Le provocazioni di Antigone e quelle di Creonte. Come e perché tradurle oggi per il pubblico

Sophocles’ Antigone can be considered as an exam- ple of the major problems a translator of the classics has to face. On the level of the language, dialogues and discourses conceived to persuade alternate with songs, choral and monodic, composed by associa- tion of images and played on emotions. Many au- thoritative translations have privileged the pain and the love present in the character of Antigone, ob- scuring however the powerful dramatic theme – the philia – the bounds on which public life is based, and which are differently understood by Antigone and Creon. This work tries to bring the attention back to the relation between the translation and the contents of the dramatic thought, and to the ne- cessity of first of all restoring the literal meaning of the ancient texts, without obfuscating it with empty academic exercises.