Ted Hughes’ Poetry of Manichaean Paradoxes

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Modern human life is a life of rushing through tasks, trying to get them done, and finish each day as much as we can, speeding to our next destination. At the end of the day, we are left exhausted and stressed out from the ‘fever’ and ‘fret’ in the mad pursuit of survival. Man’s struggle for existence leads to his quest for identity in the world of conflicting polarities. This conflict has led many philosophers, religious leaders and writers of past and present to offer varied solutions to this problem.
All religions and ancient mythologies have interpreted this state of human mind as a state of war between two paradoxical forces of good and evil. One such ancient mythology was Manichaeism, the religion of Mani, which originated in Mesopotamia in the third century A.D, posited a state of war between spirit and matter, good and evil, light and darkness, , creation and destruction, and so on. It was a synthetic religion which had drawn materials from all major religions of the world. Its mythology explained the present mixed state of things as the result of a partially successful assault by the darkness on the light, and the whole duty of man is to fight the forces of Darkness and bring about the final triumph of Light over Darkness. Mani holds matter to be the root of evil. Mortification of body, therefore, becomes a virtue in his system. All bodily desires are evil and they should be stifled and killed, largely by ascetic practices. It gave the theory of the ‘Three moments’: (1) The Former Time (2) The Present Time (3) The Future Time.
In The Former Time, there existed only Light and Darkness. The nature of Light was wisdom, and that of Darkness was folly.
In The Present Time, Darkness invades Light and Light, in turn, enters...

... middle of paper ...

...animal world, and above all, the inner world of man. Instead of shutting his eyes to the metaphysical and spiritual questions about life, Hughes tries to go to their bottom in his quest for identity in the civilized world. Hughes’ poems are therefore, an attempt at meditation, or reconciliation of the paradoxical forces lurking in human psyche. In short, the reading of his poems would substantiate the Manichaean quest for identity in the temporal world.

Works Cited

1. Terry Gifford and Neil Roberts, Ted Hughes: A Critical Study (London: Faber & Faber, 1981), P.14
2. The Listener, September 19, 1963
3. Thomas West , Ted Hughes (London,Methuen,1985) p.16
4. Anthony Thwaite, Poetry Today (London: Longman, 1985 ) p.59
5. Ted Hughes, Poetry in the Making, p.57
6. Ibid., p.62
7. Thomas West, Ted Hughes (London,Methuen,1985) p.59
8. London Magazine, January 1971.

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