EURIPIDES' ALCESTIS P: A Play - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0374527261 ISBN 13: 9780374527266

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001

Synopsis

, 12 pages, original brochure for the play by Ted Hughes, from the collection of Roy Davids who was Ted Hughes's friend and manuscript advisor

About this title

Review:

The qualities that make classic Greek Drama often so difficult to relate to on the modern stage--its weird formality, its lyricised violence, its declamatory tone and peculiar plotting--paradoxically make it perfect for translating into modern poetry. The late Poet Laureate Ted Hughes proved this himself with his Whitbread Prize-winning Tales From Ovid. In that fine translation Hughes's pagan fatalism and passionate craftsmanship proved an ideal match for one of the greatest of Greek texts.

Now this new poem/play shows that Hughes's previous success was far from a one-off. Euripides's story is simply summarised: a rich and esteemed Greek king, Admetos, has been asked for his life by the Gods. In place of Admetos, the king's beautiful wife Alcestis, mother of their two beloved children, offers to sacrifice herself. Meanwhile Admetos's beer-buddy, the hero Heracles (i.e. Hercules), has shown up at the palace, ready to do some carousing. On this clash of personalities and circumstances the play tilts, and turns--until the world is eventually put to rights.

The joy of this work is in the language. Hughes/Euripides is by turns vernacular: "I need to get my double nelson on an immortal neck", lyrical: "I have nailed her to the sun with a laser", and pungent: "What loathsome sacks of refuse old men are!". Other times the writing is almost casual in its modernity, which makes what could otherwise be a dense and disappointing text fresh and accessible.

Ted Hughes died, of course, in 1998: a short while after completing work on this version. His death seems all the more poignant in that, taking into account the other late, great works--Birthday Letters, and Tales From Ovid--alongside this noble and moving translation, he appeared to be approaching the height of his powers in his final months. But at least we have the books. --Sean Thomas

Review:

"Hughes's poetic style if fully of beauty and pathos. Highly recommended." --Library Journal

"[Hughes uses] the same technique of adaptation he deployed so well in Tales from Ovid, paring Classical polysyllables to the minimum, and finding the grain of mythic significance...His portrayal of the surviving and self-chastising Admetos is acute. Whatever shades of autobiography may writhe through these lines--they belong to a drama that works." --Nigel Spivey, The Daily Telegraph

About this edition

• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0374527261
• ISBN 13: 9780374527266
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 112