes, and dark humor of Seneca's tragedies.
In this powerful and imaginative translation of Medea, Frederick Ahl retains the compelling effects of the monologues, as well as the special feeling and pacing of Seneca's choruses.
Ahl's translations of three Senecan tragedies will gratify and challenge readers and performers. With stage performance specifically in mind, Ah1 renders Seneca's dramatic force in a modern idiom and style that move easily between formality and colloquialism as the text demands, and he strives to reproduce the richness of the original Latin, to retain the poetic form, images, wordplays, enigmas, paradoxes, and dark humor of Seneca's tragedies.
Here is a moving and accomplished translation of this complex play dealing the the violent passions stirred by innocence and beauty and the terrible power of ideology, hatred, and misunderstanding.