Hughes, Ted. (1930 - 1998).
L i f e
- husband of the American poet Sylvia Plath who commited suicide in 1963
W o r k
- preocuupied with nature as the world of raw sensation
- sees nature through the eyes of the predator
> appointed Poet Laureate (1985)
The Hawk in the Rain (1957) and Lupercal (1960):
< influenced by D. H. Lawrence’s Birds, Beasts, and Flowers (1923)
- fascinated with animal energy and independence
- includes electrifying descriptions of jaguar, thrushes, and pike
- also presents the decay of wild animals caused by their restraint: a caged jaguar, a macaw in a cage, etc.
- relates the predators to forces underlying all experience: contrasts human aspirations to freedom and power x the instinctive animal achievement of both
> “Hawk Roosting”:
- represents the consciousness of an animal
x but: expresses the animal single-mindedness with an human-like arrogance
Crow: From the Life and Songs of the Crow (1970):
- abandons realism and the traditional metre for extravagant mythic structures
- a sequence of poems about the crow: a survivor and a blackly comic metaphysical speculator
- creates new myths about God, re-enacts aspects of the stories of Adam, Oedipus, Ulysses, and Hamlet
- redefines established ideas by intense, even brutal stabs at meaning
Moortown (1979) and Flowers and Insects (1989):
- returns from wild mythicism to a more traditional rendering
- presents the natural world with arresting delicacy and tenderness
Tales from Ovid (1997):
- a brilliant recreation rather than translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses
- projects his fascination with violence and the fusion of the wild x the human
Birthday Letters (1998):
- a sequence of poems all but two addressed to his late wife
- after 35 years breaks his dignified silence about their marriage
- celebrates their love and precisely recalls what was lost and what gained
Basics
(Photo: Rob Lycett. 1993. Source: Wikipedia).
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Author
Edward James Hughes. Penname Ted Hughes. (1930 - 1998). British. -
Work
Poet. Author of nature poems about predators. -
Genres
Modern poetry. Nature poetry. Children writing.
Literature
Abrams, Meyer Howard, ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York: W. W. Norton, 1993.
Barnard, Robert. Stručné dějiny anglické literatury. Praha: Brána, 1997.
Baugh, Albert C. ed. A Literary History of England. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967.
Coote, Stephen. The Penguin Short History of English Literature. London: Penguin, 1993.
Sampson, George. The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1946.
Sanders, Andrew. The Short Oxford History of English Literature. New York: Clarendon Press, 1994.
Quote
"I kill where I please because it is all mine. / There is no sophistry in my body: / My manners are tearing off heads-- / The allotment of death."
From "Hawk Roosting" (1957).