Tales from Ovid
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Product Description
Product Description
When Michael Hofmann and James Lasdun's ground-breaking anthology After Ovid (also Faber) was published in 1995, Hughes's three contributions to the collective effort were nominated by most critics as outstanding. He had shown that rare translator's gift for providing not just an accurate account of the original, but one so thoroughly imbued with his own qualities that it was as if Latin and English poetwere somehow the same person. Tales from Ovid, which went on to win the Whitbread Prize for Poetry, continued the project of recreation with 24 passages, including the stories of Phaeton, Actaeon, Echo and Narcissus, Procne, Midas and Pyramus and Thisbe. In them, Hughes's supreme narrative and poetic skills combine to produce a book that stands, alongside his Crow and Gaudete, as an inspired addition to the myth-making of our time.
About the Author
Ted Hughes (1930-1998) was born in Yorkshire. His first book, The Hawk in the Rain, was published in 1957 by Faber and Faber and was followed by many volumes of poetry and prose for adults and children. He received the Whitbread Book of the Year for two consecutive years for his last published collections of poetry, Tales from Ovid (1997) and Birthday Letters (1998). He was Poet Laureate from 1984, and in 1998 he was appointed to the Order of Merit.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Read this majestic, exciting volume of poems as soon as you can.
It's a truly wonderful and brilliant work. The best book by a British writer during the 1990s.
Hughes's Ovid is better than the old Ovid!
The original Press reviews said it was a very fine book - even Steiner in The Observer! - and they were right. A classic.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I've never been a particular fan of Ted Hughes, but this volume of translation of Ovid's wonderful stories is nothing short of astonishing. Rarely has such meaty, bold, exciting poetry been written. The phrasing is exquisite, with raw, graphic imagery, and moments of emotional purity which can be deeply moving. Taking the original Latin to soaring new heights, this is a masterpiece.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
My wife and I read this slowly, being sure to read the entire book out loud. During our semi-nightly ritual of reading out loud to one another, which mostly involves me reading to Amy, I found myself shivering with the visceral, accurate, and beautiful writing that Hughes engages to re-tell these most famous of stories: Ovid's Metamorphoses.
I was introduced to this book some time back by a dear friend of mine who loved Hughes's translation of the story of Echo and Narcissus and read it while studying Classics. That was indeed one of my favourites in the collection, accompanied too by the stories of Arethusa, of Venus and Adonis (and Atalanta), of Actaeon, of Arachne, and of so many others. My wife also studied classics and we resolved some time ago to purchase the book and read it aloud, which was a fantastic, though extended, experience. Now, I almost cannot imagine these stories read silently.
Hughes represents forcibly Ovid's core theme of metamorphosis: the fact that men and gods are vulnerable to change and flux. Furthermore, Hughes also captures the messages of the stories well in his physical and robust language - you feel Arachne's pride as she takes on Minerva, you internalise the urgent, visceral need that Narcissus feels for himself, you experience the change of body to water as Arethusa tries to evade Alpheus and they both metamorphose. Ovid's original stories contain violence, rape, murder, and vengeance and Hughes's presentation of these acts is vivid and transformative. Again, in the story of Arethusa you cannot help but understand the sense of pursuit, of intent to fulfill passionate ravishment, the urge to penetrate, to touch, to clutch. Reading this book is unlike reading a novel, and unlike reading most contemporary poetry. The stories are long and require concentration, but the translation (itself a metamorphosis, oh how clever) and re-creation are superb. I must recommend this book strongly to those interested in classic literature and 20th century poetry.
I was introduced to this book some time back by a dear friend of mine who loved Hughes's translation of the story of Echo and Narcissus and read it while studying Classics. That was indeed one of my favourites in the collection, accompanied too by the stories of Arethusa, of Venus and Adonis (and Atalanta), of Actaeon, of Arachne, and of so many others. My wife also studied classics and we resolved some time ago to purchase the book and read it aloud, which was a fantastic, though extended, experience. Now, I almost cannot imagine these stories read silently.
Hughes represents forcibly Ovid's core theme of metamorphosis: the fact that men and gods are vulnerable to change and flux. Furthermore, Hughes also captures the messages of the stories well in his physical and robust language - you feel Arachne's pride as she takes on Minerva, you internalise the urgent, visceral need that Narcissus feels for himself, you experience the change of body to water as Arethusa tries to evade Alpheus and they both metamorphose. Ovid's original stories contain violence, rape, murder, and vengeance and Hughes's presentation of these acts is vivid and transformative. Again, in the story of Arethusa you cannot help but understand the sense of pursuit, of intent to fulfill passionate ravishment, the urge to penetrate, to touch, to clutch. Reading this book is unlike reading a novel, and unlike reading most contemporary poetry. The stories are long and require concentration, but the translation (itself a metamorphosis, oh how clever) and re-creation are superb. I must recommend this book strongly to those interested in classic literature and 20th century poetry.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Ted Hughes's adaptation of the Metaphorphoses
To witness a major poet of the twentieth century recreating in his own language the imaginative work of a poet who wrote two thousand years ago is a vertiginously exciting... Read more
Published on 22 Mar 2010 by John Middleton
Ovid forever
The large paintings post Renaissance of mythical events left me cold. I never understood what could drive someone to paint such quantities of flesh doing odd things. Read more
Published on 13 July 2009 by Laura Hills
Great poetry - but it's not Ovid
I'm not knocking this text as like the other reviewers here I think it's gritty, raw and imaginative - but I do dispute the idea of it being a 'translation' of Ovid, because it... Read more
Published on 22 Oct 2006 by Roman Clodia
The Engine of the Imagination
Ted Hughes's translation of Ovid's epic is nothing short of sublime. He manages to capture the two abiding qualities of the original: its sinuousness and its crystalline precision. Read more
Published on 30 Jun 2003
Tense myth telling of the highest order.
For once, hughes' voice actually adds to his poetry. A roller-coaster ride from start to finish.
Published on 13 Jun 2000
Much better than Birthday Letters
Don't be fooled by the orange cover. Wonderfully sinuous langauge. Memorably gruesome images. Terrific, foundational stories. Read more
Published on 24 July 1999
Hughes pumps the very spunk of life back into the old gods.
Tales from Ovid. This is more like reading a rattling good novel than poetry. Having said that the language is stunning with imagery to fill the screen of the widest imagination. Read more
Published on 27 Jan 1999
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