Ted Hughes and the Animal Term Paper

" Unlike ethereal muses, Hughes' inspirational animals are earthy smelling like "The Thought Fox," or old and maggot-ridden scavengers like that of the Crow, providing jewels of inspiration and images of hideousness and rot. (208-220)

This muse-like relationship between poet and animals is not only true of poets who write, but even persons who are poetic in spirit like the young woman of "Macaw and Little Miss," enclosed in a cage "of wire ribs." (23) of "The Dove Breeder." "Love struck into his life Like a hawk into a dovecote," writes Hughes of a dove-breeder eaten alive by love, like a bird of prey eats a bird of peace. (26)

Thus, animals inspire humans to better conceptualize and philosophically understand their experience, like poets inspire humans, but a fixed interpretation of the animals in the real world eludes a final explanation, ultimately the reader only has his or her own thoughts, rather than the fox, crow, or the 'thing' itself. The animal helps the girl or the dove-breeder to understand his or her own heart, but the animal cannot be equated with the person. The poet and his various human creations may read themselves into nature, and see metaphorical parallels between themselves, birds, and forest-creatures, but this merely confirms the human's equally animal identity, not that the humans have the power to 'write' nature from the vantage point of an observer. Humans and animals are thus equal subject amongst the forest and trees of the natural world of foxes and birds.Also, although Hughes' poems often have a mythic quality to their narratives, particularly in the way that animals function as central figures, they just as frequently deflate religion, poetry, and an easy attempt to see beauty in the natural world. Again, the 'animal' nature of humanity is stressed, rather than the human quality of animals. For example, in one poem called "Crow's First Lesson" (211), God is shown attempting to teach the Crow how to talk. Crow refuses to say such a sentimental word as love, however. Instead, like a poet forced to say something he does not believe, Crow provides other metaphorical, more colorful words to express what he feels, such as versions of love "the white shark" and a bluefly, a tsetse, a mosquito -- using metaphors of animals like the poet, rather than saying the easy word love. Finally, even God is defeated at the animal's verbal act of defiance. Crow refuses to say love, like a poet refusing to take on easy cliches in his poetry. Crow is 'his own bird,' as Crow even has his own form of communion in the poem, "Crow Communes." (224). But one cannot even say that Crow is the poet or is like the poet, for even while Hughes may wish to be as equally iconoclastic as his inspiring creation, Crow like the early "Thought Fox," is shown continually eluding the poet's mission, refusing to become encapsulated in one metaphor, one thought, one page, or one poem.

Works Cited

Hughes,.....