HMH Literature in Translation

Anne Carson "translates" Antigone

Translation should embody an act of thanks to the original. It should celebrate its own dependence on its source. It concentrates scruple and trust, however recreative or anarchic its instincts. It is an informing craft which, sometimes enigmatically, reveals within or adds to the original what was already there – particularly where the text has been translated, imitated, adapted a hundredfold. Anne Carson has often achieved this exigent ideal. But not this time.