Ted Hughes

Ted Hughes is believed to be one of the most remarkable (or even the best) poet of the XX century. He studied anthropology and archaeology and was interested in different myths and legends. Although the greatness of Hughes as a poet is unarguable, he hasn't got a good reputation as a husband. His wife, Sylvia Plath (I'll write about her in the next post) commited a suicide after a few years of marriage. Hughes left her for another woman (who also commited a suicide, killing herself and her baby). What is more, the poet destoyed the last volume of Plath's diary where she had described the last moths of her life.

Poems of Ted Hughes were someting completely different than other pieces created in that time. According to Robert B. Shaw: "The stereotypical poem of the time was determined not to risk too much: politely domestic in its subject matter, understated and mildly ironic in style". Hughes created his own mythology and was inspired by nature. He wanted to capture the essence of animals and plants and (some critics claim that) treated them as a metaphore of something bigger.

Fern

Here is the fern's frond, unfurling a gesture,

Like a conductor whose music will now be pause 

And the one note of silence

To which the whole earth dances gravely.

The mouse's ear unfurls its trust,

The spider takes up her bequest,

And the retina

Reins the creation with a bridle of water.

And, among them, the fern 

Dances gravely, like the plume

Of a warrior returning, under the low hills,

Into his own kingdom.

That's one of the poems that are difficult to discuss. That's because it describes the world of nature using developed metaphores and symboles. It's one of the poems that feed our imagination, not the intellect.

Based on: Hughes Ted, Wiersze wybrane, tłum. Rostworowski Jan, Truszkowska Teresa, Wydawnictwo Literackie, Kraków, 1975.