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Durham E-Theses Durham E-Theses The elegies of Ted Hughes Hadley, Edward How to cite: Hadley, Edward (2008) The elegies of Ted Hughes, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/2903/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk Abstract The Elegies of Ted Hughes The purpose of this study is to make the case that Ted Hughes (1930-1998) is one of the pre­ eminent elegists writing in English in the latter half of the twentieth century. Whilst his poetry has been widely criticised for its apparent preoccupation with violence and death, it is puzzling that the links these topics have in common with elegy have never been clearly verified. This might be because Hughes's elegies do not appear to bear the characteristics frequently associated with traditional poetic laments; however, as this study shows, closer scrutiny reveals not only many similarities, but also acts of resistance within the broader scope of elegy. Drawing on both established and contemporary critical debates surrounding Hughes and elegy, this study undertakes a comprehensive reading of the poet's major works from The Hawk in the Rain to Birthday Letters, whilst also paying attention to limited editions of his verse, including Recklings, Capriccio and Howls & Whispers. Posthumous publications, including the Collected Poems, Selected Translations and Letters of Ted Hughes, are accounted for, so that (alongside the chronological reading of the poems) Hughes's development as an elegist is fully realised. One of the aims of the thesis is to demonstrate that the poet's elegies are unified in presenting what I term the 'actual'; that is to say, that Hughes does not fabricate sensations or forge experiences that purport to be beyond the realm of recognisable human endeavour. This I term his 'unfalsifying dream'. This is striking because quite often traditional elegies appear to present the opposite: a language which is ornate and images which are close to beatifying the deceased, putting them at a remove from human experience and existence. 'The Hawk in the Rain' is used to illustrate Hughes's theoretical position, especially in the case of his earlier war elegies and the circumstances of Remains of Elmet and Moortown Diary. He is both the observational, seemingly dispassionate poet (the hawk), capable of a detaching himself from the experience he wishes to relay in his verse, and yet, he is also the wanderer 'in the rain', one who is immersed in the momentous instant of his own language and experience. Like his personas, Hughes is divided. He is complicit with many of elegy's practices and traditions, but he is also a reformer and renovator of elegy, writing invigorating verse which brings the realities of mortality closer to the reader. In doing so, he reaffirms the significance of life and how this life might be better lived in closer harmony to poetry and contemporary ecological urgencies. 'The Elegies of Ted Hughes' aims to prove that far from being just a 'poet of nature', Hughes has been an exemplary elegist in our own time. The Elegies of Ted Hughes Edward Hadley The copyright of this thesis rests with the author or the university to which it was submitted. No quotation from it, or information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author or university, and any information derived from it should be acknowledged. Ph.D Thesis Department of English Studies Durham University 2008 0 7 OCT 2008 The Elegies of Ted Hughes Contents Acknowledgements I Note on the Texts II Dedication III Chapter One: Introduction 1 Chapter Two: Griefs for Dead Soldiers The Hawk in the Rain 40 Wodwo 64 Chapter Three: Instinct for Loss: Selected Elegies 1957-1967 and Beyond Vitality, Death and the Climactic Experience 77 'Touch this Frozen One': Fertility Rites in Lupercal 87 Translating Death: The Bardo Thodol 97 Elegy and Alchemy: Crow, Cave Birds, and Gaudete 105 Chapter Four: Singers of a Lost Kingdom Introduction 115 Remains of Elmet 122 Elmet 165 Moortown Elegies 168 Conclusions 186 Chapter Five: The Fruitful River River 191 Conclusions 225 Chapter Six: Nobody Else Remembers Introduction: 'The Meaning of my Words' 229 Literary Lives 233 'Daffodils' 246 Down and Out in England and America 258 Conclusions 268 Chapter Seven: He Became His Admirers: Selected Elegies 1989-1998 and Beyond Later War Elegies: Wolfwatching 273 Capriccio 284 The Laureateship 289 Howls and Whispers 292 Imitation and Flattery: Memorialising Ted Hughes 298 Chapter Eight: Conclusion 307 Bibliography Principal Works by Ted Hughes 313 Primary Material 315 Secondary Material 319 Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to offer Prof. Stephen Regan my most profound thanks for his supervision and guidance. His generosity and good will has been ceaseless, and his steadfast commitment to this project has been an inspiration. For his many kindnesses, he has my infinite thanks. In addition, I would like to thank Dr. Gareth Reeves (Durham) for his advice, which has always been very welcome throughout the course of this undertaking. Furthermore, I would like to extend my gratitude to Mr. Bernard O'Donaghue (Oxon.) and Prof. Michael O'Neill (Durham) for taking their time and effort to examine my work so scrupulously. I also wish express my thanks to Prof. Andrew Motion (Royal Holloway, University of London) for the warmth he showed me as an undergraduate and for nurturing my enthusiasm at an early stage. For their unflinching and unwavering encouragement from school, to university and beyond, I thank my family whose love and fairness has given me the confidence and eagerness to learn, always. Indeed, for supporting and enduring me through the highs and lows of my research, I must thank Elizabeth whose patience has never faltered. By no means least, I happily recognise my friends from Durham University and Royal Holloway, University of London. Your encouragement (both academic and otherwise) and friendship is most gratefully acknowledged. You know who you are. II Note on the Texts Where possible, I have referred to Hughes's texts in their first editions unless otherwise stated. There are some discrepancies in spelling or grammar between these editions, how they appear in Hughes's revisions of his own work, and their presentation in Collected Poems. I have endeavoured to preserve the texts as they appear in their original editions when referring to them. III for Elizabeth IV ' ... most poetry is not equipped for life in a world where people actually do die.' Ted Hughes. 'No one has any specialised knowledge of death; in this area there are only the ideologies that inhibit freedom and limit scope.' W.D.Shaw. 1 Chapter One: Introduction In his introduction to the collected poems of Keith Douglas, Ted Hughes observes that 'Life, for all its desirability, is ultimately futile and the living are hardly more deluded variants of the dead'. 1 Death holds a collective moral distinction and reverence from the ceremonious long-boat cremations of the Vikings through to the state funerals of prominent contemporary figures. One can count the high yield of death-related stories which appear even in the shortest of news bulletins; the human fascination with death is unremitting. Our ceremonies, periods of mourning, bereavement and gut emotional reactions are all a means of interpreting the mystery of death, an act which, though inevitable and definite, eludes us psychologically. It is curious that Hughes's elegiac tendencies have gone largely unnoticed in the diverse criticisms of his work despite the motifs of violence and death playing prominent roles in many of his poems. If a critical approach is not determined by an obvious theoretical tendency in the verse of a poet, then it is often determined by the recurrence of themes and imagery developed over the course of the poet's output, and it is this factor which dominates the critical reception of Hughes's work. It is not without good reason. What Hughes considers in his poetry (war, nature, mortality), at first glance, might not seem wholly original, but it is.the undoubtedly fresh, 1 Ted Hughes, introduction, The Complete Poems, by Keith Douglas Ed. Desmond Graham (London: Faber and Faber, 2000) XXlll~.... '00'-. 1/\ ,.._[11 ~~!L-J 2 layered approach to these matters which marks Hughes's poetry as of interest to the critical reader. However, it is not easy to distinguish how we might define Hughes as a poet. Reference to him as a 'nature poet' is not inaccurate, but it needs to be tempered and refined because such an expression has associations of a whimsical, frivolous poetic. A more fruitful approach, perhaps, is not to define Hughes the poet, but instead to test and elucidate new methods of interpreting Hughes's poetry in the light of contemporary critical theory. This is certainly the case with Paul Bentley's Ted Hughes: Language, Illusion and Beyond,2 which seeks to integrate Hughes's poetry with literary theories which came to prominence during his lifetime; these include theories developed by Roland Barthes, Jacques Lacan and Julia Kristeva.
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