Amphitryon - 9781559363587

"Most of Moliere's greatest dramatic achievements are in rhymed verse, in the traditional French alexandrine, a rhymed, regular twelve-syllable line. The wonder of it is that Wilbur's translations attain all the lightly tripping elegance of the originals ... which are, in that useful German word lacking in our language, kogenial---meaning not, as in English, congenial, but something bigger: equal in genius."---John Simon

"It would be hard to overpraise Wilbur's special genius for verse translation. Whether re-creating the witty badinage of Moliere or the high tragic music of Racine or Corneille, Wilbur has the uncanny ability to create English versions that never feel like translations. They read and play as if they were originally written in English."---Dana Gioia

Amphitryon is one of Moliere's later works: an elegant comedy based on Plautus's Roman original, with Jupiter's love affairs alluding to those of the French king. Richard Wilbur's remarkable English verse translation is published here for the first time in a quality paperback edition.