Critics Flashcards
Hughes - attraction to mythology
“I began reading myths and folklore when I was thirteen or fourteen, and for years, apart from poetry, that was pretty well all I read”
Hughes - Hawk in the Rain
“What excites my imagination is the war between vitality and death” [vitality = state of being strong, ‘life’]
Neil Roberts - animals/nature and humans [‘Hawk Roosting’]
“the concept of a splendid, innocent natural creature shadowed by something more human and sinister.”
Crucefix - views on marriage [‘Her Husband’]
“Hughes’ portrait of marriage is very bleak indeed.”
Middlebrook - Plath and Hughes as parents [‘Full Moon and Little Frieda’]
“the fascination that Hughes and Plath felt towards their baby ‘issued a flow of calls and responses’”
Poetry Foundation - themes/qualities of Hughes’ poetry
“a language of nearly Shakespearean resonance to explore themes which were mythic and elemental.”
Gifford - nature + humans [‘Wind’]
“we see an obvious laxk of preparation by humans to engage with the shock of the otherness of the nature forces outside and inside ourselves.”
Dickie - Hughes’ affinity with nature
“Man face to face with the elements may experience a primordial thrill and fear, that, Hughes feels, is the basis of poetry.”
Sagar - nature’s impacts [‘Wind’]
“the powers of the world are in opposition to civilisation rather than the self; that the poet’s fears are real, not pathological.”
