Anne Carson's translation of "Antigone" received a number of serious reviews, including thoughtful pieces by Judith Butler, George Steiner, and Nick Mirzoeff.

Anne Carson has published translations of the ancient Greek poets Sappho, Simonides, Aiskhylos, Sophokles and Euripides. He makes certain changes, some lines and scenes are dropped, the play is prefaced with an inserted great dialogue between two unnamed sisters in Berlin in the final days of WW2, but nonetheless Sophocles' text is very much recognizable, showing what a great adaptation is about, something in which Carson fails. She does not allow us the cleansing outpour of emotion that, in classic tragedy, results in restoration and a way forward. Following one of Carson’s most personal and emotional works, Nox, which is a recreation of her scrapbook dealing with the death of her brother, Carson released Antigonick which revisits the grief over the death of a brother.Carson's translation plays delightfully with the idea that a work of art changes and accumulates meanings as it moves through time. It is probably a great work of art in itself, but for me, coming from a love for the original drama and story, it didn’t feel like ‘Antigone’ to me. Rather, she reminds us that the imperative is to refuse to turn away from the suffering exacted by oppression and injustice, to bear witness and hold up the words of those who have been silenced. I strongly recommend this work to anyone interested in the story of Antigone (I am obsessed with all things Antigone), beautiful language, and stunning books.

Her poetry is expressionistic (you see this in Antigonick ), shot through with a spiritual turbulence and an almost violent sensitivity to experience, and the barbed edges of her lines can send shocks through you. Carson is also a classics scholar, the translator of If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho, and the author of Eros the Bittersweet. Carson is nothing less than brilliant--unfalteringly sharp indiction, audacious, and judicious in taking liberties.If you look at the list of characters, you will see at the bottom Nick, a mute part [always onstage, he measures things] and the final line of the play instructs all the cast to leave the stage apart from Nick who continues to measure. Both die and their uncle Creon declares that Eteocles shall receive a proper burial, while Polynices, a traitor, must lie unburied, to be eaten by birds and dogs. But Antigone evenly counters: “Actually no they all think like me / but you’ve nailed their tongues to the floor. These drawings overlay the text creating a powerful experience of the language shining through the drawings.

Antigone, daughter of Oedipus, defies an edict issued by the new king, her uncle Kreon, that forbids the proper burial of her brother, Polyneikes, who was just killed in battle. I agree it is problematic to have Antigone say things like "BINGO," despite Carson's clear intention to speak to a contemporary reader. What I didn’t notice was the disparity of pages – my slim edition of 44 pages is not a cheaper version of the hardback of 180 pages. It is a cry of grief posed in question form, emphatic, handwritten, excessive and abbreviated and, in this sense, a measured scream that gives us some sense of who or what lives on when it is all too late. This passage is good, but it still isn't an interpretation of the individual image: it's a reading of any image (especially one with an empty room, but any image could be construed the same way).S. Eliot Prize, Plainwater: Essays and Poetry, and Glass, Irony and God, shortlisted for the Forward Prize. I needed to revisit Anne Carson’s translation of Sophokles’s The Antigone, a masterpiece about tyranny, resistance, and a woman’s act of civil disobedience. When asked if she was the one who went against Creon's edict and buried her brother, Antigone replied, "Bingo!