Count Your Blessings You Can't See: An Appalachian Translation of Seneca's Oedipus

Abstract

This project consists primarily of translations of three scenes from Seneca’s Oedipus into Appalachian English, which refers to a number of varieties of English spoken in the Appalachian Mountains of the United States, ranging from southern New York to northern Mississippi. In my Introduction, I discuss the cultural and historical background of Seneca’s Oedipus and its parallels to American dramas that treat the topic of incest, especially the play’s emphasis on biological and social decay, gore, and the grotesque. I also explore challenges that arise when translating this play into an Appalachian context, including media portrayals of Appalachians, nuances of Appalachian English, and the methods and theories behind my translation. The main body of my thesis consists of translations of lines 291-402 (Manto’s extispicium), 530-658 (Creon’s description of Teiresias’ necromantic ritual), and 882-1061 (Oedipus’ self-blinding and Jocasta’s suicide), each with facing Latin text and a discussion of my choices for each passage. I conclude that the ultimate goal of this work is to link Senecan drama to the American theatrical tradition, while also demonstrating the artistic and pedagogical merit and viability of regionalized translations.