Hughes Context
the 20th century was a period of what?
witnessed massive changes in the socio-political domain, in the form of two world wars, liberation of colonies and destruction of erstwhile empires.
The literature of the period saw the rise of new forms of writing with the emergence of modernism, post modernism, impressionism, expressionism, surrealism and so on. Poetry gained a unique importance as a genre that challenged the conventional forms and as one that marked a shift in ideas and perceptions.
what status did Hughes gain
Ted Hughes rose to acclaim with the magnificence and vitality of animal images used often in a myth-making mode and thus gaining the status of an "animal poet‟ and also "a poet of violence‟.
what two principles are pivotal to Hughes' work
For Hughes, power and vitality are the two important principles that contend against death and he always saw the violence of nature, of animals in a positive light as it stood for the primitive, primordial and natural past
what did animals mean to Hughes
Animals, for Hughes, were that which formed part of the unconscious, something that represented the primitive wilderness and a search for the animals is a search for the instinctual wholeness that is associated with the past. Works like The Hawk in the Rain and Lupercal testify to this fact.
what was gaining momentum in 20th century
Hughes would have been worried about the industrial farming or factory farming, which was gaining momentum in the twentieth century, because of the rise of population and the increasing demand for food. When the food needs began to be commercialised, animals became mere factory products.
what was humanity like during the post war period
the disillusioned and depressing era of the post war world saw humane emotions and values of humanity saw a complete erosion.
It also saw the deterioration of affection, love and care man had for the natural world and and revealed a world that was pole apart from the harmonious co-existence of man and nature
Hughes' childhood
Ted Hughes was born on the 17th of August 1930 in Yorkshire, England.
His parents owned and worked at their news agency and tobacco shop. Like Plath, his poetry was recognised from an early age, published in his school magazine in 1946.
In 1948, he received a scholarship to Pembroke College at Cambridge but undertook military service in the Royal Airforce until 1951 before accepting it and studying English
What did he act as for his brother when they shot magpies, owls, rats and curlews?
Acted as the retriever. His first connection with animals came from killing them.
Gerald was a teacher to Hughes and cultivated his love of nature.
-Hughes was always seen by his brother as full of curiosity-wanted to know the breeding patterns of fish etc- these elements of nature informed his poetry.
What did Hughes' mother Edith do which added to Hughes' love of nature?
-She was a great walker and lover of the countryside herself, took them to all the beauty spots around the Calder Valley where they lived in West Yorkshire.
What was Hughes' job after graduating?
-He worked in a zoo, as a gardener and night-watchman- observed the animals which he depicts in his poems
-He also continued to publish poems and was cofounder of a poetry magazine- the launch party of which he met Sylvia
Where did the couple live straight after their marriage?
Massachusetts- she taught English at Smith and then Plath studied with Robert Lowell and Anna Sexton (two inspirational poets whom influenced her development as a poet, urging her to write about private subjects) 1957.
Who was Hughes having an affair with?
Assia Wevil- whose subsequent suicide was a grisly echo of Plath's.
What did Hughes believe about confessional poetry?
-Told Keith Sagar 'dead against [his] near in-born conviction that you never talk about yourself in this way- inn poetry'
What did Hughes believe about the power of the poet?
-He was convinced of the magical or shamanic powers of the poet- owed to the White Goddess by Robert Graves
-Ann Skea puts it 'The Alchemist, like the Shaman, must 'die' to the material world and enter the dangerous, often hellish, underworld in order to bring back some healing energies to the world'
What caused a change of course at university to archaeology and anthropology?
-Manifested in a dream, a fox entered the student room and came over to his bed and said 'you're killing us'
- his unconscious was nurtured and allowed release through his third year of A& A instead of english
What did his first two collections of poems establish him as?
-A significant poet and a dissenting voice from that associated with Movement Poetry
(people such as Phillip Larkin-Their verse was ironical, down to earth, unsentimental and rooted in a nostalgic idea of English identity)
Who did Hughes marry in 1970 after Plath and Assia?
Carol Orchard
What did Hughes protest against?
-His love of the countryside led him to be active in protest against pollution.
When did he become Poet Laureate?
1984
What is the common critical reception of Hughes' poems?
-His poems commanded respect and admiration at the two suicides cast a shadow over Hughes' personal life.
-A number of critics found complexities, even obscurities in some of his collections- folklore, mythology of primitive cultures
what is the context behind 'the jaguar'
-It was like a self-portrait of a complex man struggling against his demons, using animals and the dark forces of nature as metaphors for human life- made it four years after Plath's death
-He branded the forehead of the jaguar with the letter A, possibly Assia or adulturer as recalled by 'The Scarlet Letter'
-Bate said the idea of the Jaguar was very powerful to him- it encapsulates a raw kind of creative force and animal passion-It seemed to be powerful, dark, sexual, predatory but also quite a lot of inwardness and feeling with the head lowered rather than high- not attacking
What family experiences were impressed upon Hughes in his household?
-His household was overshadowed by the experiences of his father and uncle in WW1- so vivid that he felt as if he had witnessed it
- tormented his life and influenced his art- such as Bayonet Charge-The animals in his poetry have a primeval instinct to kill and the fierce birds etc seem to reflect the killing of the men in war- he contrasted the natural world of gentler animals with murder of men in battle
What ideas are associated with the enigmatic character of Crow?
-Some Manichaean opposite to God
-The dark side of God or existence or humankind [the shadow or id]- darkness where evil resides-"Crow is Everyman who will not acknowledge that everything he most hates and fears
- The Black Beast - is within him" (Sagar)-A figure representing Fate
-A life or death force
-The primal element of Chaos, stronger than Death
-A symbol of the destructive and cruel power of Nature
-A mythical figure representing a challenge to the traditional God's power
-The Trickster figure
-A mask for Hughes' dark vision of existence [written in the years after Plath's death]-Crow was seen as a way of Hughes dealing with Plath no longer being there- to distance himself from Plath he changed to a different style of poetry- have to change it in order to move on
- speak language that no longer raises ghosts of the past- Norton Entry
-Fables in which the Crow represents the rebirth of man
- the product of nightmare challenged by God to improve humanity- anti-biblical antithesis of God-Occult
What does Hughes say about Crow?
'The first idea of Crow was really an idea of style. In folk tales, the prince goes on an adventure comes to the stable full of beautiful horses and he needs a horse for the next stage and the King's daughter advises him to take non of the beautiful horses that he'll be offered but to choose the dirty, scabby little foal. You see, I throw out the eagles and choose Crow. The idea was originally to write his songs, he songs that a Crow would sing. In other words, sounds with no music whatsoever, in a super simple and super ugly language which would in a way shed everything except just what he wanted to say without any other consideration and that's the basis of the style of the whole thing'
-Thrown everything away for a scavenger- Eagle perhaps the symbol of America- getting rid of side of Plath?
In what ways could Hughes be seen as a war poet?
-He shows the sufferings at the front as vividly and horrifically as possible
- almost cynical dismissal of king and country as justification of bloodshed- patriotic lies
-He is against hypocrisy, oppression and wasted human life- Marxist perspective
-He wrote cathartic poems- effect on guilty soldiers and trauma
-The son of one of seventeen men from a regiment of several hundred to return from Gallipoli World War I, a tragedy that imprinted the imagination of the poet.
Hughes Perception of Humanity and Crow
-Creates animals to be more than they are- like the Jaguar who sees beyond the cage and the Bull Moses
-These animals transcend humanity as if they take on human qualities but transcend it in some ways-Links human and animal experience
Where did Hughes live when Frieda was in her teens?
-Moortown- the farm in Devon which Hughes bought with Gerald in mind. After 1970 having met Carol
-He wrote Moortown Diaries- vividly and forcefully written, capturing a sense of the immense inertia and stubbornness of the natural world the farmer is attempting to work, and of the sheer persistence with which the farmer has to attack his/her job. It's also characteristic in the sense that it posits a single figure, the lone man, in a hostile, even hellish environment.
Hughes influence of Shamanism
Hughes studied anthropology at Cambridge and was introduced to the Shaman. Shamans are tribal doctors and healers. They are able to pass to the underworld and through heaven and encounter monsters and spirits. They then return to the natural world and use this knowledge to help other people.
Hughes believed that in modern society poets acted as shamans. Ted Hughes is a modern romantic poet. he does not go to extreme lengths to show nature as beautiful like Keates but portrays nature as dark.
Hughes looked for 'healing truths' that both he and society needed
one way of achieving such insights was by taking a shamanistic approach to thinking and writing about animals
who was Hughes influenced by?
In a 1971 interview, Hughes listed the German philosopher Schopenhauer as one of the major influences of his thought. For Schopenhauer, human desire was futile, illogical, directionless and so was all human action in the world: 'Man can indeed do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wants'
He also named T.S.Eliot, whose poem 'The Waste Land' presents human existence as chaotic, fragmentary, lonely and sterile.Nature for Hughes is a theatre of hardship and brutality
how was Hughes' seen after Plath's suicide
Hughes’ changing context, and its embrace of the Western second-wave feminist metarranative, attacked him as an abusive husband responsible for Plath’s suicide in 1963.
public blame emplaced upon Hughes by his changing context lead him to shift Plath’s values and represent her own inner turmoil as the true oppressor.