Editing Ted Hughes (section)

==Work==
{{Quote box|align=right|bgcolor=#FFFFF0 |salign=right
|quote =<poem>
'''Crow Blacker Than Ever'''

When God, disgusted with man,
Turned towards heaven,
And man, disgusted with God,
Turned towards Eve,
Things looked like falling apart.

But Crow Crow
Crow nailed them together,
Nailing heaven and earth together-

So man cried, but with God's voice.
And God bled, but with man's blood.

Then heaven and earth creaked at the joint
Which became gangrenous and stank-
A horror beyond redemption.
The agony did not diminish.
Man could not be man nor God God.

The agony
Grew.

Crow
Grinned

Crying: "This is my Creation,"

Flying the black flag of himself.
</poem>
|source =''[[Crow (poetry)|Crow: From the Life and Songs of the Crow]]'', 1970<ref>{{cite web |last=Young |first=Glynn |date=2013-12-03 |title=Poets and Poems: Ted Hughes' Crow |url=https://www.tweetspeakpoetry.com/2013/12/03/poets-poems-ted-hughes-crow/ |access-date=2022-08-19 |website=Tweetspeak Poetry }}</ref>}}
[[File:Poet Ted HughesDCP 2068.JPG|thumb|right| ''Homage to Ted Hughes'' by [[Reginald Gray (artist)|Reginald Gray]] (2004), [[Bankfield Museum]], [[Halifax, West Yorkshire|Halifax]]]]
Hughes's first collection, ''[[The Hawk in the Rain]]'' (1957), attracted considerable critical acclaim. In 1959 he won the Galbraith prize, which brought $5,000. His most significant work is perhaps ''[[Crow (poetry)|Crow]]'' (1970), which whilst it has been widely praised also divided critics, combining an apocalyptic, bitter, cynical and surreal view of the universe with what sometimes appeared simple, childlike verse. Crow was edited several times across Hughes' career. Within its opus he created a cosmology of the totemic Crow who was simultaneously God, Nature and Hughes' alter ego. The publication of ''Crow'' shaped Hughes' poetic career as distinct from other forms of English Nature Poetry.

In a 1971 interview with ''[[The London Magazine]]'', Hughes cited his main influences as including [[William Blake|Blake]], [[John Donne|Donne]], [[Gerard Manley Hopkins|Hopkins]], and [[T. S. Eliot|Eliot]]. He mentioned also [[Schopenhauer]], [[Robert Graves]]'s book ''[[The White Goddess]]'', and ''[[Bardo Thodol|The Tibetan Book of the Dead]]''.<ref name="Bell11">Bell (2002) p11</ref>

Hughes worked for 10 years on a [[prose poem]], "Gaudete", which he hoped to have made into a film. It tells the story of the vicar of an English village who is carried off by elemental spirits, and replaced in the village by his [[Enantiodromia|enantiodromic]] double, a changeling, fashioned from a log, who nevertheless has the same memories as the original vicar. The double is a force of nature who organises the women of the village into a "love coven" in order that he may father a new messiah. When the male members of the community discover what is going on, they murder him. The epilogue consists of a series of lyrics spoken by the restored priest in praise of a nature goddess, inspired by [[Robert Graves]]'s ''White Goddess''. It was printed in 1977. Hughes was very interested in the relationship between his poetry and the book arts, and many of his books were produced by notable presses and in collaborative editions with artists, for instance with [[Leonard Baskin]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://hydrohotel.net/Hughes1.htm |title=Richard Price, Ted Hughes and the Book Arts |publisher=Hydrohotel.net |date=17 August 1930 |access-date=27 April 2010}}</ref>

In addition to his own poetry, Hughes wrote a number of translations of European plays, mainly classical ones. His ''[[Tales from Ovid]]'' (1997) contains a selection of [[free verse]] translations from [[Ovid]]'s ''[[Metamorphoses]]''. He also wrote both poetry and prose for children, one of his most successful books being ''[[The Iron Man (novel)|The Iron Man]]'', written to comfort his children after their mother Sylvia Plath's suicide. It later became the basis of [[Pete Townshend]]'s 1989 [[The Iron Man: The Musical by Pete Townshend|rock musical of the same name]], and of the 1999 animated film ''[[The Iron Giant]]'', the latter of which is dedicated to his memory. 

Hughes was appointed [[Poet Laureate]] in 1984 following the death of [[John Betjeman]]. It was later known that Hughes was second choice for the appointment. [[Philip Larkin]], the preferred nominee, had declined, because of ill health and a loss of creative momentum, dying a year later. Hughes served in this position until his death in 1998. In 1992 Hughes published ''[[Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being]]'', a monumental work inspired by Graves's ''[[The White Goddess]]''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.faber.co.uk/work/shakespeare-and-goddess-of-complete-being/9780571166046/|title=Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being|website=Faber.co.uk|access-date=23 June 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110101010341/http://www.faber.co.uk/work/shakespeare-and-goddess-of-complete-being/9780571166046|archive-date=1 January 2011}}</ref> The book, considered Hughes's key work of prose, had a mixed reception "divided between those who considered it an important and original appreciation of Shakespeare's complete works, whilst others dismissed it as a lengthy and idiosyncratic appreciation of Shakespeare refracted by Hughes's personal belief system". Hughes himself later suggested that the time spent writing prose was directly responsible for a decline in his health.<ref name=journal>{{cite web |url=http://www.thetedhughessociety.org/life.htm |title=Life – The Ted Hughes Society Journal |publisher=Thetedhughessociety.org |access-date=7 August 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140812051354/http://www.thetedhughessociety.org/life.htm |archive-date=12 August 2014 }}</ref> Also in 1992, Hughes published ''Rain Charm for the Duchy'', collecting together for the first time his Laureate works, including poems celebrating important royal occasions. The book also contained a section of notes throwing light on the context and genesis of each poem.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.faber.co.uk/catalog/rain-charm-for-the-duchy/9780571167135 |title=Rain Charm for the Duchy, Ted Hughes |publisher=Faber.co.uk |date=22 June 1992 |access-date=7 August 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140810044424/http://www.faber.co.uk/catalog/rain-charm-for-the-duchy/9780571167135 |archive-date=10 August 2014 }}</ref>

In 1998, his ''[[Tales from Ovid]]'' won the [[Costa Book Awards|Whitbread Book of the Year Award]]. In ''[[Birthday Letters]]'', his last collection, Hughes broke his silence on Plath, detailing aspects of their life together and his own behaviour at the time. The book, the cover artwork for which was by their daughter [[Frieda Hughes|Frieda]], won the 1999 [[Whitbread Prize]] for poetry.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/ted-hughes-wins-whitbread-prize-1046684.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220526/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/ted-hughes-wins-whitbread-prize-1046684.html |archive-date=26 May 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=Ted Hughes wins Whitbread prize|date=13 January 1999|access-date=11 April 2017}}</ref>

Hughes's definitive 1,333-page ''Collected Poems'' (Faber & Faber) appeared (posthumously) in 2003. A poem discovered in October 2010, "Last letter", describes what happened during the three days leading up to Plath's suicide.<ref name="lastletter">{{cite web|url=http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/cultural-capital/2010/10/hughes-poem-poet-publish|title=Exclusive: Ted Hughes's poem on the night Sylvia Plath died|date=6 October 2010|access-date=11 April 2017}}</ref> It was published in ''[[New Statesman]]'' on National Poetry Day, October 2010. Poet Laureate [[Carol Ann Duffy]] told [[Channel 4 News]] that the poem was "the darkest poem he has ever written" and said that for her it was "almost unbearable to read".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.channel4.com/news/newly-discovered-ted-hughes-poem|title=Newly discovered Ted Hughes poem|date=6 October 2010|access-date=11 April 2017}}</ref>

In 2011, several previously unpublished letters from Hughes to [[Craig Raine]] were published in the literary review [[Areté]].<ref>Areté, Issue 34, Spring/Summer 2011</ref> They relate mainly to the process of editing ''Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being'', and also contain a sequence of drafts of letters in which Raine attempts to explain to Hughes his disinclination to publish Hughes's poem ''The Cast'' in an anthology he was editing, on the grounds that it might open Hughes to further attack on the subject of Sylvia Plath. "Dear Ted, Thanks for the poem. It is very interesting and would cause a minor sensation" (4 April 1997). The poem was eventually published in ''Birthday Letters'' and Hughes makes a passing reference to this then unpublished collection: "I have a whole pile of pieces that are all – one way or another – little bombs for the studious and earnest to throw at me" (5 April 1997).

===Themes===
{{Quote box |align=right|quoted=|bgcolor=#FFFFF0 |salign=right
|quote =<poem>
This house has been far out at sea all night,
The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills,
Winds stampeding the fields under the window
Floundering black astride and blinding wet

Till day rose; then under an orange sky
The hills had new places, and wind wielded
Blade-light, luminous black and emerald,
Flexing like the lens of a mad eye.
</poem>
|source =From "Wind" <br/> ''[[The Hawk in the Rain]]'', 1957<ref name="poetryarchive.org"/>}}

Hughes's earlier poetic work is rooted in nature and, in particular, the innocent savagery of animals, an interest from an early age. He wrote frequently of the mixture of beauty and violence in the natural world.<ref name="Bellp1">Bell (2002) p1</ref> Animals serve as a metaphor for his view on life: animals live out a struggle for the [[survival of the fittest]] in the same way that humans strive for ascendancy and success. Examples can be seen in the poems "Hawk Roosting" and "Jaguar".<ref name="Bellp1"/>

The [[West Riding]] dialect of Hughes's childhood remained a staple of his poetry, his lexicon lending a texture that is concrete, terse, emphatic, economical yet powerful. The manner of speech renders the hard facts of things and wards off self-indulgence.<ref name="Sagar7">Sagar (1978) p.&nbsp;7.</ref>

Hughes's later work is deeply reliant upon myth and the British [[bard]]ic tradition, heavily inflected with a [[modernism|modernist]], [[Jungian]], and ecological viewpoint.<ref name="Bellp1"/> He re-worked classical and archetypal myth working with a conception of the dark sub-conscious.<ref name="Bellp1"/>

=== Translation ===
In 1965, he founded with [[Daniel Weissbort]] the journal ''[[Modern Poetry in Translation]]'', which involved bringing to the attention of the West the work of [[Czesław Miłosz]], who would later go on to win the [[Nobel Prize in Literature]]. Weissbort and Hughes were instrumental in bringing to the English-speaking world the work of many poets who were hardly known, from such countries as Poland and Hungary, then controlled by the Soviet Union. Hughes wrote an introduction to a translation of ''[[Vasko Popa]]: Collected Poems'', in the "Persea Series of Poetry in Translation", edited by Weissbort.<ref name="Bayley">{{cite news|url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1979/11/08/life-studies/|title=Life Studies|last=Bayley|first=John|journal=New York Review of Books|date=8 November 1979|access-date=4 August 2019|issn=0028-7504}}</ref> which was reviewed with favour by premiere literary critic John Bayley of Oxford University in ''The New York Review of Books''.<ref name="Bayley"/>