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Rating: 
Summary: One of those golden books you'll want to return to often.
Review: Anyone who may have seen the brilliant Anthony Hopkins' movie, TITUS, a movie based on Shakespeare's most Ovidian play, 'Titus Andronicus,' and one which actually features Ovid's book, and who may now have a yen to read or re-read Ovid, could do worse than take a look at Ted Hughes' reworkings, in modern idiom, of Ovid's fascinating tales. Hughes, in his brief but quite informative Preface, finds in both Shakespeare and Ovid a "common taste for tortured subjectivity and catastrophic extremes of passion." He continues : "Above all, Ovid was interested in passion. Or rather, in what a passion feels like to the one possessed of it. Not just ordinary passion either, but passion 'in extremis'" (pages viii-ix). As a passionate man himself, one can understand the appeal that Ovid has for Hughes, and may suspect that he, if anyone, was the man to give us a modernized Ovid. Personally I found myself enthralled by Ted Hughes' versions of these tales. So what, if in furtherance of his poetic aims, he has reworked the tales to some extent? Hughes is an exceptionally talented poet, and I'll leave it to those who are his equals in poetic talent to argue with his procedures. I doubt there can be many. Hughes' incredible skill as a poet is everywhere in evidence on these pages. His handling of image and sound and rhythm and line length, his lucid diction, and his stunning ability to find precisely the right word - as in such lines as "no earth / spun in empty air on her own magnet" (pages 3-4), or "Everwhere he taught / the tree its leaf" (page 5), or "Echo collapsed in sobs, / As her voice lurched among the mountains" (page 77), or "And there she was - the Arcadian beauty, Callisto. / He stared. Lust bristled up his thighs / And poured into the roots of his teeth" (page 46) - such skill leaves me in awe. Let purists rage, but if this isn't exactly what Ovid said, then perhaps it's what he should have said, or would have said if he too had been a vigorous Northerner like Hughes. There are free translations of Ovid such as that of Ted Hughes. There are also more literal translations such as that of Rolfe Humphries. Both have their uses and it isn't the case that one is good and the other is bad. Hughes is good and Humphries is not bad either. I suppose what it comes down to is whether you prefer major poet Ovid as filtered through the sensibility of another major poet, or Ovid as filtered through the mind of a Latin scholar (persons who are not usually noted for their poetic abilities, though Housman was an exception). But if it's 'poetry' you are interested in, you won't be going far wrong in plumping for Hughes. It's one of those golden books you'll want to return to often.
Rating: 
Summary: ovid for the end of our century
Review: as i don't know latin i must plead ignorance on how well these stack up against the originals. but hughes has done a wonderful job of making these stories fresh, full of life and always quite horrible in consequence. these are not the bland stories of myth i recall from childhood!
Rating:
Summary: Whitbread Book of the Year
Review: Did you know that this book won the very prestigous British award: Whitbread Book of the Year. Just because Birthday Letters is getting such attention. Don't forget this one. It's a keeper.
Rating:
Summary: Get it!
Review: I was 16 when I first read this book. It is now a year later and I have read it about 5 times so far. Get it! It is the best ever. OK, I admit I studied Latin and Classics in English boarding school for 6 years so I'm slightly biased..but how can anyone not realise the significance of this book! Hughes captures Ovid's spirit well...READ IT!!!
Rating:
Summary: great translation, great selection
Review: Ovid's tales are fantastic, but few readers make it through all of his tales. Hughes picks only the most famous and makes memorable translations of them. I use this book in our high school English curriculum for mythology -- it's just enough that students learn the essential Greek myths, but not too much that it becomes overwhelming. Hughes' translations are emminently readable. Sure, he could have included more, but those he does include are fanstastic and very vivid.
Rating:
Summary: great translation, great selection
Review: Ovid's tales are fantastic, but few readers make it through all of his tales. Hughes picks only the most famous and makes memorable translations of them. I use this book in our high school English curriculum for mythology -- it's just enough that students learn the essential Greek myths, but not too much that it becomes overwhelming. Hughes' translations are emminently readable. Sure, he could have included more, but those he does include are fanstastic and very vivid.
Rating:
Summary: Fast, vigorous and poetic
Review: Some translations of Ovid are slow. Not this one. The Humphries -- long standard -- is clear but slow and earthbound. This is the most poetic translation I have found. Plus Hughes keesp all the "good bits." Not of course a full translation, but the right place for the curious to start.
Rating:
Summary: Fast, vigorous and poetic
Review: Some translations of Ovid are slow. Not this one. The Humphries -- long standard -- is clear but slow and earthbound. This is the most poetic translation I have found. Plus Hughes keesp all the "good bits." Not of course a full translation, but the right place for the curious to start.
Rating: 
Summary: Very overrated
Review: There's too much Hughes and not enough Ovid in these versions--and since Ovid was 20 times a better poet than Hughes, do the math yourself. There's too much blustery, north-of-England grimly rustic imagery and diction here. Ovid was the most urbane of poets, and his verse is redolent of the Mediterranean and the south. Who needs an Ovid that sounds like Gavin Douglas or William Drummond of Hawthornden? Also, entire passages are added here and there; this is a very unsound translation method, and I'd rather read Ovid's padding (there's enough of it) than Hughes's. If you want something of Ovid in English, read Rolfe Humphries's version of the Metamorphoses or even Horace Gregory's.
Rating:
Summary: Brings to life an often dull subject
Review: When I was introduced to these stories in grade school I was bored senseless and avoided them well into adulthood. This collection brings the stories and characters to life in such a way that now I want to search out other translations. The portrayals of Echo and Hunger still haunt me and I read their respective tales often. This may not be a "true" translation that academics want, but it's a wonderful read in an area this isn't read much of any more.
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