Customer Reviews

Alcestis (Greek Drama)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Ted Hughes'translation of Alcestis continues on a path he pursued for most of his later years: to resurrect "classic" poetry in a modern form. The translation flows eloquently, with the typical Hughes clipped verse. He seems desparate to make the text "speak" to modern readers, and (I think) especially to modern poets.

Despite the obvious (and poignant) parallels of the storyline to Hughes' own life, I did not find his translation of Alcestis as arresting as his Oresteia trilogy (especially the moving "Agamemnon"). The main characters in Alcestis all come across as somewhat cold, and there is a distance between the major themes (sacrifice, renunciation, regret) and the language used. The famous (but somewhat enlarged in Hughes' version) sequence of a drunken Heracles seems discordant given the sparce tone of the rest of the translation.

A fine (and uniquely personal) version, but one to be read along with older, more full treatments.

At the end of the last book that Ted Hughes has given us, the king's wife returns from the dead, after she has sacrificed her life for his. It is a celebratory end to a journey through grief and hell, and one can only hope that Hughes, at the end of his life, putting together "Birthday Letters", was consoled by the fact that his illness would soon reunite him with the woman whose legacy and ghost he would never shake. Profound, unsettling, thought-provoking; we should expect nothing less from one of the finest poets of the century.

I really enjoyed this. This is the first play I've read that made me what to drop what I'm doing, rush out and get together a troupe of players to stage it. The translation into modern language works very well, a couple of modern words jar, but then isn't drama supposed to provoke us? Some critics of the language of this translation are more comfortable with Victorian English but that's not what the Greeks spoke either. Hughes ensures that the humour as well as the tragedy comes through. I would have appreciated an editorial introduction with a few words about Euripides, Greek Drama, and Ted Hughes; especially given the price and the brevity of the work.

I read Carson's translation, then Hughes. In Carson, the man was unworthy of the woman, a little of a buffoon, spoiled and self-centered. In Hughes, he was pinioned by the gods exactly between intense love and inescapable duty, a tragic hero. Different translator choices, different tastes.

I had never read any of Hughes work, but as a translation of Greek text, it was dificult to place it in an ancient time. The captivating: It was a fast, and entertaining read, with a few lines I enjoyed. The mediocre: If you can handle words like "atoms" and "nelson hold" in your Greek translations, then go for it. I am not sorry I read it, but it could have been better. It is a tale of struggle in life, love, and death... so take what you can learn fom and shrug the rest off.