Sophocles was one of the most famous Greek playwrights of his time, and he is still well known by contemporary society. Many people today and in the past few thousand years have studied Sophocles and his works, trying to understand and analyze them. Sophocles lived almost 2500 years ago writing Greek plays, including a famous trilogy: Antigone, Oedipus the King, and Oedipus at Colonus. Many people throughout history have praised Sophocles for this trilogy. Oedipus the King has been dissected, studied, and taught, ranging from schoolteachers such as Mr. M. Rodriguez to even the most well known philosophers such as Sigmund Freud. This proves how widespread Sophocles' Oedipus the King really is. Many authors have translated Oedipus into their own words for easier comprehension of the play. This allows other people to understand the play better for either personal enjoyment or educational purposes. Two different authors and their translations of the play will be compared and cont!

rasted, showing the many diverse translations of Oedipus the King.

William Butler Yeats and D.W. Myatt are two authors who both have analyzed Oedipus the King the way they think the play should be told. Ther

e are many similarities and some differences, but each translation has its own obvious uniqueness. Yeats is a well-respected Irish author. Robert Couteau describes him as "the great Irish writer/ and mystic" (Couteau 1). Myatt is not as well known as Yeats, however he does translate Oedipus in a well-educated way. R.D. Dawe points out that "Myatt explains even the little details in his translation" (Myatt 93). Oedipus the King is not the only title this play is known by. "Universally, the play is called Oedipus Tyrannus"(Norwood 145). In Yeats' translation, Sophocles' King Oedipus (Yeats 304) is the title. He notes Sophocles as the original author of the play by placing his name in the title. Myatt, however, uses Oedipus Tyrannus (Myatt 7), sticking with the universal title. Both authors show intelligence and education in their translati!

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Two different authors and their translations of the play were compared and contrasted, showing the many diverse translations of Oedipus the King. Yeats and Myatt are just two authors out of many who over thousands of years translated Sophocles' Oedipus. Of course no author's translation will be exactly the way Sophocles' play was written, because a translation is different than the original. There will always be parts of a translation others will like and dislike, but it is better to have many translations than none. This way, one is able to find a translation that one will like. Sophocles wrote Oedipus as a play to entertain the Greeks of his time. Many other authors translated Oedipus to fulfill his desire by entertaining people of the world today.

ziness in a book of a play will often have an effect to bore the reader.

to understand this speech, but it is still written a little awkwardly.

The two authors have different writing skills when writing their translation on Oedipus. As pointed out before, Myatt uses a more descriptive and aggressive form of writing. Yeats is direct and to the point using many clear statements. However, Yeats does seem to be repetitive when using his writing style. Yeats starts many statements out with the word "and" in his translation. "And in his hands..."(Yeats 307), "And he had..."(Yeats 311), and "And he-who may he be"(Y

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Approximate Word count = 1542
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)