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Tony Harrison’s Oresteia: from Aeschylus to Egil and Scargill
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Tony Harrison’s career was launched by his dramatic works, in particular his translations for the National Theatre in the 1970s. The traditions he built on are a mixture of the popular theatre he encountered as a child and the classics he studied at Leeds Grammar School and University. Although he turned to translation as a way of learning from the great masters, he appropriated the genre of theatrical adaptation, honing his very own style and developing a rich metacritical reflection. His conception of translation as a synthesis between a classical education and an instinct for drama led him to develop his idiosyncratic techniques of adaptation that he perfected in the 1960s and 1970s, culminating in his version of Aeschylus’s Oresteia in 1981. In this article, the author explores the genesis of Harrison’s adaptation of Aeschylus and places his English text in the context of the theatrical performance, thus offering an insight into his aesthetics.
Title: Tony Harrison’s Oresteia: from Aeschylus to Egil and Scargill
Description:
Tony Harrison’s career was launched by his dramatic works, in particular his translations for the National Theatre in the 1970s.
The traditions he built on are a mixture of the popular theatre he encountered as a child and the classics he studied at Leeds Grammar School and University.
Although he turned to translation as a way of learning from the great masters, he appropriated the genre of theatrical adaptation, honing his very own style and developing a rich metacritical reflection.
His conception of translation as a synthesis between a classical education and an instinct for drama led him to develop his idiosyncratic techniques of adaptation that he perfected in the 1960s and 1970s, culminating in his version of Aeschylus’s Oresteia in 1981.
In this article, the author explores the genesis of Harrison’s adaptation of Aeschylus and places his English text in the context of the theatrical performance, thus offering an insight into his aesthetics.
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