Theater Studies

Peter Burian, Professor of Classical & Comparative Literatures, and Theater Studies and Professor of Theater Studies

currently on leave

Office Location:	236 Allen Bldg
Office Phone:	919 684 2005, 919 684 6076
Email Address:
Web Page:	http://www.duke.edu/web/theaterstudies/~pburian

Research Interests:: Peter Burian (Ph.D., Princeton) has taught at Duke since 1968. His main scholarly interests involve ancient Greek theater and classical tradition in the arts, and his publications include numerous essays on all the surviving fifth-century BCE playwrights and translations from Aeschylus and Euripides. He edits the series Greek Tragedy in New Translations for Oxford University Press, in which his new translation of Aeschylus’ Oresteia (with series co-editor and poet Alan Shapiro) has just appeared. He is a contributor to The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy. His translation of Euripides’ Helen was given its premiere by Duke Players in 1999.

Education:

Ph.D.	Princeton University	1971
M.A.	Princeton University	1968
A.B. with high honors and high distinction in Classical Studies	University of Michigan, Ann Arbor	1964

Representative Publications (More Publications)

Myth into Muthos: the Shaping of Tragic Plot, in The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy, edited by P.E. Easterling (1997), pp. 178-208, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .
Euripides' Heraclidae: An Interpretation, Classical Philology, vol. 72 (1977), pp. 1-21 .
Logos and Pathos: The Politics of the Suppliant Women, in Directions in Euripidean Criticism (1985), pp. 129-155, 212-221, Durham, NC: Duke University Press .
Aristophanes, Birds. Bryn Mawr Commentaries, Bryn Mawr, Penn, (1991).
Euripides, Helen. Aris and Phillips Classical Texts, Oxbow Books, Oxford, (2007).
Aeschylus, The Suppliants. Princeton University Press: Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation, Princeton, (1991). (Translation with introduction and notes)
Aeschylus, Oresteia. Greek Tragedy in New Translations: Oxford University Press, New York, (2003).
'All that Greek manure under the green bananas': Derek Walcott's Odyssey, South Atlantic Quarterly, vol. 96 (1997), pp. 359-77 .
Sepulchers", a translation of Ugo Foscolo, "Carme dei Sepolcri" with brief introduction and notes, Literary Imagination, vol. 4 (2002), pp. 17-30 .