The APGRD's Translating Ancient Drama project explores the essential role played by translation in the reception of ancient comedy and tragedy. The central aim of the project is to research the circulation of ancient dramatic texts through different times, linguistic areas and cultures.
The project augments and supplements the APGRD’s performance database by including translations of ancient plays into a number of European vernacular languages. The information provided proves an invaluable tool for researchers working in a wide range of disciplines, including Modern Literary Studies, Linguistics, Comparative Literature, Classics, Theatre Studies, History of Scholarship, History of Ideas and History of the Book. It equally enables examination of parallels and differences in the patterns of the reception of the ancient texts across time and place, including geographical areas beyond Europe through the presence of these vernaculars in the former colonies. At the same time, it also permits analysis of cross-cultural exchanges, whether by conscious appropriation, shameless recycling and/or literary piracy of translations in other European vernaculars.
The APGRD’s Translating Ancient Drama project also hosts seminar series and events, which bring academics of classical reception and translation studies alongside playwrights as well as scholar-translators for the stage. They are thus able to share and foster reflection on the variety of translation practices and the art of translating for the stage.
Digital developments
French Translations of Ancient Drama
Find out more about the project's digital developments >> including our searchable online database of French translations and Early Modern Digital Library.
Translating Ancient Greek Drama in the Early Modern Period
Find out for more information about Translating Ancient Greek Drama in the Early Modern Period >> a research strand which began in 2018 and is aimed at understanding the early modern reception of ancient drama from a cross-cultural, multilingual, and transnational perspective.
Workshops
To date, we have run three workshops relating to this project:
- Early Modern Translation Workshop: 16th-century translations of Iphigenia at Aulis in the 21st century (28-19 November 2019)
- Theatre Translation Workshop on Aeschylus' Agamemnon (2019-2020)
- Theatre Translation Workshop: War in Fragments (2020)
Further information on our research workshops >>
Events
- 24 June 2022: Translating Ancient Greek Drama in Europe 1600-1800
- 11 December 2020: Translating Ancient Greek Drama in Europe 1600-1750
- 29 November 2019: On Translating Greek Drama in Early Modern Europe (ca. 1400-1600)
- 14 December 2018: Translating Greek Tragedy in Early Modern Europe
- 23 March 2018: Metamorphoses Book 10: a global mass reading
- 20 November 2017: Emily Wilson reading from her translation of The Odyssey
- 2 November 2017: Josephine Balmer on translating the fragments of Aeschylus’ Myrmidons
- 16-17 June 2017: Translation into Theatre and the Social Sciences
- 24 March 2017: Odyssée 24: a global mass reading. Part of the European Festival of Latin and Greek
- I December 2012: Timberlake Wertenbaker (playwright) in conversation with Margaret Williamson
- Autumn 2012 Translating for the Stage (Leverhulme Lecture)
- 1 December 2012: Colloquium on Translation, Oxford and the Classics
- Seminar series Autumn 2012 Reception and Translation
People
- Fiona Macintosh (Principal Investigator)
- Giovanna Di Martino (APGRD Postdoctoral Research Associate, UCL)
- Estelle Baudou (Marie Curie Research Fellow, Oxford)
- Cécile Dudouyt (APGRD Research Associate, Associate Professor Université Sorbonne Paris Nord)
- Malika Bastin-Hammou (Université Grenoble Alpes)
- Giulia Fiore (Bologna)
- Laura Monros-Gaspar (Research Associate, University of Valencia)
- Sofia Frade (Research Associate, University of Lisbon)
- Oliver Taplin (University of Oxford, Advisor)
- Alain Viala (University of Oxford, Advisor)
- Margaret Williamson (Dartmouth College, USA, Advisor)