Literary Poetry by Edward James Hughes - Essay Example

Ted Hughes’ Poetry When reading poetry, it usually helps to understand the a little better if you compare two or more of their works that are somewhat similar. By looking at the date of publication and comparing the different ways that the author focuses on the same theme, you can understand more about the writer, his intention in writing the poem and sometimes notice the ways his style has been changing over time. One of England’s most important poets of the post-war period is Edward James Hughes, who was married to America’s famous poetess Sylvia Plath for a short time is one of the poets that are especially revealing. Although his poetry focuses on a great deal of topics, “[Hughes] was drawn towards the primitive. He was enchanted by the beauty of the natural world, frequently portraying its cruel and savage temperament in his work as a reflection of his own personal suffering and mystical beliefs – convinced that modern man had lost touch with the primordial side of his nature” (Bardell, 2000). By comparing two of his poems, “Hawk Roosting” published in Lupercal in 1960 and “Theology” published in Wodwo in 1967, that both discuss nature and both the concepts of creation, you can see how his writing style has changed and how his attitude has become darker. “Hawk Roosting” was written sometime around 1960, having first appeared in a collection of poems in 1960. The poem paints a picture of a day in the life of a hawk as he surveys the landscape around him. The poem has six stanzas that don’t seem to follow any particular rhyming pattern or set meter, but instead strings phrases together in the same choppy, stream of consciousness type of way someone might imagine a hawk to think in. This kind of choppy language can be seen early in the poem “Inaction, no falsifying dream / Between my hooked head and hooked feet: / Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat” (2-4). He presents the hawk as a very proud and superior creature by starting with this description of how the hawk is so completely focused on killing and eating, but at the same time, he is breaking his own rule by thinking about his mastery of the landscape instead. The hawk thinks in terms of the land, the sky, the wind and the sun as all working just for his benefit, presenting the earth below for his inspection as if he was a dictator looking over his troops. The hawk discusses the various ways that he can choose to interact, or not interact, with his environment and how it is his decision whether anything should live or die, change or remain the same. In this sense, the hawk is presented as a creature that is in charge of creation. “It took the whole of Creation / To produce my foot, my each feather: / Now I hold creation in my foot” (10-12). This thought, expressed at the approximate middle of the poem, is echoed by the end of the poem, when he says “Nothing has changed since I began. / My eye has permitted no change. / I am going to keep things like this” (22-24). Throughout this poem, Hughes’ love for nature can be seen, but so can his opinion of the state of humankind and their position within the cosmic sphere. The beauty with which he describes the scene surrounding the hawk demonstrates his knowledge of the hawk’s domains as well as the things it would consider important – namely hunting, killing and eating. He presents his readers with high trees, buoyant air and the warm rays of the sun, painting a picture of a beautiful sunny day soaring above the forest on the wings of freedom. “The earth’s face is upward” (8), making it seem as if it’s spring, bringing to mind all the blossoming flowers and good feelings of this time of year in our minds. He marvels at the miracles of creation, paying attention to each feather as well as the rough bark and the intricate workings of his foot. Having made his picture of the wonderful side of nature clear, though, Hughes brings in the destructive side with the realization of the hawk’s purpose, to “kill where I please because it is all mine” (14). “Hawk-Roosting’ is justly celebrated for the economical structure of an animal poem which persuasively communicates the arbitrary force of destructive nature: un-scrupulous, un-mannered, un-reasoning, un-imaginative, un-changing” (Tupan, Ana-Maria, 2004). In another sense, though, the hawk is standing in the place of mankind, taking on the thoughts of humans in a shape that makes it easier to see the illogic of the ideas. “The hawk sees itself as the centre of the universe and the pinnacle of creation. He controls the world, bringing death to anything on the ground that dares to defy his authority by moving” (Tankard, 2003) in the same way that people look at the planet as something that belongs to them and they are the ones who should decide what should live and what should die, what parts of the planet will be destroyed, paved over and changed and which parts will be allowed to remain natural. The hawk’s attitude toward the world he believes is his is very human in nature, too. In the second stanza, when Hughes uses military language to describe the world below, he makes the hawk seem more like a military general or king, with the subjects, the rodents below and the air currents above, having no other purpose but to be of use to the hawk. This is the same attitude Hughes was saying humans show toward the other creatures on earth. The hawk, like humans, “sees himself as the pinnacle of creation. At the same time, he rules creation with his foot” (Tankard, 2003). This comparison makes the human way of thinking about the planet seem very foolish and delusional, as if we were living in a black hole where the truth escapes us even though it surrounds us. This idea of the truth surrounding us even though we can’t see, as well as Hughes’ attention to nature, is again brought up in a later poem, published in his next collection, entitled “Theology.” This poem is much shorter than “Hawk Roosting,” having half as many stanzas and still with no specific rhyming structure. Instead of speaking from the mind of a hawk, this time, Hughes seems to be speaking to someone as the entire poem is enclosed in quotation marks. Published in 1967, this poem is seen as one of the early works establishing Hughes’ mythological character Crow. “Theology’ introduces into Hughes published poetry his own interpretation of the Biblical God. … Yet, this God is not responsible for all creation … unknown to God, a demon with creative powers of its own lives in the middle of the earth” (Bentley, 1998, p. 42). By enclosing the poem in quotation marks as he does, Hughes indicates that this is a narrative truth delivered by Crow to those who would hear him. He also places the poem in much simpler language and gives it a more conversational tone, presenting one idea after another in succession, without a lot of additional, non-essential information. “This is [a poem] I find particularly impressive because of the unflinching directness with which it’s written – which is what keeps it from being more than just a momentary witticism” (Kaul, 2001). Like “Hawk Roosting,” the poem floats along on a somewhat carefree air for the first half of the poem and then plunges into darkness for the second half. Consistent with the darkly cynical tone of his poem, written sometime after his first wife’s suicide, Hughes’ attention to nature is just as strong in this poem as it was in “Hawk Roosting”, but it focuses on much more unpleasant aspects of the natural world by sticking true to the nature of the serpent as he devours everything we know and then “sleeps his meal off in Paradise” (10) while we remain inside his “dark intestine” (8) oblivious to what we’re missing. He focuses on the graphic details of the ‘true’ course of events that happened to bring about humanity’s downfall as Adam ate the apple, Eve ate Adam and the serpent ate Eve, locking us forever inside a world of the serpent’s creation, not God’s. Like “Hawk Roosting,” this can have a much more down to earth meaning as well. In this poem, Hughes tries to recreate creation in a way that doesn’t accuse women of being the cause of everyone’s downfall, instead giving the role to Adam, who does it with much less provocation than we’ve been taught about Eve. Once Adam eats the apple, Eve eats Adam, perhaps indicating the relationship between Adam and Eve, with Eve taking one of Adam’s ribs, or perhaps indicating the way in which he felt a woman could eat up the life of a man through her demands and needs. Finally, the serpent came and ate Eve, so creation as we know it is only what is inside the snake and what God has made remains instead completely unknown to us. Like “Hawk Roosting,” Hughes gives us a scene where humanity is surrounded by truth but can’t see it and is foolish enough to think he is in control of it. By comparing these two poems, you can see that nature was a very important part of the way in which Hughes saw the world around him, but that he used this imagery to make statements about the condition of human life and attitudes. At the same time, you can see how events that happened in his personal life changed the way that he wrote his poems. While “Hawk Roosting” is a longer poem from the perspective of a hawk as it thinks like a human, “Theology” gets directly to the point, placing the message in simple language that doesn’t hesitate to explore the dark shadows. While both point to a human condition where we can’t see what’s directly in front of us but still don’t realize we’re blind, one does it in a self-mocking, almost teasing tone while the other sounds a bit harsher, angrier, less patient with our continued refusal to know the truth. Only the structure of the poems seems to remain identical, both starting on a somewhat light-hearted, fantasy note, switching suddenly to a darker, more intense key somewhere in the middle and ending with a warning about living in a box. Works Cited Bardell, Paula. “Savage Nature: The Life of Ted Hughes.” All Info About Poetry. (2000). April 19, 2006 Bentley, Paul. The Poetry of Ted Hughes. London: Longman Publishers, 1998. Hughes, Ted. The Collected Poems of Ted Hughes. London: Faber and Faber, 2003. Kaul, Aseem. “Theology: Ted Hughes.” Minstrels. (April 30, 2001). April 19, 2006 Tankard, Keith. “Ted Hughes’ Hawk Roosting.” Knowledge 4 Africa. (March 3, 2006). April 19, 2006 Tupan, Ana-Maria. “Ted Hughes.” A Survey Course in British Literature. Bucharest: University of Bucharest, 2004. Read More

In this sense, the hawk is presented as a creature that is in charge of creation. “It took the whole of Creation / To produce my foot, my each feather: / Now I hold creation in my foot” (10-12). This thought, expressed at the approximate middle of the poem, is echoed by the end of the poem, when he says “Nothing has changed since I began. / My eye has permitted no change. / I am going to keep things like this” (22-24). Throughout this poem, Hughes’ love for nature can be seen, but so can his opinion of the state of humankind and their position within the cosmic sphere.

The beauty with which he describes the scene surrounding the hawk demonstrates his knowledge of the hawk’s domains as well as the things it would consider important – namely hunting, killing and eating. He presents his readers with high trees, buoyant air and the warm rays of the sun, painting a picture of a beautiful sunny day soaring above the forest on the wings of freedom. “The earth’s face is upward” (8), making it seem as if it’s spring, bringing to mind all the blossoming flowers and good feelings of this time of year in our minds.

He marvels at the miracles of creation, paying attention to each feather as well as the rough bark and the intricate workings of his foot. Having made his picture of the wonderful side of nature clear, though, Hughes brings in the destructive side with the realization of the hawk’s purpose, to “kill where I please because it is all mine” (14). “Hawk-Roosting’ is justly celebrated for the economical structure of an animal poem which persuasively communicates the arbitrary force of destructive nature: un-scrupulous, un-mannered, un-reasoning, un-imaginative, un-changing” (Tupan, Ana-Maria, 2004).

In another sense, though, the hawk is standing in the place of mankind, taking on the thoughts of humans in a shape that makes it easier to see the illogic of the ideas. “The hawk sees itself as the centre of the universe and the pinnacle of creation. He controls the world, bringing death to anything on the ground that dares to defy his authority by moving” (Tankard, 2003) in the same way that people look at the planet as something that belongs to them and they are the ones who should decide what should live and what should die, what parts of the planet will be destroyed, paved over and changed and which parts will be allowed to remain natural.

The hawk’s attitude toward the world he believes is his is very human in nature, too. In the second stanza, when Hughes uses military language to describe the world below, he makes the hawk seem more like a military general or king, with the subjects, the rodents below and the air currents above, having no other purpose but to be of use to the hawk. This is the same attitude Hughes was saying humans show toward the other creatures on earth. The hawk, like humans, “sees himself as the pinnacle of creation.

At the same time, he rules creation with his foot” (Tankard, 2003). This comparison makes the human way of thinking about the planet seem very foolish and delusional, as if we were living in a black hole where the truth escapes us even though it surrounds us. This idea of the truth surrounding us even though we can’t see, as well as Hughes’ attention to nature, is again brought up in a later poem, published in his next collection, entitled “Theology.” This poem is much shorter than “Hawk Roosting,” having half as many stanzas and still with no specific rhyming structure.

Instead of speaking from the mind of a hawk, this time, Hughes seems to be speaking to someone as the entire poem is enclosed in quotation marks. Published in 1967, this poem is seen as one of the early works establishing Hughes’ mythological character Crow. “Theology’ introduces into Hughes published poetry his own interpretation of the Biblical God. … Yet, this God is not responsible for all creation … unknown to God, a demon with creative powers of its own lives in the middle of the earth” (Bentley, 1998, p. 42).

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