Alcestis |  | Author: Euripides
Creator: A. M. Dale
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Category: Book
List Price: $22.00
Buy Used: $3.49
as of 9/10/2010 19:57 CDT details
You Save: $18.51 (84%)
Used (9) from $3.49
Seller: Oceansale
Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 4,026,133
Media: Paperback
Pages: 170
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 4.8 x 0.4
ISBN: 0198720971
Dewey Decimal Number: 882.01
EAN: 9780198720973
ASIN: 0198720971
Publication Date: May 18, 1978
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
A masterly translation of one of the greatest of Greek dramas. Their lives are the briefest concession, My concession, a nod of permission. As if I dozed off and dreamed a little. I take a dream-and Admetos calls it his life. -Death in Alcestis In the years before his death at age sixty-eight in 1998, Ted Hughes translated several classical works with great energy and ingenuity. His Tales from Ovid was called "one of the great works of our century" (Michael Hofmann, The Times, London), and his Phdre was acclaimed on stage in New York as well as in London. Hughes's version of Euripides' Alcestis, the last of his translations, has the great brio of those works, and it is a powerful and moving addition to the body of work from the final phase of Hughes's career. Euripides was, with Aeschylus and Sophocles, one of the greatest of Greek dramatists. Alcestis tells the story of the grief of King Admetos for his wife, Alcestis, who has given her young life so that he may live. As translated by Hughes, the story has a distinctly modern sensibility while retaining the spirit of antiquity. It is a profound meditation on human mortality. Ted Hughes also translated Aeschylus' Oresteia, as well as Ovid's Metamorphoses, and Tales from Ovid (FSG, 1997), and Racine's Phdre (FSG, 1999). He lived in Devon, England, and died there in October 1998.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Hughes' Final Gift October 30, 1999
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
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.
Great Greek Drama translated into Modern English April 6, 2001
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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.
Hughes versus Carson August 24, 2009
Jim Kornell (Santa Barbara, CA USA)
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.
A project uncompleted May 17, 2000
Jeffrey Barcham
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
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.
 Mediocre, but captivating translation July 18, 2000
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
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.
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