By: Aeschylus

Ted Hughes's "acting version" of the trilogy of Aeschylus' plays known as The Oresteia, a classical work of astonishing power, is quickly becoming the standard edition for English-language readers and for the stage, too.

Review (Kirkus, 06/01/1999): "[T]his vivid free-verse translation of Aeschylus' dark and bloody tragic trilogy...evinces Hughes's wide range of interests and mastery of classic literatures....[A]n essential further installment in the always interesting oeuvre of a gifted poet who was also a diligent scholar."
Review by Garry Wills (New York Times Book Review, 09/05/1999): "The problem is not that Hughes adapts or adds to the poem....But Hughes's changes move out and away from the text rather than deeper into it."
Review by Michael Silk (Times Literary Supplement, 12/17/1999): "Ted Hughes's free-verse ORESTEIA, posthumously published, stands to Aeschylus roughly as Pope's ILIAD does to Homer. It has that kind of dependence and that kind of autonomy, both reusing and changing phrases, images, whole speeches; and though unlikely to be thought of in quite the same breath as Pope's version, it is, at its best, the most powerful and compelling English version of Greek tragedy in existence."