From Booklist
The late British poet laureate Ted Hughes was much occupied with translation in his last years. He published dynamic versions of Tales from Ovid (1997), and classic plays also received his attention. This version of one of the glories of French drama was produced, with Diana Rigg as Phedre, shortly before his death. It exchanges Racine's rhymed alexandrine couplets for free verse that races along, as is highly desirable in a play whose most dramatic actions occur offstage. Like another recently well-translated imitation classical tragedy, Kleist's Penthesilea , Racine's drama is one of passion overpowering reason. Phedre lusts for her stepson Hippolytus, misogynist Hippolytus yearns for the royal captive Aricia, Oenone will do anything to protect her mistress Phedre's reputation, and Theseus will believe Oenone and exile his son Hippolytus rather than question Phedre. These are all errors of judgment that the gods will punish, regardless of the culprits' good intentions or previous good works. Hughes' Phedre proves as compelling as Richard Wilbur's fine 1987 version in rhymed iambic pentameters. Ray Olson
Review
'Ted Hughes's new version grasps the spirit of the original in a taut modern classicism. Everything falls on the eye and ear with splendor and passion."--Alastair Macaulay, Financial Times
"The French alexandrine couplet is notoriously hard to replicate in English cadences...yet, in the...fast-moving free verse he used to translate it, [Hughes] seems utterly at home with the action."--Eavan Boland, The New York Times Book Review
"[Ted Hughes] at his best...It is a strange and wonderful fact that...he should write so brilliantly just before he died."--Brian Cox, The Hudson Review
Review
'Ted Hughes's new version grasps the spirit of the original in a taut modern classicism. Everything falls on the eye and ear with splendor and passion."--Alastair Macaulay, Financial Times
"The French alexandrine couplet is notoriously hard to replicate in English cadences...yet, in the...fast-moving free verse he used to translate it, [Hughes] seems utterly at home with the action."--Eavan Boland, The New York Times Book Review
"[Ted Hughes] at his best...It is a strange and wonderful fact that...he should write so brilliantly just before he died."--Brian Cox, The Hudson Review
Book Description
A lean, high-tension version of a classic tragedy.
The myth of Phaedra is one of the most powerful in all of classical mythology. As dramatized by the French playwright Jean Racine (1639-99), the dying Queen's obsessive love for her stepson, Hippolytus, and the scrupulously upright Hippolytus' love for the forbidden beauty Aricia has come to be known as one of the great stories of tragic infatuation, a tale of love strong enough to bring down a kingdom.
In this "tough, unrhyming avalanche of a translation" (Paul Taylor, The Independent), Hughes replaces Racine's alexandrines with an English verse that serves eloquently to convey the passions of his protagonists. The translation was performed to acclaim in London in 1998, and the London production, starring Diana Rigg, was staged in 1999 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
"We are still catching up with Ted Hughes's gift for narrative verse after his Tales from Ovid," one English critic observed after the London premiere. "Little needs to happen on stage when there's a swirling action-packed disaster movie-riddled with sex and violence-in Hughes's free verse."
Language Notes
Text: English, French
About the Author
Ted Hughes (1930-98) wrote more than forty books of poetry, prose, and translation, including his version of the Oresteia of Aeschylus and the Alcestis of Euripides. He served as Poet Laureate to Queen Elizabeth II, and in the year before his death he was awarded the Whitbread Book of the Year Prize (for Tales from Ovid) and the Forward Prize (for Birthday Letters), and received an Order of Merit.
Phedre: A New Translation by Ted Hughes ANNOTATION
Racine's most powerful drama in an entirely faithful English translation.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
The myth of Phaedra, or Phedre, is one of the most powerful in all of classical mythology. As interpreted by the French playwright Jean Racine (1639-99), the story of the dying queen's obsessive love for her stepson, Hippolytus, has come to be known as one of the great dramas of tragic infatuation, a tale of love strong enough to bring down a kingdom. For this translation Ted Hughes replaced Racine's alexandrines, with a lean, high-tension English verse that serves eloquently to convey the passions of his protagonists.
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