Ted Hughes and the Classics

Edited by Roger Rees

Classical Presences

Interdisciplinary - will appeal both to readers of modern poetry and to those interested in 20th century classical reception
A comprehensive assessment of Ted Hughes as a reader and interpreter of classical literature
A stimulating range of interpretations - from close literary criticism to anthropological, commercial, and biographical approaches

Ted Hughes and the Classics

Edited by Roger Rees

Description

This collection of sixteen articles, written by leading specialists in Classical and English literature, is an important contribution to the critical assessment of Ted Hughes, one of the most popular and controversial English poets of the late 20th century. The chapters are arranged broadly chronologically according to Hughes's publications, and deal with different aspects of his engagement with the culture and literature of ancient Greece and Rome, including translations, original works, classical thought, and ideologies in his drama and verse. Hughes is revealed as a leading figure in literary reception of the Classics in 20th century poetry, a sharply intelligent and sensitive reader of some of the world's foundational texts.

Ted Hughes and the Classics

Edited by Roger Rees

Classical Presences

Ted Hughes and the Classics, Keith Sagar
Hughes's first translation, Stuart Gillespie
Can (modern) poets do classical drama? The case of Ted Hughes, Lorna Hardwick
Eliot's Seneca, Ted Hughes's Oedipus, John Talbot
Living myths, Janne Stigen Drangsholt
Mutilated towards alignment?': Prometheus on his Crag and the 'Cambridge School' of anthropology, Vanda Zajko
Hughes's myth: the Classics in Gaudete and Cave Birds, Neil Roberts
Between monarchy and democracy: neo-classicism and the Laureate poetry of Ted Hughes, Roger Rees
'A holiday in a rest home': Ted Hughes as vates in Tales from Ovid, Garrett A. Jacobsen
Passion in extremis in Ted Hughes's Tales from Ovid, Anne-Marie Tatham
The transformation of the Actaeon myth: Ovid, Metamorphoses 3 and Ted Hughes's Tales from Ovid, Jennifer Ingleheart
Birthday Letters from Pontus: Ted Hughes and the white noise of classical elegy, Genevieve Liveley
Ted Hughes: allusion and poetic language, Michael Silk
The Hughes Version: commercial considerations and dramatic imagination, Hallie Marshall
Classic reanimated: Ted Hughes and reflexive translation, Sarah Annes Brown
Beyond tragedy: Ted Hughes, Racine and Euripides, David Gervais

Ted Hughes and the Classics

Edited by Roger Rees

Classical Presences

Author Information

Contributors:

Sarah Annes Brown, Anglia Ruskin University
Janne Stigen Drangsholt, University of Bergen
David Gervais, University of Reading
Stuart Gillespie, University of Glasgow
Lorna Hardwick, The Open University
Jennifer Ingleheart, Durham University
Garrett A. Jacobsen, Denison University, Granville, Ohio
Genevieve Liveley, University of Bristol
Hallie Marshall, University of British Columbia
Roger Rees, St Andrews University
Neil Roberts, University of Sheffield
Keith Sagar, Nottingham University
Michael Silk, King's College London
John Talbot, Brigham Young University
Anne-Marie Tatham, University of Grenoble
Vanda Zajko, University of Bristol

Ted Hughes and the Classics

Edited by Roger Rees

Classical Presences

Reviews and Awards

"[F]or Hughes' fans this will be a useful, even a groundbreaking volume; for reception theorists there are some fascinating individual readings."-Simon Goldhill, Bryn Mawr Classical Reviews