Write A Note On Ted Hughes’s Nature Poetry is efficient and attractive for readers.

THE ATTITUDES OF THE ROMANTIC POETS AND OF TENNYSON

Hughes’s attitude to, and treatment of, Nature distinguishes him from almost all other poets. Nature as an independent theme in poetry came into prominence in the work of the Romantic poets-Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats. Each of the Romantic poets had a distinctive attitude to Nature and treated Nature in his own way though, of course, there were certain marked similarities in their treatment of the subject. Shelley showed a preference for the dynamic aspects of Nature, such as the West Wind and the cloud. Byron had a preference for the huge and gigantic aspects of Nature, such as mountains, lakes and oceans.

Keats dwelt mainly upon the tranquil and peaceful aspects of Nature, such as the landscape in calm weather; and he was chiefly attracted by the aesthetic appeal of Nature as illustrated in his poem about the moon goddess. Wordsworth, the greatest of all the Nature-poets in English literature, saw the existence of a divine spirit in all objects of Nature and, at the same time, he believed in the educative and moral value of Nature for human beings. In his view, nature was the best moths, guardian, and nurse of man. Coleridge shared Wordsworth’s pantheism, but he also expressed the view that Nature merely reflected the onlooker’s on the beholder’s own moods. Later, in the Victorian Age, Tennyson showed an intense love of Nature; but, under the influence of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, he also perceived the cruelty of nature towards man. He saw Nature “ red in tooth and claw”; and he felt compelled to ask the question whether God and Nature were at strife with each other.

HGHES’S AWE OF THE SAVAGERY OF NATURE

Hughes is a great Nature-poet too. Although keenly aware of the tranquil aspects of Nature, he dwells chiefly on wild, fierce, tameless, and cruel aspects. He is intrigued by the viciousness of Nature however this hostility doesn’t offer ascent to any inclination in him of an abhorrence of Nature. Despite the fact that he feels awed by the coldblooded side of Nature, he is yet an extraordinary Nature-darling.

GRAPHIC NATURE-IMAGERY, COUCHED IN STRIKING WORDS AND PHRASES

As Write A Note On Ted Hughes’s Nature Poetry, Hughes’s Nature-imagery is most graphic. We find his Nature-imagery not only to be most vivid and original phrases. He uses all his linguistic power and skill to convey to us his close observation of Nature and his impressions of natural scenery. Rain is one of his most outstanding Nature-poems. Here we have vivid pictures of rain, floods, frost, and after frost, rain again, with sleet in it. The rain goes on and on, and the weather gets colder and colder. “The mid-evening duck douses into the splashed bushes”. The cattle find no other place except “the brimming world and the pouring sky.” The choice of words in this poem is strikingly appropriate; and the whole landscape is brought before our eyes in a most effective manner.

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Then there is the poem October Dawn. The month of October is “Marigold”; and the cold is so intense that it seems to the poet as if the ice-age had started its hurl.” The yard and the whistling green greenery are damned”. “Ice has got its lead into place” This kind of language to describe natural scenery is really startling. Towards the end of the poem
we have a repetition of words to emphasize the idea and also to heighten the musical effect:

While a fist of cold
Squeezes the fire at the core of the world,
Squeezes the fire at the core of the heart.

NATURE’S CRUELTY TO MAN AND TO ANIMALS

In the poem November again, we have graphic Nature Imagery. After long rain, the land is as “sodden” (or soaked in water) as the bed of an ancient lake. And then we have this original and striking statement: “the land is treed with iron and birdless”; and “mist silvers the droplets on the bare thorns.” And then the poet goes on to describe the plight of a tramp who lies huddled in a ditch to protect himself against the cold. Here Nature is brought into a close relationship with man; and Nature here is certainly not kind to man. The poem Snowdrop is a short masterpiece in which the mouse, the weasel and crow to have been “moulded in brass.” Nature here is “brutal as the stars of this month.” 

TWO OTHER POEMS DEPICTING NATURE IN DIFFERENT MOODS

The poem Wind contains a most graphic description of a storm raging on the sea. The tempest seems to “wield bladelight,” and to “flex its muscles.” This poem has an autobiographical interest because it is based on a personal experience of the poet. The fury of the storm is conveyed to us by such effective phrases as “the woods crashing;” “the hills booming;” and “the winds stampeding the fields.” There is a poem entitled Root, Stem, Leaf which consists of three sections, each section having originally been a separate and independent poem. Here again we have vivid Nature Imagery. A river, flowing through the valley, seems to be offering a prayer to its own waters for peace. This means that the flow of the water is uncontrollably rapid and wild. This river had emerged from its source in the form of a small waterfall, and had then moved into the valley. Then there is, in the same poem, the imagery of plants such as the foxglove and the harebell growing on the steep slope. In this poem again, Nature is linked to humanity because there is a woman who has grown so old that her eyesight has become dim, and she has been stricken by arthritis, while Nature continues to be just as she used to be.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN TWO OF THE NATURE-POEMS

Then there are two short poems. Thistles and Fern, which again contain vivid imagery and which have also been linked to humanity. Each thistle seems to have a touch of wood about it, producing the impression that each thistly is a buried Viking who has come back to life in order to wage war once again. As for the fern, it seems to be dancina solemnly; and its movements are comparable of the movements of that ornamental feather which a warrior wears in his helmet. In both these poems, Hughes has given us evidence of his anthropological interest because he has attributed certain human traits to the plants and the shrubs.

NATURE AS THE ENEMY OF MAN

In the context of the destructive aspect of Nature, we cannot help feeling that Hughes thinks Nature to be man’s enemy. He presents man as a prey and a victim of Nature. In the poem The Hawk in the Rain, the speaker in the poem feels that the banging wind “thumbs his eyes, throws his breath, and tackles his heart”, while the rain “hacks his head to the bone.” He imagines himself as “a bloodily grabbed dazed last-moment-counting morsel in the earth’s mouth.” Besides the savagery of Nature in this poem, we may also note the striking originality in the use of words and in the coining of phrases. The imagery too is most vivid. In the poem November, a tramp is depicted as the victim, though this tramp has developed a lot of will-power and determination to force the extremes of climate.

In this Write A Note On Ted Hughes’s Nature Poetry, Here we find the wind hardening; the rain becoming heavier; the field jumping and smoking; and the thorns quivering. Rain is “plastering the land which shines like hammered lead.” In this “drilling rain”, the tramp sleeps indifferently. It is his strong trust which enables him to survive the cruelty on Nature. In October Dawn the poet anticipates such intense cold as would seem to herald another ice-age reminding him of Mammoth and of Sabre’s tooth. Soon tons and tons of ice would cover the rivers, thus immobilizing them completely. It is only by implication that Nature’s cruelty to man has been expressed. It seems to the poet that his house has been floating and drifting on the sea like a ship; and the inmates of the house sit before the fireplace in a benumbed state of mind verging on paralysis. 

THE FRAGILITY OF MAN VIS-À-VIS NATURE

In the poem Wind, to which a reference has already been made, we come across superbly physical images which transform the so-called ordinary objects into objects of wonder. What comes crashing through a welter of imagery in this poem is the sense of the fragility of people menaced by the elements, and on the point of being overwhelmed by them. 

THE SYMBOLISM IN THE POEM, OCTOBER DAWN

Sometimes Hughes’s Nature-imagery pertains to the prehistoric world when man was a creature among creatures, an animal battling for survival. As a result of his obsession with the dark, mysterious world of the past, Hughes feels that the modern world does not constitute a big enough challenge, and he therefore constantly invokes the prehistoric past. This is evident in the poem October Dawn. Here the poet expresses the view that another ice-age is about to begin. The original ice-age was the time when the mammoth mysteriously froze into extinction. Hughes wants to give the mammoth a second chance in the form of another ice-age when the mammoth and Sabre-tooth would celebrate a reunion. Here Hughes is invoking a chaotic past because he feels that the mammoth is massive enough to make man realize how puny has been man’s role in the evolutionary process. The invocation of the mammoth is an image which represents the energy that man’s frigid intellectuality extinguished. .

WORDSWORTHIAN ECHOES IN THE HORSES

As already indicated; Hughes is not unaware of the kinder and milder aspects of Nature. In the poem, The Horses, he paints a picture of the intense cold of the morning; and this picture again represents the savagery of Nature. But, in the midst of this shivering and almost freezing natural scenę, there stand ten horses who show no excitement or agitation or discontent by stamping on the ground or snorting.

The horses are here presented as personifications of patience and endurance. At the same time the closing lines of the poem contain unmistakable Wordsworthian echoes. But Write A Note On Ted Hughes’s Nature Poetry, The poet here says that, in the din of the crowded streets, he would like to recall this lonely spot between the streams and the clouds, and he would like to hear the curlews uttering their sounds, and would like also to hear the horizons endure. In other words, the poet here contrasts the quiet and the tranquillity of a scene of nature with the tumult of the crowded streets of a city. And once again we may note the originality of expression: “hearing the horizons endure.” Apart from the alliteration here, we find the poet expressing the silence and durability of the horizons through his sense of hearing; and this is certainly something strange and novel for us.

Theme Of Violence In Ted Hughes’s Poetry

Theme Of Violence In Ted Hughes’s Poetry

Viciousness, PAINFUL, BUT ALSO A GUARANTEE OF ENERGY:

Viciousness, and fierce savagery at that, are absolutely one of the predominant topics in the verse of Ted Hughes. This artist is captivated by brutality; he is entranced by a wide range of savagery viciousness in affection just as in disdain, savagery in the wilderness, viciousness in the field, savagery in a fight, and viciousness as murder and abrupt passing.

However, in Hughes’ eyes, savagery however agonizing and all the time lethal is additionally an assurance of energy and of life. At the point when Hughes looks confined puma, hustling incensed through presences, he discovers triumph in the monster’s untamed will: “His Wis unsettled areas of opportunity.” The enclosure is no anymore a pen to this monster than a jail cell is to a visionary or an optimistic visionary. The monster and visionary are connected together by Hughes in light of the fact that the desire of the two of them wins over the conditions in which they exist. In The Martyrdom Of Bishop Farrar, Hughes goes further and discovers a win in a snapshot of suffering. Here we find that the fire consumes the muscles and the bones of a man however that his soul rises better than his torment. The diocesan’s triumph is one of unadulterated apathy, making in the flares an ageless snapshot of magnificence. The soul of the man keeps on living long after his substance has been devoured.

Savagery, DEPICTED IN THE ANIMAL POEMS

The topic of savagery finds a most striking articulation in the creature sonnets of Hughes. The Jaguar, Second Glance at a Jaguar, Pike; Hawk Roosting; Thrushes-these are generally sonnets portraying the cold-bloodedness, the furiousness, and the brutality which are indistinguishable from the universe of Nature. Hughes sees much more unmistakably and unambiguously than Tennyson; “Nature red in without holding back.” In The Jaguar, for example, we are made to picture a monster rushing angered through jail obscurity, not in fatigue, but rather with a step that speaks to immense, boundless opportunity. By diverging from the wildness of a confined puma, the boa constrictor’s curl is a fossil. In Pike, we are informed that the pike-fish are “executioners from the egg”, implying that their executioner sense is fundamental to their tendency. A pike-fish would execute and gobble up one of its own clans in the event that it can get nothing else to fulfill its craving. “What’s more, undoubtedly they save no one,” implying that the pike-fish make no differentiations with regards to eating. No artist of the past had the option to pass on the deadliness of Nature with such economy and such impact as Hughes has done through these sonnets. In Hawk Roosting, the winged animal says to himself: “I murder where I please in light of the fact that it is all mine.” And he further says; “My habits are detaching heads.”

In Thrushes we read that these winged creatures move about with “a ricochet and a cut” to grasp some creepy crawly in the zone and that they do as such immediately or dithering. The brutal craving of the thrushes helps the artist to remember the sharbin mouth which nibbles its own tail. The thrushes have a “projectile and programmed reason” which affects them to achieve their merciless capacity.

Savagery IN BATTLE AND WAR

At that point, there are different sonnets portraying pitilessness and savagery. There is the Bayonet Charge in which we read about the “shots smacking the tummy out of the air” and of “a green fence that stunned with rifle discharge.” Later in the sonnet, we are made to envision a fighter “plunging past with his knife toward the green support,” and overlooking the lord, honor, human respect, etcetera. At that point, we have the sonnet Six Young Men which is about a photo of six youngsters who went to the war and were totally slaughtered. Sadness for Dead Soldiers is another sonnet about the passing of warriors in real life, each fighter biting the dust with a different demise. Obviously, in both these sonnets the passing’s portrayed as courageous just as appalling; and both these sonnets stimulate our pity and misery. Be that as it may, in the two of them the remorselessness and the viciousness are kept in the front line.

The PSYCHOLOGICAL BASE VIOLENCE IMAGERY IN TED’S POETRY

One of the pundits, John Lucas in his Modern English Poetry, has communicated the feeling that verse should face challenges since the verse is a “dangerous craftsmanship.” According to this pundit, the main English writer who satisfies this condition is Ted Hughes who appears to him have kicked off something new by managing the dull, clairvoyant, fierce powers inert in present-day life. Despite what might be expected, M.G. Ramanan has communicated the view that Hughes’ vicious symbolism in his sonnets shows the continuation of the imperialistic feeling of intensity among the English public. As indicated by this Indian pundit, Hughes. fierce symbolism is firmly aligned with dictator governmental issues. It is critical in this setting that Hughes was delegated the Poet Laureate by the administration of Mæş. Thatcher was a tyrant Prime Minister.

Regardless, no one questions Hughes’ verse, both at its best and most exceedingly terrible, showing a distraction with brutality. The sonnet Thrushes starts with an image of the frightening thrushes in the yard. Of course. Hughes has the privilege to compose a sonnet, for example, shrubberies on the grounds that through it he can investigate the desire for force and savagery which is important for the narrative of 20th-century experience, and maybe of all human experience.

Absolutely, Hawk Roosting is about the self-love of a determined worry with a viciousness that looks for no legitimization for itself. The falcon in this sonnet says that nothing has changed since his life started, that his eye has allowed no change, and that he will keep things like this. The falcon’s view may appear to the peruses to be crazy, yet that is the perspective of the bird of prey, and definitely this perspective. mirror the perspective of numerous legislators and numerous administrations who are similarly crazy in their reasoning.

Savagery AS AN EXPRESSION OF IDENTITY

Be that as it may, it isn’t just the presentation of savagery that intrigues Hughes. At the core of a lot of his verses is savagery as an unadulterated articulation of soul, and brutality as a statement of personality. In this association, the end lines of the sonnet Pike are huge. The lake where the storyteller in this sonnet fished was “as profound as England.” This lake held pike “too enormous to even think about stirring”, so massive and old that after dusk he tried not to keep fishing. A dimness delivered by the haziness of the night appeared to him to be rising gradually towards him. In these lines, the murkiness is communicated through the ravenous pike. The storyteller’s fantasy here is a fantasy of brutality. This isn’t without a premise in light of the fact that the England public has consistently been more forceful and war-like than they might suspect, and the colonialism which our Indian pundit has discussed regarding Hughes is truly dear to the core of England.

Different ASPECTS OF THE VIOLENCE IN HUGHES’S POETRY

Hughes positively is by all accounts underwriting this savagery and the dominion that it appears to pass on. Through his photos of the merciless ruthlessness of the thrushes, the sell, and the pike, Hughes is by all accounts saying that there is no option in contrast to this brutality. Furthermore, Hughes is exceptionally skillful in dealing with this topic in light of the fact that the very style of these sonnets suits the subject. But there is something frightful about Hughes’ utilization of feathered creatures and fish to manage issues as perplexing as the set of experiences and utilization of intensity, authority, and brutality. Hughes regularly does such a thing. In the sonnet called Thistles, for instance, he portrays the plants as “like pale hair and the gutturals of tongues/Everyone deals with a tuft of blood.” The thorns become an analogy for England’s Viking legacy which comprises weaponry and fighter dom. Furthermore, nothing has changed since those plants developed: “Their children show up/Stiff with weapons, retaliating over a similar ground.” This sort of anxiety of brutality idle in English history isn’t without some avocation. As per a prominent pundit, A.E. Dyson, the nature of savagery, which a considerable lot of English writers investigate as moralists, is introduced in Hughes’ sonnet in a way that makes us more alive to what certain powers in present-day legislative issues and life truly are.

NOTHING MONOTONOUS ABOUT HUGHES’S CONCERN WITH VIOLENCE

In any case, we disagree with the feeling that Hughes’ constant worry with savagery is tedious, or that it turns into a type of impediment to Hughes in the composition of his verse. In every single one of the sonnets manages the subject of brutality or portrays viciousness in one structure or the other. Hughes demonstrates himself to be an incredible and talented creator of important pictures, and tight, pressed lines.

Write A Note On Ted Hughes’s Nature Poetry

Critical Appreciation “The Hawk In The Rain” By Ted

The Hawk in the Rain is one of Hughes’ most popular sonnets. The entire volume of sonnets, Hughes’ first distribution (which showed up in 1957), was designated “The Hawk in the Rain” after the title of this one sonnet. The topic of this sonnet is the difference between the unfaltering quality, the soundness, and the quality of a falcon (roosted on some bluff or ridge or rock or tree) and the precariousness and the feeling of risk of a person when it is pouring intensely and when a solid, cold breeze is likewise blowing.

The bird of prey stays unperturbed by the downpour and the solid breeze, and keeps up his balance. Yet, the man battles through the mud on tin ground, feeling apprehensive in case he should sink into it and into gulped by the earth. The falcon shows his solid success against the downpour and against the brutality of the breeze, while the man feels that his end is close. Notwithstanding, the last refrain communicates an alternate thought. The bird of prey would one day meet his end when, “coming the incorrect way,” he may be flung downwards by the rage of the tempest and killed. While the sonnet shows the falcon’s predominance over man as far as self discipline and the intensity of perseverance, it likewise shows that the bird of prey isn’t undying or insusceptible.

The sonnet contains realistic symbolism, similar to the heft of the sonnets in a similar volume, and like the vast majority of different sonnets which Hughes composed in this way. We are given a distinctive image of a man battling through mud and feeling that he may be gulped by the earth. We additionally have a striking image of the falcon roosted easily at a stature, keeping up an actually eye.

The last refrain presents the most clear image of the falcon being heaved somewhere near an incensed tempest, and running against the earth, to be executed immediately. The photos in this sonnet have been introduced to our psyches by methods for striking words set up in unique mixes. In fact, this sonnet shows Hughes’ skillful utilization of the language despite the fact that straightforwardness is relinquished all the while. The absolute most great lines, as respects the , utilization of language, are the accompanying:

While slamming wind slaughters these obstinate fences,

Thumbs my eyes, tosses my breath, handles my heart,

What’s more, downpour hacks my head deep down, the falcon hangs

The precious stone purpose of will that polestars

The ocean drowner’s perseverance:

The utilization of likeness and allegory in the sonnet adds to its advantage and furthermore serves to stress the specific thought being communicated. Instances of such an utilization of figures of discourse are: “consistent as a mind flight;” “piece in the world’s mouth”; “the heavy shires crash on him”; and “the skyline traps him.” We likewise have similar sounding word usage in the sonnet; and this additionally is a gadget which Hughes utilizes in his verse often and with extraordinary impact. The absolute first line and afterward the last line of the sonnet give instances of the utilization of similar sounding word usage:

• (1) I suffocate in the drumming ploughland, I haul up…
• (2) Smashed, blend his heart’s blood in with the soil of the land.

Here the “m” sound is rehashed, and furthermore the ” sound (in “blood” and “land”). The last verse creates an emotional impact on us due to the inversion of the possibility of the sonnet. This refrain comes as an amazement. All through the sonnet a differentiation is set up between the man and the bird of prey; and afterward like the man’s, if not more terrible than the man’s.

As indicated by one of the pundits, Alan Bold, Hughes accepts that the quality of creatures lies in their impulse and exact capacity. Hughes stated: “Creatures are not vicious, they are a great deal more totally controlled than men, quite a lot more adjusted to their current circumstance.” So, while Hughes is nearly gobbled up by mud, and is aced by this hearty component, the falcon “easily at tallness hands his actually eye.” While the savage breeze

Thumbs my eyes, tosses my breath, handles my heart,

What’s more, downpour hacks my head deep down, the falcon hangs

The jewel purpose of will that polestars

The ocean drowner’s perseverance.

This, says Alan Bold, is an extreme note in Nature Poetry. Past admirers of Nature have, similar to G. M. Hopkins, wondered about the assortment and excellence of creatures, or, similar to D. H. Lawrence, considered them to be like man. Hughes, notwithstanding, purposely puts man off guard as contrasted and creatures.

In this sonnet, man exists on a lower earth-bound level than the falcon. For Hughes, creatures are unadulterated encapsulated work; they, dislike man, vitiated by Spurious ethical quality or crippled by question. A falcon is a haw though a man has aspiration to be god-like and is along these lines for all time baffled. The falcon is always in his own component in any event, when he bites the dust an essential passing as he “meets the climate/Coming the incorrect way.”

Critical Appreciation of “Chaucer” By Ted Hughes