The Reflection on Birth and Death in Ted Hughes's Animal Poetry

Abstract

In this essay, my primary aim is of course to provide a picture of Hughes’s description of the image of animals as precise as possible. When writing my thesis, I had to face more difficulties. Firstly, I had to be open to the way the poet represents animals. As I will show, the image of animals ranges from mother-figures when representing cows and ewes to god-like figures like in Gnat-Psalm. When discussing this aspect, I cannot neglect to comment on the notion of Nature in Hughes’s poetry so as to be able to comment on to what extent these animals belong to Nature and to what extent Hughes can be called a “nature poet”. Secondly, I had to find a balance of poems in this essay.