Tony Harrison

Major Influences

Original Greek and Latin Source(s);

General Comment Harrison was born in Leeds, England and was educated at Leeds Grammar School and Leeds University, where he read Classics and took a diploma in Linguistics. He has written for the National Theatre in London, the New York Metropolitan Opera and for the BBC and Channel 4 television. His version of Aeschylus's The Oresteia  (1981) won him the first European Poetry Translation Prize in 1983.  The Gaze of the Gorgon (1992) won the Whitbread Poetry Award. Many of his plays have been staged away from conventional auditoria: The Trackers of Oxyrhyncus was premièred at the ancient stadium at Delphi in 1988; The Kaisers of Carnuntum  premiered at the ancient Roman amphitheatre at Carnuntum in Austria; and The Labours of Herakles was performed on the site of the new theatre at Delphi in Greece in 1995.  He wrote and directed his first feature film Prometheus in 1998.