Tony Harrison: Hecuba

Close translation of words/phrases/excerpts A translation of Euripides’ Hecuba.

Classical/post-Classical intertexts The recent war in Iraq. Several of Harrison’s poems respond to the war (e.g. A Cold Coming, first published in The Guardian in 1991) and the preface to the Faber edition of Hecuba contains one of his many lambasts against the Bush administration. The translation shares characteristics with that of his Oresteia (1981) in its use of compound words, redolent of Anglo-Saxon verse, and alliteration.

Comment The casting of Vanessa Redgrave as Hecuba perhaps owed much to her participation in anti-war demonstrations. The Faber edition bears a photograph of a female prisoner of Abu Ghraib, Baghdad.

Notes  First performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Albery Theatre, London on 7 April 2005.