The Oresteia

Description

The Oresteia comprises three of the greatest plays of all time: Agamemnon, The Choephori and The Eumenides. Concerned with the immediate aftermath of the Trojan War as if affects the accursed royal house of Atreus, it follows a singularly harrowing course, from the bloodiest domestic discord to divine intervention and reconciliation.Ted Hughes's translation was written in his most pared-down and powerfully driven verse, at once equal to Aeschylus's tragic vision and speaking directly to modern audiences and readers. The plays were first performed at the National Theatre in 1999 under the direction of Katie Mitchell.

Ted Hughes was born on 17 August 1930 in Mytholmroyd, a small mill town in West Yorkshire. His father made portable wooden buildings. The family moved to Mexborough, a coal-mining town in South Yorkshire, when Hughes was seven. His parents took over a newsagent and tobacconist shop, and eventually he went to the local grammar school.In 1948 Hughes won an Open Exhibition to Pembroke College, Cambridge. Before going there, he served two years National Service in the Royal Air Force. Between leaving Cambridge and becoming a teacher, he worked at various jobs, finally as a script-reader for Rank at their Pinewood Studios.In 1956 Hughes married the American poet Sylvia Plath, who died in 1963, and they had two children. He remarried in 1970. He was awarded the OBE in 1977, created Poet Laureate in December 1984 and appointed to the Order of Merit in 1998. He died in October 1998.Ted Hughes's first book, The Hawk in the Rain, was published by Fabe