It is not too bold to argue that Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus is one of those tragic plays that can keep a scholar mentally occupied for a lifetime, and despite the constant hermeneutic efforts, there is no escaping the haunting feeling that whatever the critical method meticulously and ardently deployed, each and every reading holds the grave risk of disproportionate schematization, abstraction and inflexibility. The diversity of verbal, political, religious and social codes threaded together in multiple complex messages notwithstanding, Oedipus at Colonus has of late given rise to an array of highly synthetic and contextualized studies. Sadly, a full-scale edition with commentary is still lacking from this collection of wide-ranging interpretive surveys which this reviewer has had his fair share in augmenting by producing two closely related volumes (Tragic Narrative: ANarratological Study of Oedipus at Colonus (Berlin and New York 2002); Oedipus at Colonus: Sophocles, Athens, and the World (Berlin and New York 2007)). These scholarly soundings seek to afford specialist and non-specialist readers alike vivid and clear insight into the play’s complexities and intricacies, all the while striving to provide an essential starting point for those who want to pursue particular topics and themes in more depth (cf., for instance, A. Kelly, Sophocles: Oedipus at Colonus (London 2009)).

The beautifully produced and assiduously edited translation of Oedipus at Colonus by the internationally acclaimed director Peter Stein is both a welcome addition to and a much-needed elaboration on this slowly but steadily expanding range of comprehensive overviews and detailed monographs, which aim not only at facilitating a fresh and enlightening take on Sophocles’ final work, but also at challenging readers to rethink their expectations and assumptions, and therefore to sharpen their response to those undecided and contested questions that lie at the heart of their inquiry. The reason for this is that Stein’s original and distinctive German rendition exposes audiences to the captivating liveliness and remarkable thoroughness of the play as a fascinating and powerful performed showpiece. More than that, the book closes off with two penetrating and succinctly argued essays by Bernd Seidensticker and Hellmut Flashar, which are designed to bring further meaning and historical force to Stein’s excellent translation by introducing and reviewing current thinking in the field of Sophoclean studies.

In particular, Seidensticker’s longer chapter (141–80), besides providing a state-of-the-art research picture of Sophocles’ life and times, seeks to offer a deeper awareness of Oedipus at Colonus by addressing issues and problems about the play’s principal thoughts and dramaturgy that continue to puzzle and provoke today, such as the scandalous developments of the Oedipus myth sending shockwaves for all and sundry and the moral complications stemming from a series of appalling actions and horrible events at Thebes and Athens. There is also a rewarding section on Stein’s impeccable translation skills and directorial sophistication, amply demonstrated in his magisterial production of Aeschylus’ Oresteia in 1980, together with helpful comments on diction and structure. Despite its briefness, Flashar’s essay (181–88) on the Nachleben of the play furthers our understanding of the various ways in which Oedipus at Colonus has been discussed, adapted, translated and integrated into other works over the course of the last 2,500 years with a special emphasis on modern reception.

Unsurprisingly, Stein’s rich and lucid rendition of the ancient text takes pride of place in this handy and well-illustrated volume (11–140). In the summer of 2010, the distinguished German director mounted a theatrical production of Oedipus at Colonus at the prominent Salzburg festival of music and drama with much-admired actor Klaus Maria Brandauer as Oedipus and talented younger actress Katharina Susewind as Antigone. The translation grows from this successful performance of the play, and by avoiding stylistic conventions and the embroidered effects of unnecessarily colloquial attempts, it neatly captures the essential thoughts and arguments of the Sophoclean work. Accessible, poetic and specific, it renders the Greek with a straightforwardness and dignity reminiscent of the original. With swift, translucent language that rings both ancient and modern, the German text immediately engrosses the reader, while the tight and well-adjusted pace allows the audience to hear and appreciate the incantatory replications in the Greek. In this respect, it should be pointed out that by building on his experimental production of the Oresteia, Stein not only brings to bear multiple critical editions and scholarly readings on his interpretation of Oedipus at Colonus but also seeks to convey the significance of actions and events through linguistic repetition and augmentation. This is a distinctive translation technique which, quite appropriately, has been called ‘expressive dilation’, in that it frequently deploys numerous synonyms to state as precisely as possible the meaning of a crucial word or term (cf. G. Ugolini ‘“Una parabola meravigliosa”: Peter Stein traduttore e regista dell’ Edipo a Colono’, Visioni del tragico 1.1 (2020), 51–64).

All in all, Peter Stein, the critically applauded director of the Oresteia, here succeeds in taking on an equally demanding and in some ways more rigorous challenge: translating the final dramatic work of Sophocles into eloquent and powerful diction, while at the same time situating the play within the tumultuous political and social context of late fifth-century Athens.