Ted Hughes

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Homage to Ted Hughes, painting by Reginald Gray , 2004, Bankfield Museum, Yorkshire

Ted Hughes OBE (* 17th August 1930 as Edward James Hughes in Mytholmroyd in West Yorkshire , England ; † 28. October 1998 in London ) was an English poet and writer .

Live and act

Hughes' birthplace in Mytholmroyd, Yorkshire

Ted Hughes grew up in Mexborough , a town in South Yorkshire . After graduating from school there, he served two years as a radio mechanic in the Royal Air Force , until he finally began studying English literature, later archeology and anthropology at Cambridge University , which he successfully completed in 1954. He founded the literary magazine St Botolph's Review with some friends . At a student party he met the then unknown writer Sylvia Plath . Their first meeting already indicated the coming turbulent love affair between the two (Sylvia is said to have bitten Ted on the cheek). They married in June 1956 and had two children, Frieda Rebecca (1960) and Nicholas Farrar (1962–2009, suicide) after a miscarriage in February 1961.

After completing his studies, Hughes made his way as a gardener, zookeeper, night watchman and editor at a film studio for a few years before he published his first volume of poetry, The Hawk in the Rain , in 1957 , with which he achieved international renown. Even here, Hughes prefers the form of the animal poem, albeit with a wide range between the individual poems. In The Horses, for example, he tries to grasp the essence of animals, while in The Thought Fox he relates the process of the poem's creation to the fox's path through a snowy landscape. This poem marks the beginning of a creative empathy and sensitivity that makes it seemingly effortless for Hughes to include horses and hawks, trout and salmon, mosquitoes and swifts, even potted flowers and thistles in his lyrical work, without giving them their "inapproachability" or creaturely peculiarities to take. Instead, in his animal poetry, for example in The Jaguar or The Bull Moses , Hughes endeavors to make it clear that the animal remains a "free walker" even in the cage under lock and key.

In 1957 he moved to Massachusetts at the same time as Sylvia Plath , where he temporarily taught English and creative writing at the local university. In December 1959 they both returned to London and eventually moved to rural Devon . In 1960 Hughes published his second volume of poetry under the title Lupercal, in which he endeavored to destroy all forms of romanticizing, sentimental poetry in order to characterize in this way the behavior of people towards animals in a haunting way. In 1961 he received the Hawthornden Prize for the work .

At that time, Sylvia Plath had been suffering from severe depression for years and accused her husband, Ted, wrongly at first and finally rightly, of being unfaithful to her. He started a relationship with Assia Wevill . Sylvia Plath's suicide on February 11, 1963 in London hit him hard, but also earned him accusations, especially from the growing ranks of Plath's supporters. His own writing took a back seat in the following years, he mainly dealt with Sylvia Plath's literary estate. In 1967 his anthology Wodwo was published with poems and short stories, the title of which is taken from the chivalric romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and corresponds in meaning to a forest spirit. Hughes 'studies of mythology , ethnology and occult sciences are reflected in this volume in a special way , as is his reading of Robert Graves ' The white goddess (1948, German: The white goddess ).

Another decisive stroke of fate happened to him in 1969 when Assia Wevill also committed suicide and killed their four-year-old daughter Shura in the process.

Hughes published other significant volumes of poetry and children's books after his first works. His series of poems, Crow, first published in 1970 . From the Life and Songs of the Crow, which also includes the poem Crow's First Lesson , is one of the most important works of English poetry of the 20th century and represents Hughes' most ambitious attempt, with a large-scale new creation of myths in the Crow poems to refute and refute traditional Christian notion of God's love by means of a mythical counter-image in order to express the actual reality of modernity with its destructive forces in an appropriate modern poetic form. Crow is a trickster figure who simultaneously portrays God, adversary of God, demon and animal in one. In its brutality, Crow is reminiscent of literary figures such as Shakespeare's King Lear or Seneca's tragedy Oedipus, which Hughes had previously edited. If this collection of poems initially resembles an anti- theodicy , a fundamental trust in the power of life only becomes noticeable towards the end.

In the 1977 volume Gaudette , Hughes mixes prose and poetry and chooses a basic narrative structure. The story is about the Anglican pastor Nicholas Lumb, who is kidnapped by ghosts and replaced by a doppelganger. At a later point, Lumb reappears as a wanderer through Western Ireland and sings songs in honor of the Mother of God in the epilogue . In Cave Birds in 1975 Hughes again processed mystical elements, while in 1979, in Remains of Elmet, he was guided by photographs by Fay Godwin, which attempt to capture the landscapes in Yorkshire. In the volumes Moortown (1979) and River (1983) Hughes thematically focuses on the regenerative power of nature as a permanent element. In Moortown he describes everyday experiences on his father-in-law's farm from his second marriage to Carol Orchard; In River , he designs the appearance of a river from different perspectives and once again proves the breadth of his lyrical work.

The children's book "The Iron Man" in 1989 was the basis for a rock musical of the same name by Pete Townshend and was 1999 by Brad Bird an animated film titled " The Iron Giant " (The Iron Giant) filmed. Among other things, the film won the prestigious BAFTA award for best children's film of the year. He was also active as a translator. a. by works by Frank Wedekind and Federico García Lorca . From 1984 until his death, Ted Hughes was the so-called poet laureate , the national poet appointed by the British Queen. He was succeeded in this position by Andrew Motion .

His last work Birthday Letters was published a few months before his death and can be understood as a reappraisal of his relationship with Sylvia Plath. It became a bestseller and won a number of awards. Shortly before his death, Hughes was accepted into the prestigious Order of Merit (OM) by Queen Elizabeth II , whose regular membership is limited to just 24 people. In the same year he was awarded the TS Eliot Prize . On October 28, 1998, Edward James Hughes died of a heart attack at the age of 68 after suffering from cancer . The funeral service for him took place in North Tawton, after which he was cremated in Exeter . His ashes were scattered on Dartmoor .

In 2003 the film Sylvia was made with Gwyneth Paltrow and Daniel Craig in the leading roles. The film covers the relationship between Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath from their first meeting until Sylvias suicide. In her 2015 novel Jij zegt het (German: You say it, 2016), the Dutch writer Connie Palmen describes the relationship with Sylvia Plath from Ted Hughes' perspective.

During his lifetime, Hughes faced numerous criticisms or even hostility; In addition to complicity in his wife's suicide, he was accused of primitivism, the glorification of violence (poetry of violence), thematic narrowness, anti-rationalism and mythopoetic condensation. Posthumously , however, Hughes was almost unanimously declared by literary critics to be one of the most distinctive poets of the second half of the 20th century.

Important works

  • The Hawk in the Rain. (1957)
  • Lupercal. (1960)
  • Where. (1967)
  • Poetry in the Making. (Essays on Writing) (1967)
  • Crow. From the Life and the Songs of the Crow. (1970)
  • Gaudete. (1977)
  • Cave Birds. (1978)
  • Remains of Elmet. (1979)
  • Moortown. (1979)
  • River. (1983)
  • Flowers and Insects. (1986)
  • Wolf watching. (1989)
  • Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being. (Study on Shakespeare) (1992)
  • Winter pollen. Occassional Prose. (Essays) (1994)
  • Difficulties of a bridge room. (Short Stories) (1995)
  • Birthday letters. (1998)

For children:

  • How the Whale Became.
  • The Iron Man.
  • The Iron Woman.
  • Tales of the Early World.
  • The Dreamfighter and other Creation Tales.
  • Moon whales. (Poems)
  • Season songs. (Poems)
  • What is the truth. (Poems)
  • The Cat and the Cuckoo. (Poems)
  • The Mermaid's Purse. (Poems)

German translations:

  • Ted Hughes: Crow: From the Life and Songs of the Crow. (Translated by Elmar Schenkel )
  • Ted Hughes: Poems. (Translated by Ulrich Horstmann)
  • Ted Hughes: Birthday Letters. (Translated by Andrea Paluch and Robert Habeck )
  • Ted Hughes: The tiger doesn't kill. (Translated by Jutta and Wolfgang Kaußen)
  • Ted Hughes: How Poetry Is Made. (Essays, translated by Jutta Kaußen , Wolfgang Kaußen and Claas Kazzer)
  • Ted Hughes: Prometheus on his rock. Insel-Bücherei 1230 (translated by Jutta Kaußen)
  • Ted Hughes: Something has to stay. (Translated by Jutta and Wolfgang Kaußen)

For children:

  • Ted Hughes: The Iron Man. (Translated by U.-M. Gutzschhahn)
  • Ted Hughes: How the Whale Was Made and Other Stories. (Translated by Karin Polz)
  • Ted Hughes: The Trunk and Other Stories from the Beginning of the World. (Translated by U.-M. Gutzschhahn)

Setting of poems by Ted Hughes:

  • Paul Crabtree: Songs at Year's End. Four songs based on poems by Ted Hughes. For five-part mixed choir a cappella. Berlin 2006. (There came a Day; The Seven Sorrows; Snow and Snow; The Warm and the Cold)

literature

Web links

Commons : Ted Hughes  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ulli Kulke: Farewell: Nicholas Hughes, biologist (1962–2009) . In: Welt Online . March 26, 2009.
  2. ↑ See Bernhard Fabian (Ed.): The English literature. Volume 2: Authors. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 3rd edition, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-423-04495-0 , p. 215. See also Ulrich Horstmann: Hughes, Ted [Edward James]. In: Metzler Lexicon of English-Speaking Authors . 631 portraits - from the beginning to the present. Edited by Eberhard Kreutzer and Ansgar Nünning , Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2002, ISBN 3-476-01746-X , 666 pages (special edition Stuttgart / Weimar 2006, ISBN 978-3-476-02125-0 ), p. 284 f. See also Richard Webster's analysis of the lyrical works of Hughes: 'The Thought Fox' and the poetry of Ted Hughes. In: The Critical Quarterly. 1984. Retrieved September 14, 2017.
  3. ↑ See the entry Ted Hughes 1930–1998 on PoetryFoundation, accessed on September 13, 2017.
  4. ↑ See Bernhard Fabian (Ed.): The English literature. Volume 2: Authors. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 3rd edition, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-423-04495-0 , p. 215. See also [hetedhughessociety.org/wodwo/ Poetry by Ted Hughes - Wodwo ] on The Ted Hughes Society, accessed on 13. September 2017.
  5. ↑ See Bernhard Fabian (Ed.): The English literature. Volume 2: Authors. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 3rd edition, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-423-04495-0 , p. 215 f. See also Ulrich Horstmann: Hughes, Ted [Edward James]. In: Metzler Lexicon of English-Speaking Authors . 631 portraits - from the beginning to the present. Edited by Eberhard Kreutzer and Ansgar Nünning , Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2002, ISBN 3-476-01746-X , 666 pages (special edition Stuttgart / Weimar 2006, ISBN 978-3-476-02125-0 ), p. 284 f.
  6. ↑ See Bernhard Fabian (Ed.): The English literature. Volume 2: Authors. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 3rd edition, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-423-04495-0 , p. 216.
  7. ↑ Björn Hayer: Love, incurable . In: Spiegel Online . September 6, 2016.
  8. ↑ See Ulrich Horstmann: Hughes, Ted [Edward James]. In: Metzler Lexicon of English-Speaking Authors . 631 portraits - from the beginning to the present. Edited by Eberhard Kreutzer and Ansgar Nünning , Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2002, ISBN 3-476-01746-X , 666 pages (special edition Stuttgart / Weimar 2006, ISBN 978-3-476-02125-0 ), p. 284 .
personal data
SURNAME Hughes, Ted
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hughes, Edward James
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British writer
DATE OF BIRTH 17th August 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Mytholmroyd , West Yorkshire, England
DATE OF DEATH October 28, 1998
Place of death London