Welcome back to Douglas Murray’s Sunday column, Things Worth Remembering, where he presents passages from great poets he has committed to memory—and explains why you should, too. To listen to Douglas read from Ted Hughes’ translation of Euripides’ ‘Alcestis,’ click below:
It’s hard to explain the aura that surrounded the poet Ted Hughes.
He was the genius behind collections like Crow and The Hawk in the Rain, and he was poet laureate of England and a frequent fly-fishing companion of the Queen Mother.
But there was also a terrible penumbra about him because of something that had happened that Hughes never talked about: his former wife and fellow poet Sylvia Plath had gassed herself in London in 1963 while the couple’s two children slept next door.
Once was horrific enough. But then it happened again.
