Synopsis:
A new dramatization for the stage of Ted Hughes's highly acclaimed translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses
When it was published in 1997, Tales from Ovid was immediately recognized as the best rendering of Ovid in generations, a classic in its own right and a major book in Ted Hughes's oeuvre. For Hughes, one of the most admired and widely read poets of our day, had translated twenty-four of Ovid's stories--legends connected by their transformational motifs--with the elegance and passion that distinguished his own poems.
His vigorous, fluid poetry is drama itself and demands to be spoken aloud. Tim Supple and Simon Reade take ten of the tales --including the stories of Echo and Narcissus, of Venus and Adonis, of Pyramus and Thisbe, among others--and transform them into elegant works for the stage. Erotic, violent, and magical, this dramatization of Tales from Ovid realizes the immense power of Hughes's original text, which Michael Hofmann celebrated in The Times (London) as "one of the great works of the century."
Review:
England's poet laureate Ted Hughes first turned his hand to Ovid's Metamorphoses when he--along with other prominent English-language poets such as Seamus Heaney, Amy Clampitt, and Charles Simic--contributed poems to the anthology After Ovid. In the three years following After Ovid's publication, Hughes continued working with the Metamorphoses, eventually completing the 24 translations collected here. Culling from 250 original tales, Hughes has chosen some of the most violent and disturbing narratives Ovid wrote, including the stories of Echo and Narcissus, Bacchus and Pentheus, and Semele's rape by Jove. Classical purists may be offended at the occasional liberties Hughes takes with Ovid's words, but no one will quarrel with the force and originality of Hughes's verse, or with its narrative skill. This translation is an unusual triumph--a work informed by the passion and wit of Ovid, yet suffused with Hughes's own distinctive poetic sensibility.
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![](https://pictures.abebooks.com/isbn/9780571202256-us.jpg "Tales from Ovid: Twenty-four Passages from the "Metamorphoses": Play (Faber plays): Ted Hughes")
