Philosophy & Literature

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  1. Alcestis, Medea, Hippolytus

    Euripides
    Translated by Diane Arnson Svarlien
    Introduction and Notes by Robin Mitchell-Boyask

    This new volume of three of Euripides' most celebrated plays offers graceful, economical, metrical translations that convey the wide range of effects of the playwright's verse, from the idiomatic speech of its dialogue to the high formality of its choral odes.

    "Many scholars translate the works of Euripides as they should be, but Diane Arnson Svarlien translates them as they are. . . . Arnson Svarlien shows admirable modesty and restraint in avoiding . . . pitfalls, and makes choices that reveal the meaning of the text she is translating with the least imposition of her own personality.  The ambiguity of Euripides is transmitted to us but not imposed on us by [her] translation. . . . The translations are both readable and playable." —Edmond Chibeau, New England Theatre Journal 

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  2. Antigone (Woodruff Edition)

    Sophocles
    Translated, with Introduction and Notes, by Paul Woodruff

    "A lucid, well-paced translation, natural enough sounding in the dialogue to make a good acting version, and remarkably successful in making the choruses clear, lyrical, and yet part of the dramatic movement. Woodruff’s rendering of the choruses especially impresses me by the way he manages to render complex syntax and imagery of the original—often tangled and occasionally obscure in its allusiveness—into clear and genuinely poetic English." —Joseph Russo, Haverford College

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  3. Bacchae (Woodruff Edition)

    Euripides
    Translated, with Introduction and Notes, by Paul Woodruff

    "[Woodruff’s translation] is clear, fluent, and vigorous, well thought out, readable and forceful. The rhythms are right, ever-present but not too insistent or obvious. It can be spoken instead of read and so is viable as an acting version; and it keeps the lines of the plot well focused. The Introduction offers a good survey of critical approaches. The notes at the foot of the page are suitably brief and nonintrusive and give basic information for the non-specialist."
         —Charles Segal, Harvard University

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  4. Confessions (Sheed, Second Edition)

    Augustine
    Translated by F. J. Sheed
    Introduction by Peter Brown, Notes by Michael Foley

    "This translation is already a classic. It is the translation that has guided three generations of students and readers into a renewed appreciation of the beauty and urgency of a masterpiece of Christian autobiography. This is largely because the translator has caught not only the meaning of Augustine’s Confessions, but a large measure of its poetry.  It makes the Latin sing in English as it did when it came from the pen of Augustine, some sixteen hundred years ago. Deeply rooted in the tradition of which Augustine was himself a principal founder, this translation is not only modern: it is a faithful echo, in a language that has carried throughout the ages, of its author’s original passion and disquiet."  —Peter Brown

    "To my ears, Sheed’s translation is the most beautiful English translation available. The same electric current that runs through Augustine’s original can be felt in this translation, which combines a slightly elevated style (more elevated in direct prayers) combined with the immediacy and transparency of a street preacher (not that different from Augustine’s own style). The latest edition includes an introduction by Peter Brown, the best biographer of Augustine, and notes and commentary by Michael Foley, a truly excellent reader of Augustine." —Jared Ortiz, Hope College, in Catholic World Report

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  5. Medea (Svarlien Edition)

    Euripides
    Translated by Diane Arnson Svarlien
    Introduction and Notes by Robin Mitchell-Boyask

    "This is the Medea we have been waiting for.  It offers clarity without banality, eloquence without pretension, meter without doggerel, accuracy without clumsiness.  No English Medea can ever be Euripides', but this is as close as anyone has come so far, and a good deal closer than I thought anyone would ever come.  Arnson-Svarlien has shown herself exceedingly skillful in making Euripides sound Euripidean." —David M. Schaps, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

    "Fluid, lively, and accurate!" —Amy Vail, Department of Classics, Baylor University

     

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  6. Notes from the Underground

    Fyodor Dostoevsky
    Translated by Constance Garnett
    Edited, with Introduction, by Charles Guignon and Kevin Aho

    Dostoevsky's disturbing and groundbreaking novella appears in this new annotated edition with an Introduction by Charles Guignon and Kevin Aho. An analogue of Guignon's widely praised Introduction to his 1993 edition of "The Grand Inquisitor," the editors' Introduction places the underground man in the context of European modernity, analyzes his inner dynamics in the light of the history of Russian cultural and intellectual life, and suggests compelling reasons for our own strange affinity for this nameless man who boldly declares, "I was rude and took pleasure in being so."

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  7. Oresteia

    Aeschylus
    Translated, with Notes, by Peter Meineck
    Introduction by Helene P. Foley

    “Peter Meineck’s new rendition of the Oresteia is that rare and wonderful thing: a text accessible to the Greekless audience while still preserving the vocabulary of Aeschylus. Those of us who have seen Peter Meineck's performances have long marveled at his ability to turn Greek into clear English, how he does not do ‘versions’ of the plays, how he does not rewrite the ancients into modern jargon (even his comedies maintain more Aristophanic text than is usual). Here lines that students have always needed explicated stand clear. . . . Helene Foley has provided a fine introduction for this translation. Introduction and translation together provide an exciting text, one that should be widely read, widely used.” —Karelisa Hartigan, University of Florida, in The Classical Outlook

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  8. Poetics (Sachs Edition)

    Aristotle
    Translated, with Introduction and Notes, Joe Sachs

    "I find the Introduction extremely convincing, lucid, learned, fair to past scholarship, and truly illuminating about the meaning of tragedy in general and about the very specific acceptions of hamartiakatharsis, ekplêxis, and thauma, in the context of an appropriate understanding of the Poetics. Another remarkable feature is the dexterity and ease with which it draws on all the relevant parts of the Aristotelian corpus to shed light on troublesome textual passages in the Poetics. Finally, the style of the Introduction is straightforward, free of unnecessary jargon, direct, and economical, the best interpretation of the Poetics I ever read." —Sabetai Unguru, Tel Aviv University

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  9. Rameau's Nephew, and Other Works

    Denis Diderot
    Translations by Jacques Barzun and Ralph H. Bowen
    Introduction by Ralph H. Bowen

    "It’s the best edition and the best translation available, one of Jacques Barzun’s most outstanding gifts to teachers. Bravo!”
         —William R. Everdell, St. Ann’s School

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  10. The Grand Inquisitor

    Fyodor Dostoevsky
    Edited, with Introduction, by Charles Guignon
    Translated by Constance Garnett

    "This collection gives us a sense of the depth of Dostoevsky's insights into human life and suffering and of his profound understanding of the tensions and dangers of modernity. Guignon's Introduction is a brilliant study that shows how profoundly the 'legend of the Grand Inquisitor' speaks to our day." —Charles Taylor, McGill University

    "Guignon's Introduction is by far the best available to these texts, and is, for its clarity and depth, one of the finest Introductions to complex literary or philosophical material that I've ever read." —Stephen L. Collins, Babson College

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  11. Utopia

    Thomas More
    Translated, with Introduction and Notes, by David Wootton

    “In addition to its elegant and precise translation of Utopia, this edition offers the prefatory material and postscripts from the 1518 edition, and More’s letter to Giles form the 1517 edition. Mr. Wootton has also added Erasmus’s ‘The Sileni of Alcibiades,’ which is crucial for the interpretation he gives in his Introduction of the many ambiguities and contradictions in More’s text as well as his life. The Introduction is a most valuable guide for understanding this man who was a proponent of toleration and a persecutor of heretics, a courtier full of worldly ambition ending as a fearless martyr. The contradictions of the man translated into a complicated and contradictory historiography to which Mr. Wootton’s Introduction is a most intelligent guide. A welcome addition to the More literature.”
         —J. W. Smit, Professor of History, Columbia University

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  12. Walden Two

    B. F. Skinner

    This fictional outline of a modern utopia has been a center of controversy ever since its publication in 1948. Set in the United States, it pictures a society in which human problems are solved by a scientific technology of human conduct.

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