Edward James Hughs

Edward James Hughes is one of the most outstanding living British poets. In

1984 he was awarded the title of the nation's Poet Laureate. He came into

prominence in the late fifties and early sixties, having earned a reputation of a

prolific, original and skillful poet, which he maintained to the present day. Hughes

was born in 1930 in Yorkshire england into a family of a carpenter. After graduating from Grammar School he went to Cambridge to study English, but later changed

to Archaeology and Anthropology. At Cambridge he met Sylvia Plath, whom he

married in 1956. His first collection of poems Hawk in the Rain was published in

1957. The same year he made his first records of reading of some Yeats's poems and

one of his own for BBC Third Program. Shortly afterwards, the couple went to

live in America and stayed there until 1959. His next collection of poems Lupercal

(1960) was followed by two books for children Meet My Folks (1961) and Earth

Owl (1963). Selected Poems, with Thom Gunn (a poet whose work is frequently

associated with Hughes's as marking a new turn in English verse), was published in

1962. Then Hughes stopped writing almost completely for nearly three years

following Sylvia Plath's death in 1963 (the couple had separated earlier), but

thereafter he published prolifically, often in collaboration with photographers and

illustrators. The volumes of poetry that succeeded Selected Poems include Wodwo

(1967), Crow (1970), Season Songs (1974), Gaudete (1977), Cave Birds (1978),

Remains of Elmet (1979) and Moortown (1979). At first the recognition came from

overseas, as his Hawk in the Rain (1957) was selected New York's Poetry Book

Society's Autumn Choice and later the poet was awarded Nathaniel Hawthorn's Prize

for Lupercal (1960). Soon he became well-known and admired in Britain. On 19

December 1984 Hughes became Poet Laureate, in succession to the late John

Betjeman. Hughes has written a great deal for the theatre, both for adults and

for children. He has also published many essays on his favourite poets and edited

selections from the work of Keith Douglas and Emily Dickinson (1968). Since

1965 he has been a co-editor of the magazine Modern Poetry in Translation in

London. He is still an active critic and poet, his new poems appearing almost weekly

Judging from bibliography, Hughes has received a lot of attention from

scholars and literary critics both in the USA and Britain. The few things I have learned from reading about Hughes could be outlined as follows. Some critics describe Hughes as " a nearly demonic poet, possessed with the life of nature", "a poet of violence" , his poetry being "anti-human" in its nature. According to Pat Rogers, his verse reflect the experience of human cruelty underlying the work of contemporary East European poets such as Pilinszky and Popa, both admired by Hughes. Hughes' concern with religion gave inspiration to his construction of anti-Christian myth, which was mainly based on the famous British writer and critic Robert Ranke Graves' book The White Goddess (1948) and partly on his own studies of anthropology. Speaking of his early poems, the critics note that at first

they were mistakenly viewed as a development of tradition of English animalistic

poetry started by Rudyard Kipling and D.H. Lawrence. G. Bauzyte stresses

that Hughes is not purely animalistic poet, since in his animalistic verse he seeks

parallels to human life. In I. Varnaite's words, "nature is anthropomorphised

in his poems". Furthermore, G. Bauzyte observes that Hughes' poetics are

reminiscent of the Parnassians and in particular Leconte de Lisle's animalistic

poems. She points out, however, that the latter were more concerned with colour,

exotic imagery and impression, while Hughes work is marked by deeper semantic

meaning. His poetical principals are fully displayed in the poem Thrushes -

"spontaneous, intuitive glorification of life, akin to a bird's song or Mozart's music".

The four main sources of Hughes's inspiration mentioned are Yorkshire

landscape, where he grew up as a son of a carpenter. Totemism studied by the poet at

Cambridge and theories of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer. The main themes,

as singled out by I. Varnaite, are: nature, the world of animals, man, the relationships

between man and nature. Hughes often defies traditional poetical cannons,

imploring stunning contrasts and surreal imagery. He was also noted for his language

and laconism of style. According to V. A. Skorodenko, Hughes uses contrasting

images, unexpected free associations and "sometimes vulgar words". I. Varnaite

describes Crow and it sequels as "repetitive, sometimes too naturalistic and even

vulgar". Like Hughes's animals, man is also cruel and predatory already in his early

poetry. As I. Varnaite put it, to Hughes, "the most admirable beings are the most

ferocious and violent ones." Similarly, the critic Edwin Muir points out