Hughes' translation seems as rich, exciting & electric to modern readers as the original text must have been to audiences a century ago. It avoids the stiff awkwardness that former English translations have been known for, while still remaining true to Wedekind's dark symbolism and expressionistic overtones. A must-read for theater-lovers and practictioners alike.

Spring awakening explores the sexual awakening of teenage boys and girls in Germany in the late 1800's. It was shocking in its day, and still is somewhat today, despite the openness of our society.
The Frank Wedekind play has been updated, set to music, and will open as a major Broadway Musical in Spring, 2003. Watch for it, you will be blown away! And be sure to read the play first. You'll be amazed at how true the production is to Frank Wedekind's fine work.

as an actor I have just performed this play I was Mechior one of the lead roles this book has a mixture of teenage experiences, a must read for all directors and actors if you ever get a chance to perform it then make sure you do

Like The Hours, the recent prize-winning novel that both evoked and described author Virginia Wolff, this novel Wintering not only includes poet Sylva Plath as a character, it evokes her poetic voice and spirit. I admired the skillful way Kate Moses wove in bits of images that reflect the style of Plath's poetry and journals. While the story is written very much from Plath's point of view, the overall picture of her life it paints also honors many of the threads that Plath's husband Ted Hughes ran through his Birthday Letters poems. Interestingly enough, the novel accommodates both those who believe Plath was a victim and those who believe she was heroic.

This is likely to join The Hours as one of my all-time favorite novels. Initially I found the "jumping around" of the chapter settings in Wintering to be a bit off-putting, but I quickly settled down to be fully engaged by the quality of the writing and the intensity of the story. By the last page of Wintering, the outcome is inevitable and the emotional experience is full and complete, as it was in Plath's own version of Ariel and in The Hours as well as Wolff's Mrs. Dalloway.

Most readers who come to this book will already be familiar with the basic story of poet Sylvia Plath, her doomed marriage to author Ted Hughes, and her suicide at age thirty. In "Wintering," one of the Ariel poems, written in the four months before her death in February, 1963, Plath depicts the "real and bloody sacrifice" of this marriage, according to author Kate Moses, "not bodies piled in a mountain pass but her life...the truths fanning out a page at a time."

Kate Moses recreates the heart, soul, and psyche of Sylvia Plath in her extraordinary debut novel, Wintering. In preparation for this novel, Moses read virtually every piece of Plath's writing, and most, if not all, of the resource material about Plath. So completely has she distilled this material and incorporated it into the book that the reader feels as if s/he is actually entering the mind of Plath, a Plath who is speaking and reminiscing, conjuring up events, aching, dreaming, and hoping. Astonishingly, Moses achieves this without ever deviating from a third person narrative and without ever speaking as Plath herself.

Organizing the novel around the poems which make up the Ariel collection, all written in the last four months of Plath's life, Moses creates a fictional narrative using as chapter titles the names of poems from Ariel, each chapter including some of the imagery from these poems and the subject matter from Plath's life which parallels them. Moses does this naturally, without calling attention to this specific image in that poem, or this event at such and such a point in Plath's life, simply letting the narrative unfold in parallel with the essence and imagery of the poems, a process which feels, remarkably, as if it's unfolding of its own accord. The poems which serve as the impetus to each chapter live on after forty years, continuing to speak to the reader across time and space, and Moses wisely keeps her own narrative in the present tense, suiting her style to that of Plath's poetry. Like the poems, the chapters sieze on images and events in random order, making Moses's achievement in creating a real and memorable narrative out of the creative chaos truly daunting.

This not really a novel about Plath, so much as it is a novel in which Plath reveals herself, something she does to even greater effect in her poetry. Because of this, I would strongly urge the reader to find a copy of Plath's Ariel to read in concert with Moses's Wintering. Images from the poems take on added significance when they are repeated and expanded in Moses's narrative; likewise, events from the narrative shed light on some of the intense but sometimes unfocused feeling in the poems. When one knows about the lives of Plath and Ted Hughes and can see the significance in their lives of the repeating images of bees, apples, the moon, food, the earth, and life cycles, their symbolic importance in both the poems and narrative grows, and the reader gains new insights. This is a remarkable novel based on the life and poetry of Sylvia Plath, one which will undoubtedly bring new readers and new appreciation to Plath on the fortieth anniversary of her death at age thirty. Mary Whipple

But lock up the sharp knives first.
Read Wintering together with the poems its chapters are named for. First the chapter, then the poem (most, but not all, are in Ariel). This process will immerse you in the fierce genius and exquisite sensitivity of Sylvia Plath. In Wintering you can watch Sylvia watching Ted submit to the power of the poems she has hewn from his betrayal. Then read "The Courage of Shutting Up," in which Plath wrote: "..the tongue. Indefatigable, purple. Must it be cut out?
It has nine tails, it is dangerous.
And the noise it flays from the air, once it gets going!"

The journey is grueling, but accompanied by extraordinary beauty. Prepare to be broken and made whole again, more finely tuned.

The Journals of Sylvia Plath are an undisputible link to the base of her poetry. For a journal of a life, the entries are incredibly written and interesting. I have been very interested in her death by suicide which was the reason why I picked up these journals in the first place, but I found myself underlining sentences of her different viewpoints on life, ironically. If you you want to figure out about how Plath wrote her poetry and what events formed the woman who is such a mystery today, read this book. The only place where I thought that the diaries lacked was that all the information was not included. Some of her most passionate outrages and angry words have been taken out which I think are definitely a key to her poems that we do not possess. I am aware that the people in the journals must be protected but hope that the full works will be published in the future. The first half of the journals while Sylvia was in college have spoken to me and given me words and reasonings for my feelings that I had not been able to form myself before. I think any college student would benefit from reading her viewpoints and beautiful words. Anyone who is interested in the author will be impressed.

If you love Sylvia Plath's amazing poetry; if you have an affinity for either reading journals, or writing your own; or if you simply have an interest in the lifestyles and choices of women of some 50 years ago, these collected journals are a must.

Another reviewer wrote that this book was a big disappointment - that it stinks. How can one criticize someone's journals? I'm pretty sure Plath didn't expect these to be published one day - and so she didn't write them for the general public to read. These words are honest, riviting, disturbing, wonderful, priceless.

Ovid's tales are fantastic, but few readers make it through all of his tales. Hughes picks only the most famous and makes memorable translations of them. I use this book in our high school English curriculum for mythology -- it's just enough that students learn the essential Greek myths, but not too much that it becomes overwhelming. Hughes' translations are emminently readable. Sure, he could have included more, but those he does include are fanstastic and very vivid.

Anyone who may have seen the brilliant Anthony Hopkins' movie, TITUS, a movie based on Shakespeare's most Ovidian play, 'Titus Andronicus,' and one which actually features Ovid's book, and who may now have a yen to read or re-read Ovid, could do worse than take a look at Ted Hughes' reworkings, in modern idiom, of Ovid's fascinating tales.

Hughes, in his brief but quite informative Preface, finds in both Shakespeare and Ovid a "common taste for tortured subjectivity and catastrophic extremes of passion." He continues : "Above all, Ovid was interested in passion. Or rather, in what a passion feels like to the one possessed of it. Not just ordinary passion either, but passion 'in extremis'" (pages viii-ix).

As a passionate man himself, one can understand the appeal that Ovid has for Hughes, and may suspect that he, if anyone, was the man to give us a modernized Ovid. Personally I found myself enthralled by Ted Hughes' versions of these tales. So what, if in furtherance of his poetic aims, he has reworked the tales to some extent? Hughes is an exceptionally talented poet, and I'll leave it to those who are his equals in poetic talent to argue with his procedures. I doubt there can be many.

Hughes' incredible skill as a poet is everywhere in evidence on these pages. His handling of image and sound and rhythm and line length, his lucid diction, and his stunning ability to find precisely the right word - as in such lines as "no earth / spun in empty air on her own magnet" (pages 3-4), or "Everwhere he taught / the tree its leaf" (page 5), or "Echo collapsed in sobs, / As her voice lurched among the mountains" (page 77), or "And there she was - the Arcadian beauty, Callisto. / He stared. Lust bristled up his thighs / And poured into the roots of his teeth" (page 46) - such skill leaves me in awe. Let purists rage, but if this isn't exactly what Ovid said, then perhaps it's what he should have said, or would have said if he too had been a vigorous Northerner like Hughes.

There are free translations of Ovid such as that of Ted Hughes. There are also more literal translations such as that of Rolfe Humphries. Both have their uses and it isn't the case that one is good and the other is bad. Hughes is good and Humphries is not bad either.

I suppose what it comes down to is whether you prefer major poet Ovid as filtered through the sensibility of another major poet, or Ovid as filtered through the mind of a Latin scholar (persons who are not usually noted for their poetic abilities, though Housman was an exception). But if it's 'poetry' you are interested in, you won't be going far wrong in plumping for Hughes. It's one of those golden books you'll want to return to often.

When I was introduced to these stories in grade school I was bored senseless and avoided them well into adulthood. This collection brings the stories and characters to life in such a way that now I want to search out other translations. The portrayals of Echo and Hunger still haunt me and I read their respective tales often. This may not be a "true" translation that academics want, but it's a wonderful read in an area this isn't read much of any more.

I had never read any of Hughes work, but as a translation of Greek text, it was dificult to place it in an ancient time. The captivating: It was a fast, and entertaining read, with a few lines I enjoyed. The mediocre: If you can handle words like "atoms" and "nelson hold" in your Greek translations, then go for it. I am not sorry I read it, but it could have been better. It is a tale of struggle in life, love, and death... so take what you can learn fom and shrug the rest off.

Ted Hughes'translation of Alcestis continues on a path he pursued for most of his later years: to resurrect "classic" poetry in a modern form. The translation flows eloquently, with the typical Hughes clipped verse. He seems desparate to make the text "speak" to modern readers, and (I think) especially to modern poets.

Despite the obvious (and poignant) parallels of the storyline to Hughes' own life, I did not find his translation of Alcestis as arresting as his Oresteia trilogy (especially the moving "Agamemnon"). The main characters in Alcestis all come across as somewhat cold, and there is a distance between the major themes (sacrifice, renunciation, regret) and the language used. The famous (but somewhat enlarged in Hughes' version) sequence of a drunken Heracles seems discordant given the sparce tone of the rest of the translation.

A fine (and uniquely personal) version, but one to be read along with older, more full treatments.

I really enjoyed this. This is the first play I've read that made me what to drop what I'm doing, rush out and get together a troupe of players to stage it. The translation into modern language works very well, a couple of modern words jar, but then isn't drama supposed to provoke us? Some critics of the language of this translation are more comfortable with Victorian English but that's not what the Greeks spoke either. Hughes ensures that the humour as well as the tragedy comes through. I would have appreciated an editorial introduction with a few words about Euripides, Greek Drama, and Ted Hughes; especially given the price and the brevity of the work.

This is going to short, but I found the play below standards set by the author. There is weak imagery combined by poor, ineffective dialogue, yet there are nice character settings. There is a nice story line combining fire and passion in Leonardo's case with love for the bride, yet it is let down by the poor use of language. It is good for reading before bed, but other than that, I'd say "NO", like the "Just Say NO" drug ads.

Lorca is often called the 20th century's greatest Spanish dramatist, and his skill with poetry in images of knives, sex, love, blood, horses and the moon illuminates this English translation. While my knowledge of Spanish is limited, the conflict of a Bride longing for but yet resisting another man who has already fathered a child by his Wife is poignantly portrayed in this version. The other man (Leonardo) rides a horse nearly to death, and rides like mad to see his about-to-be-married love beyond the peering eyes of others. His driven horse stands "down there stretched out, with his eyeballs bulging, heaving as if he'd just come back from the end of the world." The conflicts of love and the Bridegroom's Mother, who has lost her husband and her other son to violence, and the building passion, hate, love and the continual imagery of the wild horse--representing Leonardo himself?--build in poetic images and language that begins in the real and subtly transforms to surrealistic images of the moon who exposes the hidden shadows, then returns to the poetically real. In some aspects, the images of horse and rider hint at the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, but a knowledge of them is unnecessary to experience the passion of this play written by a friend of the then young Salvador Dali. The play is worth reading for its visual imagery alone, but it also encompasses a powerful story of passion, betrayal, hate, violence and love.

This will be a very brief review, but basically we have chosen this book to perform for or theatre studies cat. It is a really good play, and I recomend it to anyone who likes reading plays.

"Alcestis" is the oldest surviving play of Euripides, although he had been writing tragedies for almost twenty years when it was written. Apparently it ws the fourth play in a tetralogy, taking the place of the ribald satyr play which traditionally followed a series of three tragedies. Consequently, this play has more of a burlesque tone, best represented in the drunken speech of Heracles to the butler and his teasing of Admetus at the end. So while "Alcestis" is a tragedy, it does offer up an unusal happy ending.

In Greek mythology Alcestis was the daughter of Pelias and wife of Admetus, an Argonaut and the king of Pherae. In Western literature Alcestis is the model wife, for when her husband is to die she alone agrees to die in his place. However, the key in this drama is how Admetus finds this sacrifice totally acceptable. Admetus is represented as a good and honorable man, but then his ethos is established in this play by the god Apollo in the opening scene, and even though it was written later it is hard not to remember the expose Euripides did on the god of truth in "Ion." Euripides adds a key twist in that Alcestis agrees to the sacrifice before she fully understands that her husband will suffer without her. She is brought back from the underworld by Heracles and restored to her relieved husband, but the play clearly characterizes Admetus as a selfish man and it is this view that other writers have imitated every since.

The story of Alcestis has been addressed by more modern writers from Chaucer and Milton to Browning and Eliot. The sacrifice of Alcestis has also been the subject of several operas. "Alcestis" is not a first rate play by Euripides, but it does represent both his cynicism and his attempt to make the audience confront the problematic elements of its belief system. So while I would not teach "Alcestis" by itself, in conjunction with other play by Euripides, specifically "Ion," it can definitely have value in class.

I REALLY LIKE YOUR BOOK AND I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE A REPLY TO SAY THANKYOU OR SOME INFORMATOIN

Aeschylus may have been a great poet but the corruption of this work cannot be overlooked. Far from the torch of civilization great translators see the Orestia as, this cornerstone of Western Civilization is also probably the most damaging, misogynist work in history.

It's no wonder our civil institutions are so corrupt, 2500 years later when we celebrate the formation of the "Kangaroo Court" depicted in this work as some great guiding light.

Not to mention the description of women as mere sperm receptacles with no connection to the child is one of the most brutal, vicious statements in western civilization. I'm sure Ted took particular relish in poetizing that.

But heck, if the shoe fits, wear it: Ted is probably a good choice for such misogynistic material.

However, if you're serious about the work, the Robert Fagles and Richard Lattimore translations are going to be much more elucidating.

It's also important to note, no student should be given this work without also being handed Euripides plays deconstructing Aeschylus' fallacies. Make sure you read his "Orestes," "Electra," and "Iphigenia at Aulis" for balance.

Further, one should read Charles Mee's "Orestes" to understand from the modern historical perspective. (Available in Charles Mee's "History Plays.") This work is much more accessible to modern audiences and even teenagers will love it.

The best thing about the Hughes edition book is the nice cover.

Classicists have been mumbling about this or that translation for centuries, and will probably go on muttering in a similar fashion into the gray doom of time. Possibly that is the best way to approach this book - but not for me!

I honestly couldn't tell you if we "did" Oresteia back in high school 40 years ago. Could you? I came to this book as one whose vaccine against the classics - painfully administered decades ago - had worn off. I was ripe for infection. Ted Hughes delivers that feverish viral spike and more in this book. You may, like me, have only a vague a sense of Hughes' reputation (largely distorted by the black hole pull of the departed Sylvia Plath), but if it is enough to have gotten you this far, proceed with relish.

What a story! What a bloodbath ! It leaves the catsup'y-trite bluster of the typical Hollywood slasher pic in the dust. And it is Hughes who accomplishes this through his translation. Perhaps saying "story by Aeschulus" is not offering the old-timer his due... doubtless, when read in the Greek, the original had the flash and spurt of Hughes' version. But lacking the ancient tongue you'll find some pretty tame translations scattered around the cannon. I know, I checked. (I was so stunned at one of the more brutal story elements that I went to a library copy. Sure enough, Agamemnon's father really did stew his brothers' children and serve them up to his brother - brewing up the similarly brutal chain of revenge and recriminations that the story revolves around. But in the library's vanilla version this segment read more like a particularly dry autopsy report).

Now I can be drawn into a gory tale by a good talespinner like a Stephen King just as much as any other guy... but there is more than spinning of yarn and sloshing of blood here. There is a way in which Hughes' inevitably modern take on the translation subtly exposes the deep cultural differences between those fine ancient peoples and our equally-fine selves. We haven't become more or less vicious or more or less clever - but we have changed in fundamental ways. This tale, in this telling, does suggest, over and over, how a culture's sense of self, of free- or enchained-will, of god(s), and of the inevitable whirl of the cosmic wheel can produce truly different constituents. Different versions of the "God-meme" or even the "self-meme" can deeply infect and transform a culture-centered species like ours.

We've heard for so long how our "Western" tradition sprouts from Athens, but in this telling, those folks have a sense of their place in the universe which is deeply, subtly alien. It made me think of a long ago reading of Julian Jaynes' breathtakingly-titled: "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bi-Cameral Mind.", which posits that ancient minds were explicitly pre-conscious... gods as literally heard voices in the head. This is certainly an odd idea, but one that opens up the notion that radically different kinds of minds could well exist in a homo sapiens transport system.

Hughes delivers this sense of the fundamental other-ness of the Greek world-view through the powerful mix of pre-modern sense of self and of justice delivered in modern speech forms. This contrast builds, appropriately, from the underlying story of Aeschulus, to the confrontation with the deeply primal Furies near the end. It sent chills down my spine to hear their rendering of the cold heartless core of their universe... and to contrast it with the countering argument of Athena for a more reasoned and rational justice. How can Orestes be driven to matricide by the command of one god (buttressed by hair-raising threats) and then be condemned to an even more bitter doom by another group of immortals for accomplishing his mission? The degree to which my own sense of fairness was bruised by the events leading up to this denouement exposed the power of the schism between primal and modern that seems to lie at the heart of the tale.

I won't tell you how it ends, but that's saying something! A thousands-of-years-old story in free verse dramatic form that turns out to be a 'page-turner'! Its a wonderful discovery that will lead me next to Hughes' other translations from his last few years, and might grab you as well.

This may not be the most literal translation of "The Oresteia," but it has to be the most linguistically sensuous and emotionally gripping of them all - conveying the full power of one of the most complex tragedies of all time. A friend of mine recently won raves for his performance of Agamemnon in a Los Angeles production of "The Greeks," so I had spent quite a bit of time re-reading Aeschylus (not in the original, I'm afraid) and was reasonably familiar with other translations, but this is the one I would read over and over, for the sheer power and beauty of it, and the way it tackles (enhances?) the emotional complexity of each situation the characters are thrust into. It's an inspiration as well as a treasure.