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Birds, babies and bones Birth, death and Sophocles feature in Anthony Thwaite's selection of recent poetry books

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From: The Sunday Telegraph London
Date: 20040321
Author:Anthony Thwaite

WHAT A PLAY by Sophocles in fifth century BC Athens sounded like, looked like, how it was performed, how it was received, are questions to which even scholars of ancient Greek literature can only provide uncertain answers.

I spent two terms, almost 60 years ago, "doing" classical Greek at an elementary level, which hardly qualifies me to pronounce on Seamus Heaney's verse translation of Sophocles' Antigone, now titled The Burial at Thebes (Faber, pounds 12.99). But then, I rather doubt that Heaney's Greek is much better than my own. I suspect that (as with Christopher Logue's Homeric ...

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