Tony Harrison

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Tony Harrison (born April 30, 1937 in Leeds ) is an English poet , playwright and translator .

Harrison comes from the British working class. He first attended the local elementary school and won one of six scholarships ( scholarship for working-class boys ) at Leeds Grammar School at the age of eleven . In 1958 he made his Bachelor of Arts at the University of Leeds . After graduation, he started teaching in Dewsbury , West Yorkshire . There he married Rosemarie Crossfield Dietzsch on January 16, 1960 .

career

In 1962 Harrison went to the newly founded Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria , Nigeria as a lecturer for four years . In 1966 he taught for a year at Charles University in Prague .

Harrison began writing poetry while still a student. They were in local magazines such as B. Stand , but also published in the journal Poetry and Audience published by the university . On his return to England in 1967 he became the first Northern Arts Fellow in Poetry , and again in 1976/77.

He has lived in Newcastle upon Tyne since 1967 , but has continued to travel a lot since then. He works as a poet, translator and playwright, writes plays for the National Theater and the Metropolitan Opera , but also for Channel 4 : on February 22, 1973, for example, he staged The Misanthrope at the National Theater, and on September 9, 1975 Phaedra Britannica at the Old Vic , London. Harrison wrote e.g. B. the libretto to Smetana's The Bartered Bride , performed in October 1978 at the Metropolitan Opera, New York. He is regarded as Great Britain's leading theater poet , who turned increasingly to political issues in the 1990s (Gulf War and Balkan conflict).

Although he had already forgotten the working-class dialect of the Loiners (residents of Leeds) at grammar school , he remained true to his origins and was often reminded of it by his mother, who could not do much with some of his publications.

His well-known poem Long Distance originally appeared in Continuous: Fifty Sonnets from "The School of Eloquence" (London: Rex Collings) in 1981 .

In 2010 Harrison received the European Prize for Literature and in 2015 the David Cohen Prize for his complete works. In 2018 he was elected an honorary member of the British Academy .

Works

  • Newcastle is Peru (Newcastle, 1969).
  • The Misanthrope , translation of Molières Le Misanthrope (London, 1973).
  • Phaedra Britannica , translation by Racines Phèdre (London, 1975).
  • Bow Down (London, 1977).
  • Looking West (London, 1979).
  • Continuous: Fifty Sonnets from "The School of Eloquence" (London, 1981).
  • Selected Poems (Harmondsworth, 1984).

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Harrison, Tony
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English poet, playwright and translator
DATE OF BIRTH April 30, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Leeds