International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences

Vol-6, Issue-5; Sep-Oct, 2021

Journal Home Page Available: https://ijels.com/

Journal DOI: 10.22161/ijels

Peer-Reviewed Journal

Ted Hughes and his poetry

Dr. N. M. Shah

Associate professor, Department of English, Monad University, Uttar Pradesh, India

Received: 02 Sep 2021; Received in revised form: 25 Sep 2021; Accepted: 02 Oct 2021; Available online: 08 Oct 2021
©2021 The Author(s). Published by Infogain Publication. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Abstract— This paper attempts to explain the power of Men and Animal in Ted Hughes’ poetry, and find
out a particular vision and modern concept of Ted Hughes. Hughes's poetry bears a stamp of originality
and a particular observation, an expression of his own in it. Ted Hughes's poetic mission has always been
to open our eyes to the power and mystery of the universe we inhabit. The article analysis the poetry of Ted
Hughes that reflects man enlightenment from animals.
Keywords— Ted Hughes, Ted Hughes’ poetry, animal poetry, Men and animals.

INTRODUCTION time. Sometimes, it seems to resemble the symbolic poetry

Poetry is the most important branch of literature without of Yeats while at other times it seems to resembling Eliots’
which no literature in the world can claim itself to be poetry. However, it can be said for certain that despite a
perfect. Poetry is the expressions of the emotional aspect close resemblance to poetry of the several poets Hughes’
of the poet's personality, through which a poet unlocks his poetry bears a stamp of originality in it. His poetry is a
mind and lets others, know a lot of things about him. particular observation, an expression of his own.
Poetry has always performed an incredible task in world Ted Hughes belongs to movement poets, particularly
literature. known as movement poet. The poetry of the movement
Wordsworth also accepts the value of the poetry in the life poets was a reaction against the poetic trends of 1940 s.
of man. Indeed, he is right for poetry succeeds in revealing Robert Conquest defines the aesthetic of the movement
even the most secret feelings of man that are hardly known poetry in his introduction to the anthology New Lines
to others. The purpose of poetry is to impart delight. The where he tries to adumbrate the movement poets' attitude
most remarkable quality of poetry is that it can raise and to life and art. "I believe the most important general point
quell every emotion of man. Poetry is communication. The would be that it submits to no great system of theoretical
poet is supposed both to instruct and delight. Serious constructs or agglomerations of unconscious commands. It
poetry provides pleasure of a more exalted kind. It is the is free from both mystical and logical compulsions and -
pleasure which results from increased knowledge and like modern philosophy - is empirical in attitude to all that
understanding. comes”
The poetry of the 1950s was taking refuse in a kind of
numbness. This numbness was a sheer evasion and not a
BACKGROUND
way of coming to terms with the reality of its age, war and
Every age has seen poets, and poetry in every age has wanton death and destruction as its inevitable outcome.
drawn people towards its effects. It has seen various This sense of self-induced numbness has been reflected by
changes and various ups and downs. However, it cannot be Donald Davie in his 'Creon's Mouse’: ‘If too much daring
denied that despite several changes, it has never lost its brought (he thought) the war, when that was over nothing
significance. Ted Hughes occupies a distinct place in else would serve but no - one must be daring any more, a
English poetry. As a modern poet he always enjoys an self-induced and stubborn loss of nerve.’ Davie seems to
envious reputation. His poetry seems to be compound of be aware that these sophisticated scientific devices
the various concepts given by several poets from time to

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Dr. N. M. Shah Ted Hughes and his poetry

invented by human mind to cause Hiroshima and the gas steeped in scientificity. However, Ted Hughes does not
chamber of Nazi concentration camps are but a stand alone in the tradition of English poetry in this regard.
manifestation of forces operating within the human He is just a new bud on an old bough. Blake and the
psyche. Any evasion from examining these forces, any romantics had already anticipated him in terms of the
nonchalant pose in this regard cannot be a responsible mystic power that imagination confers on a poet. However,
poetic attitude. the difference lies in the fact that Blake came at the
The poetry of the movement exhibits all the systems of beginning of the scientific revolution whereas Hughes
psychic illness. Contrary to conquest's claim that the poets comes at a time which could be its end. Hence, the
who anthologized in New Lines were emulating the urgency gets augmented for Hughes. He tries to explore
Augustans, the range of Augustan empire had narrowed what the objective scientific perception of reality ignores:
down in them to a stage where Hughes's areas of the mystic power of the inner world within man. Equipped
experience, especially of the immediate past remained with this power, "Its stride is wilderness of freedom. The
ignored. The urbane imagery of past poets and their tone world rolls under the long thrust of his heel.
of polite conversation were inadequate in the context of a This energy once C.G. Jung at the deeper levels of his
post-Hiroshima, post-holocaust poetry. In their zeal to psyche trapped would open new vistas of experience. In
emulate the Augustans, the movement poets also showed his essay Archaic Man says, "... every civilized human
an exaggerated concern with technique at times behaving being, whatever his conscious development, is still an
as if the technique of medicine be more important than archaic man at the deeper levels of his psyche. Just as the
healing. human body connects us with the mammals and displays
numerous relics of earlier revolutionary stages going back
even further to the reptilian age, so the human psyche is
HUGHES’ POETRY
likewise a product of evolution which, when followed up to
The first poem written by Ted Hughes 'The Little Boys' the origin, shows countless archaic traits..”Hughes wants
and the Season' appeared in Granta in 1954 under the this archaic man or the primal forces within the man's
pseudonym Daniel Hearing. The very choice of a psyche to rise phoenix 1ike breaking all the boundaries of
pseudonym indicated an attitudinal difference of the rest of the objective intelligence. It is this inner voice of the
the poetic community in 1950 s. His pseudonym served psyche which we hear in the poem, ‘And the phoenix has
perhaps as his individual poetic manifesto to mark the come! : ‘Its voice, Is the blade of desert a fishing of light
difference between him and the rest of his link in 1950 s. its voice dangles glittering in the soft valley of dew.’ The
His nom de plume was certainly to show his association archaic man appears again in the 'The Jaguar' where the
with the Biblical Book of Daniel which is a Shamanistic cage bar denies them their existence their enraged state
apocalyptic poem written in a period of a people's spiritual reflects the turbulence of the inner world which has
crisis and forms a part of the Old Testament. Daniel is the become chaotic and place fit for demons. It is, of course a
chosen one who would provide his people with the means part of our sense of Hughes's greatness that his poetry says
of spiritual renewal in pure Shamanistic terms. Daniel sees something important. We have spoken of a 'consistent
as his bounden duty to lead his people out of the spiritual inspiration.' What is this inspiration? What is the main
crisis because the privilege of having seen the vision and unifying perception in his work? In an interview with
having heard the aplitic voice has fallen on him. The Egbert Fass, Hughes says, ‘’any form of violence - any
choice of Hughes's nom de plume, although he form of vehement activity invokes the bigger energy, the
relinquishes it later, indicates the similarity of intention elemental power circuits of the universe. Once the contact
between him and Daniel: to hear and proclaim a message has been made - it becomes difficult to control. Something
of spiritual renewal in a decadent age. from beyond ordinary human activity enters. When the
One of the implications behind this choice of pseudonym wise men know how to create rituals and dogma, the
was perhaps to revive imagination as a reliable mental energy cannot be contained. When the old rituals and
faculty which has been declared inauthentic is a scientific dogma have lost credit and disintegrated, and now new
society where everything needs to be corroborated by ones have been formed, the energy cannot be contained,
evidence. For Hughes and the Shaman imagination is the and so its effect is destructive - and that is the position
only agency of those supra rational insight which a poet with us. And that is why force of any kind frightens our
needs for his own spiritual guidance as well as for his rationalist humanist style of outlook. In the old world God
community. He has to lead a society which has become and divine power were invoked at any cost - life seemed
chronically sick as a result of the ban on imagination due worthless without them. In the present world we dare not
to the inherent mistrust in its potential in a civilization invoke them - we wouldn't know how to use them or stop

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Dr. N. M. Shah Ted Hughes and his poetry

them destroying us. We have settled, for the minimum and different from anything we had thought possible. The
practical energy and illumination - anything bigger charm of his poetry lies in its contents, but particularly in
introduces problems, the demons get hold of it. That is the the language in which he shapes up. He is a prolific poet -
psychological stupidity, the ineptitude, of the rigidly much more his poetic thoughts in the seventies than he
rationalist outlook - it's a form of hubris, and we're paying seemed to be previously – and an uneven one, but his
the traditional price. If you refuse the energy, you are characteristic virtues can be seen in a remarkably large
living a kind of death. If you accept energy it destroys you. proportion in his work. He is a poet of our sense of
What is the alternative? To accept the energy, and find Hughes's greatness that his poetry says something
methods of turning it to good, of keeping under control - important. Hughes himself says in an interview - "my
rituals, the machinery of religion. The old method is the poems are not about violence but vitality. Animals are not
only one. violent; they are so much more completely controlled than
Poet, like the witch doctor among primitive people, is a men..?” Ted Hughes's reputation in English poetry rests
healer of the illness of a community. The same is true of upon his being a Nature poet, but Nature gets entirely a
Ted Hughes. It was the opinion that the western different shape in his poetry. His poetry is different from
civilization is plagued with an incurable illness. It has its the poetry of Wordsworth and the poetry of the other
roots in the Judaea-Christian world view, in the reformed celebrated poets who endeavored to delineate Nature in
Christian ideas, and in the modern scientific their poetry from time to time. However, it cannot be
advancements. He says that it is only a poet who can make denied that Hughes's sensibility is pagan in the original
people free from the horrible effects of the western sense. ‘He is a haunter of the pagus, a heath-dweller, He
civilization which knows nothing but hollow materialism. moves by instinct in the thickets beyond the urbs; he is
Ted Hughes's poetic endeavor over the past four and a neither urban nor urbane. His poetry is a redolent of the
decade has won him a distinguished place in the modern lair as it is of the 1ibrary.'
English poetry. His pre-eminent position in modern Hughes poetry is tremendously sensuous. The description
English poetry results from his literary stamina, of the things in his poetry reminds us of the sensuous
intellectual strength and social awareness. Ted Hughes's poetry of Keats which essentially appeals to one while
poetic mission has always been to open our eyes to the going through Hughes's or the other of our senses. While
power and mystery of the universe we inhabit. going Hughes’ Poetry, on occasions it seems as if the
Ted Hughes poetry reveals his disgust at the western object described was before us. The element of
civilization that is why, it is often propelled by a restless, unconscious imparts a particular grace to his poetry. It is
and urgent energy to regain the lost contact with the sensuous fetch, its redolence of blood and gland and grass
mysterious power swamped inside our inner self. His and water, recalled English poetry in the fifties from a too
vision is the vision of an observer who finds only suburban a version of the attention from the elemental; and
immortality and detachment from Nature and animals. His the poems beat the hounds of a hidden England in streams
agony as a modern man is reflected, in many of his poems and trees, on moors and in byres.
.Introducing his reading of his own poetry on the record, Ted Hughes began the 1960s as an extremely
Ted Hughes says, ‘ I prefer poems to make an effect on accomplished and successful English poet; he ended the
being heard, and I don't think that really a case of them decade as a major force in European poetry. Through his
being simple because for instance Eliot's poems make a association with the magazine Modern Poetry in
tremendous effect when you hear them, and when I first Translation, which he co-edited from 1966 to 1971 with
heard them they did, and when I was too young to Daniel Weissbort, through essays, talks, and, above all,
understand very much about them they had an enormous through his poems themselves, he helped to free English
effect on me, and this was an effect quite apart from poetry as the 'universal language of understanding' during
anything that I'd call you know, understanding, or being a period of sustained political tension. It was mainly
able to explain them, or knowing what was going on. It's through his personal contacts, and a measure of his literary
just some sort of charge and charm and series of stature and achievement, that in 1969 a magnificent
operations that it works on you, and I think quite selection of world poets were attracted to London to take
complicated poetry, such as Eliot's, can do this on you part in a Poetry International, including such distinguished
immediately.’ figures as W.H. Auden, Miroslav Holub of
A careful reading between the lines of Hughes's poetry Czechoslovakia, Janos Pilinszky of Hungary, and Vasko
reveals the truth that he is a great poet skilled in his hands Popa of Yugoslavia.
the language in the treatment of any theme is both familiar

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Dr. N. M. Shah Ted Hughes and his poetry

Hughes poems record the epic journey of western man attracted and repelled by the eye. He imagines himself as
returning from exile; it is in this contact that Hughes began the terrified of hawk. And I, Bloodily grabbed dazed last-
to explore the spiritual technique known as Shamanism. moment-counting Morsel in the earth's mouth, strain
His poetry emphasizes restoration of cosmic balance and towards the master – Fulcrum of violence where the hawk
healing, and expresses itself in terms of journey of flight. It hangs still.
maps the way, or the gap between man and Nature. It Here 'I' belongs to a dramatic fiction and is only indirectly
realistically reveals the indifference to Nature, which has identified with the poet's person. 'I' acts out momentarily
made him blind to enormous beauty of Nature for the sake the victim's role and commits a kind of suicide within the
of hollow materialism. imagination. The final lines of the poem present a quite
For Hughes poetry is not made out of thoughts or casual different perspective on the hawk. This poem is thus a
fancies. It is made out of experiences. His poetry is not the transaction between perspectives and voices which are in
expression of casual fancies, but an emphatic expression of tension. Sensual nature in this poem serves mainly as a set
his experiences and of thought based on observation. His of counters for an inner drama which is the poet's real
interaction with the people made him believe that the concern. Hughes did not write his first poem about an
modern man is running after the civilization for the sake of animal until sometime after he had started writing.
social climbing and money. He has no eye to look at the 'Thought Fox' is the first of his animal poem. It is in many
beauty of Nature, no ear to hear the sweet sounds of ways representative of what is to be found in his first two
Nature and no heart to enjoy the realistic sense. books. It is one of the earliest and best known poems –“I
However, if in one sense, Hughes poetry is anti- imagine this midnight moment's forest: Something else is
autobiographical, it is, in a subjective sense, supremely alive beside the clock's loneliness And this blank page
and obsessively biographical, almost always functioning where my fingers move. Through the window I see no star:
for the poet as a charm orcounter-magic against some Something more near though deeper within darkness is
problem that besets what the reader feels to be the poet's entering the loneliness.”
own lesser self, an ordinary waking self. Hughes wrote that it is equally about the animal fox and
English poetry of the 1980s is still a romantic poetry, one also the process of poetic composition. The animal is no
that prefers individual insight to the conventional values of ordinary fox of the forest. It is a thought- fox, or sore
its society, and that tends to see itself as a privileged, precisely, the poet in his forest of the imagination is fused
indeed sovereign and unique, way of looking at life and with Nature's fox. The fox functions as a metaphor of
judging it. Both aspects of these propositions are reflected poetic creation.
in the poems of Ted Hughes. English poetry, from In ‘Thrushes’, Hughes claims to put ‘string beyond sense’
Chaucer to Larkin and beyond, has tended to give primacy into language. This languages either rises to the challenge
to the human, the ordinary, the rational. Of course there of such extraordinary meanings as the thrush’s stirring or it
have been large exceptions, most prominently Spenser and does not. For Hughes, figures of speech always have their
Milton; but Shakespeare, Dryden, Pope, Word worth, primary meaning in what he refers to as ‘audio
Tennyson, Browning, are figures one can properly cite as conceptual’, primary man, from which ‘visual conceptual’,
examples of this - to which one adds Skelton, Wyatt, man has grown estranged. For Hughes, successful figures
Rochester, Crabbe, Cowper, Hardy and dozens of other of speech give the literal meaning, the real content of true
poets who might seem unlikely allies. But here and there experience. The surface meaning of metaphors thus belong
other names present themselves: Blake, Hopkins, and D.H. to unreal man and his unreal experience, and are therefore,
Lawrence. And it is here that Ted Hughes attaches himself expandable as are our surface impression antidote to
to the argument. intellectual love of indolent
The Hawk in the Rain' in The Hawk in the Rain, first ‘Billet-Doux,’ a hawkish predatory woman is an ideal
called "The Hawk in the Storm' is based on a drama Scout antidote to the intellectual love of indolent procrastination.
Rock. This poem is one sustained and uncomfortable Such a woman is one— ‘who sees straight through
encounter between revealed forces. It is made evident in bogyman, the crammed cafes, and the ten thousand books
the hawk's ‘still eye.' It is mere human eye which packed end to end, even my gross bulk.’ Left to his own
recognizes and feels intimidated by them for that has been bookish device the intellectual is prey to the hawk of
brought into a momentary focus. The poem is apparently despair. Better that he should rise from his despair and
narrated by the man who sees with the human eye. The encounter the creative force that resides in a woman.
man is a rain drenched person who finds himself in the ‘Loves a spoiled appetite for some delicacy- I am driven to
great job of a man-handled field. The speaker is at once your bed and four walls from bottomlessly breaking night.

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Dr. N. M. Shah Ted Hughes and his poetry

The word ‘delicacy’ as both fragility and a tasty moral Hughes's poetry shows a new poetic trait, i.e. Shamanism,
contains the two attitudes men normally take to sex. which appears as a prominent motif in Gaudete. An inkling
Hughes adds a third view: sex as a physical salvation from of this trait can be traced in the very choice of his
intellectual despair. In his poem on intellectuals, Hughes pseudonym Daniel. The Biblical Daniel is a Shaman who
attempts to put man in his place by exposing his can interpret the king's dream because he is the chose one
pretentions. It is the connection of man that he can tame to understand revelation. Revelation breaks the barrier
nature. Again Hughes dissents, believing that man is afraid between heaven and Earth and the Shaman gets the pre-fall
of Nature. ability to talk to God. The Shaman can also understand the
Roars in a Ring’ is a poem that begins with the trivial language of animal and grow intimate relationship with
sound of a Christian Carol before being dramatically them. By virtue of these pre-fall attributes, the Shaman
transformed into a tragic ballad: ‘the air was new as a seeks answer to the spiritual questions for the sake of his
razor, the moor looked like moon, when they all went clan or group.
roaring homewards an hour before dawn.’ Here the hour Shamanism, thus, caters for Hughes's doctrine of energy,
before dawn is for Hughes the time when humans sleep his love for the world nature, his metaphysic concern and
and animals come in to their own form. It is Christmas Eve his fascination with animals. It also helps him seek a
and ground of drunken farmers celebrates the birth of remedy to the chronic sickness of the twentieth century
Christ by drinking themselves into mindlessly hearty society. Hughes's poetry is meant for a world that has lost
laughter (Hughes would not be Hughes if he did not see its balance in spiritual terms. Hence his poetry intends to
some cosmic significance in the furious despair crowning vividly portray the crisis, and at the same time, act as a
drinking of the farmers). For farmers the birth of Christ healing force through its emphasis on the sagacity of the
has not affected the fall of man, for on this Christmas Eve natural order and the mystery of the human psyche.
they still fall foul of their own nature, thud down to the Hughes employs the technique of Shamanism to explore
ground. the mystery of the human psyche. Hughes defines
Gaudete is a major advance in terms of Hughes's Shamanism in these words: ‘Basically, it's the whole
experiment with Shamanistic technique in the realm of procedure and practice. Of becoming and performing as a
poetry. The argument prepares the reader for the witchdoctor, a medicine man, among primitive peoples.
protagonist’s entry into the visionary experience of the The individual is summoned by certain dreams. The same
other world. Lumb, an Anglican clergyman, is abducted by dreams all over the world, a spirit summons him ... usually
spirits into the other world ostensibly to perform an act of an animal or a woman. If he refuses, he dies... or
healing which is to cure with a difficult child birth. The somebody near him-dies. If he accepts, he then prepares
spirit makes his duplicate or changing cut of an Oak log to himself for the job ... it may take years. Usually he
carry out this job in his world during his absence. The new apprentices himself to some other Shaman, but the spirit
Nicholas Lumb is to all appearances exactly the same as may well teach him direct. Once fully fledged he can enter
the real one but comes within his the elemental spirit of an trance at will not go to the spirit world... he goes to get
Oak. Al though before being sent into this world the something badly needed, a cure, an answer, some sort of
changing is subjected to horrific initiatory rites to take up divine intervention in the community's affairs.
the job of Reverend Lumb as perfectly as possible, he In Orghast, Hughes says that this inner true self, "All we
cannot suppress his fertility spirit and interpret the role of know is that somehow or other the great, precious thing is
clergyman in a rather wooden way, He goes on copulating missing. And the real distress of our world begins there. The
with the women of his parish under the excuse of luminous spirit (maybe he is a crowd of spirits), that takes
performing fertility rites which would pro a massiah account of everything and gives everything its meaning, is
fathered by Lumb. missing. Not missing, just incommunicado. But here and
Life seems worthless without the energies Lumb releases; there, it may be, we hear it.’’
but once released, those energies cannot be controlled and
so they destroy life. The women are in a trap. And so is CONCLUSION
Lumb. He cannot escape his own essential natura.All that
Ted Hughes is a gifted poet who has rich imagination,
latent energy that vegetable and animal procreative urge,
immortality and attachment with Nature and animals. His
challenged into a narrow man, can only express itself as
poetry is not the expression of casual fancies, but an
overwhelming sexuality.
emphatic expression of his experiences and of thought
Besides these major themes - man in relation to the based on observation and his works help modern man
animals, the earth, the weather, the death and decay, recognize their own identity as both human and animals. It

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Dr. N. M. Shah Ted Hughes and his poetry

is human, of course, but it is also everything else that lives.

When we hear it, we understand what a strange thing is
living in this universe, and somewhere at the core of us-
strange, beautiful, pathetic, terrible. Some animals and
birds express this being pure and without effort, and then
you hear the whole desolate, final actuality of existence in
a voice or a tone.

REFERENCES
[1] Ted Hughes, 'The Jaguar,' The Hawk in the Rain (London:
Faber and Faber, 1957)
[2] Ted Hughes, 'And the Phoenix has Come', Selected Poems
(London: Faber and Faber, 1982)
[3] Quoted by Anthony Thwaite in A Critical Guide to British
Poetry (London: Longman Group Limited, 1966)
[4] Kingsley Amis, 'Against Romanticism', New Lines
(Manchester Manchester Univ. Press, 1967)
[5] Ted Hughes, in interview with Egbert Fass, Published in
London Magazine, January, 1971.
[6] Quoted by Terry Gifford and Neil Roberts in Ted Hughes:
A Critical study (London: Faber and Faber, 1981)
[7] Robert Conquest, 'Introduction', New Lines, Quoted in
Keith Sagar (ed.), The Achievement of Ted Hughes
(Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press, 1983)
[8] John Holloway, 'Warming', Quoted in Keith Sagar (ed) The
Achievement of Ted Hughes (Manchester: Manchester
Univ. Press, 1983)
[9] Quoted by Donald Davie in 'Ceron's Mouse', Here it is from
Keith Sagar ed. The Achievement of Ted Hughes
(Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press, 1983)
[10] C.G. Jung in 'Archaic Man,' Modern Man in Search of a
Soul; Quoted in Keith Sagar (ed.) The Achievement of Ted
Hughes (Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press, 1983)
[11] Ted Hughes, Quoted in Keith Sagar (ed.) The Achievement
of Ted Hughes (Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press,
1983)

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