The Burial at Thebes

Name: The Burial at Thebes
Rating: 4.071428571428571 (7 reviews)
Author: Seamus Heaney
ISBN: 9780374530075

by Seamus Heaney, Sophocles

4.1

(7 ratings)

64 pages2004Farrar, Straus and GirouxISBN 9780374530075

ClassicsDrama

About this book

Sophocles' play stands as a timely exploration of the conflict between those who affirm the individual's human rights and those who must protect the state's security. During the War of the Seven Against Thebes, Antigone learns that her brothers have killed each other, having been forced onto opposing sides. When Creon, king of Thebes, grants burial of one but not the "treacherous" other, Antigone defies his order, believing it her duty to bury all of her close kin. Enraged, Creon condemns her to death, and his soldiers wall her up in a tomb. In this new translation, Seamus Heaney exposes the darkness and the humanity in Sophocles' masterpiece, and inks it with his own modern and masterly touch.

Publication Details

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2004
Pages: 64
ISBN: 9780374530075
Language: en

About Seamus Heaney

Seamus Justin Heaney MRIA (/ˈʃeɪməs ˈhiːni/; 13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his best-known works is Death of a Naturalist (1966), his first major published volume. Heaney was and is still recognised as one of the principal contributors to poetry in Ireland during his lifetime. American poet Robert Lowell described him as "the most important Irish poet since Yeats", and many others, including the academic John Sutherland, have said that he was "the greatest poet of our age". Robert Pinsky has stated that "with his wonderful gift of eye and ear Heaney has the gift of the story-teller." Upon his death in 2013, The Independent described him as "probably the best-known poet in the world". [source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seamus_Heaney)