Review by Choice Review
This is the version that was to appear in a revised edition of the Loeb Classical Library. (See the preface to Volume 1 of this series, the Sommerstein translation of the Acharnians, 1980.) Sommerstein, who collaborated with David Barrett in producing the Penguin Classics translations of Aristophanes (which are very good but a bit too British in their colloquialisms for American taste), has here retranslated the play much more closely and literally. Plentiful comments illuminate the obscurities of the text. Greekless readers (and those with only a modicum of Greek) can come here to get a good idea of what the Greek text actually says. Aristophanes has been ill served by previous translators who saw the task as an irresistible invitation to overexercise ingenuity while maintaining or jettisoning whatever decent haze of respectability was dictated by contemporary standards. The result has not always been useful. The close but smooth translation of the present edition is accompanied by the textual notes and comments typical of the better Loeb volumes. (The comments are printed separately at the end of the volume and would have appeared in the Loeb more helpfully at the foot of the page.) There is a good introductory note and bibliography. Libraries that own the Loeb parallel texts series should purchase the entire set of Aristophanic comedies. Recommended for college and university collections.-N.A. Greenberg, Oberlin College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
