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[ SOLD OUT ] AESCHYLUS, The Oresteia. Translated by T. Harrison. Rex Collings, London, 1981. 120p. Paperback. Spine bit discoloured. (Rare).Tony Harrison, Britain's leading film and theatre poet, is an impressive man. His groundbreaking version of the Oresteia was staged at the National Theatre in 1981, and his poem about urban vandalism, V, outraged the nation's tabloids when it was broadcast on Channel 4 in 1987. At the moment, his new version of Euripides' Hecuba is being performed by Vanessa Redgrave in her first appearance with the RSC for forty years. (...) Hecuba is an important project for Harrison, since its expression of war and the horror of human experience is, for him, rooted in his upbringing, surrounded by the rhetoric and images of the Second World War. Its themes are particularly urgent in the context of today's tragedy in the Middle East. Greek tragedy, he says, is a way in which we can cope with the horrors of modern existence. (...). What attracts Harrison to the art of translation, it seems, is the endless variety of expression which an ancient text allows. 'A translation can rock and roll,' he says. An ancient text can be re-interpreted again and again for different audiences at different times. Each time, the 'world' of the play can be changed to give a totally different experience of the original.' From the library of the late Prof. W. Geoffrey Arnott. (Antiquarian) (approx. delivery time: undeliverable)