Ted Hughes Themes

Q: Discuss style and Themes of Ted Hughes?
Ans: Ted Hughes was a poet Laureate of Great Britain. He had full command on techniqual superiority over most of his contemporaries. He knows about all contemporary and modern issues but writes in his own perspective. He creates a world for his reader that delights and elevates them emotionally, esthetically and intellectually. He is extremely concerned with the subject matter of his poetry. A newspaper headline in 1984 announced Ted Hughes a “Poetic voice of blood and guts”. In his writing Hughes has experimented with stylistic aspects of modern era like semantic deviation, dramatic deviation, and condense imagery. And most of his themes are concerned with man that could be man’s question of

To accept the energy, and find method of turning it to good. The old method is the only one. My poems are not about violence but vitality. Animals are not violent; they are so much more completely controlled than me” In another poem “Pike” Hughes has used animal imagery. ‘Pike’ is the name of an imaginary fish which is very dangerous because killer instinct is basic to the nature of that fish. He is outwardly writing about Pike but inwardly he writes about man so there is also a structural disunity in the poem. Pike portrays the ugly nature of man and society as this ruthless fish preyed upon one another until only one remained, “With a sag belly and the grin it was born with And indeed they spare

He combined nature with violence as nature is his main theme always. The time of war is portrayed where a poet is confuse that what should he do to leave the place or fight with the enemies. He does not want to fight for the sake of his country but to save his self. Irregular rhyme of the poem also shows staggering nature or running of solider. Solider is confuse between patriotism and reality. ‘-‘shows sudden change in character’s experience and also his fragmented thoughts. The poet has used nature plus animal imagery by the use of ‘hare’. The agony of rabbit is related to situation of poet. At the end he decide to leave his morals, values and principals “King, honour, human dignity, etcetera” in order to escape from the