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List Price: $13.00Amazon.com's Price: $9.10 You Save: $3.90 (30%)as of 03/21/2010 17:11 EDT
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 808
EAN: 9780374526160
ISBN: 0374526168
Label: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 96
Publication Date: February 28, 2000
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Studio: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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Editorial Review:
Product 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."
Average Rating: 
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Hughes' modern translation is a masterwork. The highly structured form of the original is replaced with a stark minimalism, but the effect is the same: the reader cannot help but appreciate that despite the madness of their actions, the actors are entirely rational - indeed, merely human. The final act is particularly moving. At less than 100 pages, it can be, and should be, read several times.
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Racine, and neo-classic French tragedy in general, have a pretty limited following, particularly in translation, and this is an enormous pity. Readers have difficulty accepting the strict forms of the genre and, sadly, miss the exquisite dramatic poetry that, in my judgement, stands at the same level of achievement as the best of the ancients, Shakespeare, and other masters of tragic art. As George Steiner has argued, this becomes recognizable when one accepts Racine's forms on their own terms, ... Read More
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It is not possible to read Ted Hughes' Phedre casually. I am currently rehearsing to perform the play and I find that if I ever try to just read it sitting down, I get cramps in my neck. The play is that intense. Like a flexed muscle, every moment of Phedre is taut with raw power. The play is extremely challenging to perform, but I think that any actor or audience member will find the catharsis enormous. Even those most wary of the "classics" will be sent reeling from Phedre.
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Dewey Decimal Number: 808
EAN: 9780374526160
ISBN: 0374526168
Label: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 96
Publication Date: February 28, 2000
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Studio: Farrar, Straus and Giroux