The Browning Version – familiar to many from the film of 1951 starring Michael Redgrave, but originally a stage-play of 1948 - was inspired by the playwright, Terence Rattigan’s, experiences at Harrow from 1925 to 1930. The emotionally-entombed classics master Andrew Crocker-Harris (‘the Crock’) was based on one JW Coke Norris, a classics master, whose moribund manner was much at variance with the passionate nature of the texts he was supposed to be teaching. Coke Norris, like ‘the Crock’, was also in charge of the school timetables, and retired during Rattigan’s time at the school. The ‘Browning version’ of Aeschylus’s Agamemnon — mirrored in the relationship between Crocker-Harris and his wife Millie (a modern Clytemnestra) — was Rattigan’s own passionate reading-matter during this time; and the basis of the relationship between Taplow and ‘the Crock’ was Rattigan’s homosexual crush on another master at the school.
Consulted:
Wansell, Geoffrey: Terence Rattigan (1995)
See a clickable index of all titles covered
Consulted:
Wansell, Geoffrey: Terence Rattigan (1995)
See a clickable index of all titles covered
i was trying to find a copy of the actual browning translation for a friend - is it in print?
ReplyDeleteIt's not in print, as such, but you can get it in print on demand versions such as http://www.amazon.co.uk/Agamemnon-Aeschylus-Robert-Browning/dp/1428605428/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1293906027&sr=1-1#_
ReplyDeletealternatively you can go for a secondhand copy on abe for £99 - http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=1041596592&searchurl=an%3Dbrowning%26bsi%3D150%26bt.x%3D40%26bt.y%3D16%26tn%3Dagamemnon%2Baeschylus