(Re)Reading Animal Imagery in the Poetry of Ted Hughes

Abstract

Ted Hughes has published several volumes of verse and his poems have a singular approach because of the themes they explore, as well as, the manner in which they explore them. The poets before Hughes were thoroughly consumed with the harrowing backwash of the Second World War and their poetry reflected the macabre front of a stony world where the question of human existence and the absurdity of life were the engrossing concerns. Hughes was a revolutionary poet in the sense that he revolted against this post-war tendency of being evasive to the harsh realities of the times. He painted bare the nightmarish world and emotional stagnation that the Great War had resulted into. Another distinctive feature of Hughes’ poetry is that he is a captivating poet of the animal world. His use of animals as a metaphor for the human world is not only intriguing but innovative. He presents not only the unruffled beauty, but also the violence and ruthlessness of the natural world. The symbolic reference to the modern mechanical world is staggering and impinges on our mind. The portrayal of this modern “waste land” is closely allied with his metaphorical usage of the faunae. It is this aspect of his poetry which the paper attempts to analyze.