Vol.:(0123456789) International Journal of the Classical Tradition https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-019-00535-1 1 3 ARTICLE Urbs Antiqua Fuit: Brian Friel’s Use of Classical Epic in Translations Jennifer Larson 1 © Springer Nature B.V. 2019 Brian Friel’s Translations was first presented by Field Day Theatre Company in 1980. The play portrays an Irish-speaking school in the fictional Donegal town of Baile Beag in the year 1833. Such ‘hedge schools’, set up in private homes, barns or even outdoors, offered instruction to Catholic children after the Penal Laws imposed by the British (1723–82) made all Catholic education illegal. Baile Beag and its school are visited by English soldiers conducting the British Ordnance Sur- vey, whose task is to map the land and standardize the place names, in many cases replacing them with English names. Meanwhile the advent of National Schools, which provide instruction only in English, threatens to erase the Irish language. 1 Translations presents the ‘Irish’ dialogue in English, thus allowing the audience to follow the action, even as the monoglot characters in the play struggle to communi- cate across language barriers. Friel’s depiction of the role and impact of language in human experience has stimulated abundant scholarly discussion, as have the political * Jennifer Larson jlarson@kent.edu 1 Department of Modern and Classical Language Studies, Kent State University, 475 Janik Drive, Kent, OH 44242, USA 1 This essay was written after seeing Translations at the National Theatre in London in July 2018. I thank the director, cast and crew of that outstanding production, as well as my colleague Joanna Trze- ciak-Huss for reading a draft version and the anonymous reviewers of IJCT for their helpful suggestions. For a thorough overview of the play and its immediate reception, see M. J. Richtarik, Acting Between the Lines: The Field Day Theatre Company and Irish Cultural Politics, 1980–1984, Oxford, 1994, pp. 28–64. On the hedge schools, see P. J. Dowling, The Hedge Schools of Ireland, Dublin, 1968; W. B. Stanford, Ireland and the Classical Tradition, Dublin, 1976, pp. 25–33. For contemporary descriptions of hedge schools, see The Life of William Carleton, Being His Autobiography and Letters, Vol. 1, London, 1896, pp. 11–23, and ‘The Hedge School’, in The Works of William Carleton, Vol III: Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, New York, 1881, pp. 819–53.