The Bagg Translations: Sophocles' The Oedipus Cycle

“Robert Bagg’s renditions of the Oedipus plays are closer to the Greek, in their rhetorical power, precision of image, rhythm, pace and tone, than any other versions I know.”
—Richard P. Martin, Stanford University

These wonderful new translations of Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Kolonos, and Antigone—together known as The Oedipus Cycle—by award-winning poet Robert Bagg bring these dynamic works to a new generation of students.

Sophocles’ three great masterpieces dramatize the inexplicable animosity directed at three generations of Thebes’ royal family by Apollo, the inscrutable god who terrifies and deceives his victims into acts of incest, betrayal, and kin murder. These fifth-century BCE family dramas—Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Kolonos, and Antigone—are fraught with horrific crises, confrontations, and excruciating choices, all of which still rivet theatergoers and readers in the 21st century.

Bagg’s accurate and dynamic translations of Greek drama have been successfully staged in over 60 productions. His translations of Oedipus the King and Antigone will appear in the revised 3rd edition of The Norton Anthology of World Literature.They preserve the complexity of Sophocles’ characters and their dialogue (whether searingly raw, subtly inflected, or infused with humor) and render Sophocles’ choral odes in resonant poetry. The three plays of The Oedipus Cycle, already proven stageworthy, refresh and clarify Sophocles’s narratives for a new generation about to discover timeless sources of pleasure and illumination in classical Greek drama.

If you would like to consider The Oedipus Cycle (paperback, 9780062119995, $14.99) for one of your classes, please request a complimentary copy by filling out our promotion response form.

And, please visit The Complete Sophocles—where you'll find teaching and background materials from Robert Bagg and his co-translator of The Complete Works of Sophocles, James Scully.