“What happens in the heart simply happens” is a famous quote from Ted Hughes. Ted Hughes was a man of love. Hughes was known for many of his children books and famous poems. Hughes is also greatly known for holding the title of British Poet Laureate from 1984 until his death. Love was an important aspect of Ted Hughes life and two poems: Love Song and September.
Ted Hughes was born August 17, 1930 in Yorkshire, England. His parents were Edith Hughes and William Henry. His father was a carpenter. Hughes had two siblings Owlyn and Gerald Hughes.5 At the age 7, Hughes’ family moved to Mexborough and Hughes began collecting toy lead creatures. After high school Hughes entered the Royal Air Force where he served two years as a ground wireless mechanic. Once Hughes was discharged from the Air Force he attended Pembroke College. Hughes studied English on an academic scholarship. In 1948, Hughes won an Open Exhibition to a Cambridge University. Hughes met Sylvia Plath while attending Pembroke. He graduated in 1954 and married Plath two years later. Plath encouraged most of Hughes works and was a very supportive wife. Hughes lived in Massachusetts with Plath and taught at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. They returned to England in 1959. Plath and Hughes had their first child Frieda in 1960.1 Two years later their second child Nichols was born. In 1962 Hughes divorced Plath for Assia Gutmann Wevill. Less than a year later, Plath committed suicide. In 1965 Assia gave birth to her and Hughes only child Shura. In 1969 Assia committed suicide, also killing Shura.4
In 1970 Hughes met and married Carol Orchard and the couple lived on a small farm in Devon. They stayed happily married until his death. During Hughes lifetime he published...
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...id not want to part, his death parted them. Hughes was a very successful man during his lifetime. He published many successful works like Birthday Letters (1998). Hughes also received many awards such as British Poet Laureate (1984-Death). Hughes died of cancer. He is remembered as a talented writer.
Work Cited
(4)Feinstein, Elaine. Ted Hughes: the life of a poet. New York: Norton, 2003. Print.
(3) Hughes, Ted. Birthday letters. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1998. Print.
(2)Plath, Sylvia, and Ted Hughes. The collected poems. New York: Harper & Row, 1981. Print.
(1)"Ted Hughes." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 6 Apr. 2014. .
(5)"Ted Hughes - Poetry Archive." Ted Hughes - Poetry Archive. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Apr. 2014. .
In order to fully analyze this piece, one must know the writer, some background on Hughes is that he was born on February 1, 1902. His parents divorced while he was still just a child, which
Hughes mother went through protracted separations and reconciliations in her second marriage (she and her son from this marriage would live with him off and on in later years. He was raised by alternately by her, by his maternal grandmother, and, after his grandmother’s death, by family friends. By the time he was fourteen, he had lived in Joplin; Buffalo; Cleveland; Lawrence, Kansas; Mexico City; Topeka, Kansas; Colorado Springs; Kansas City; and Lincoln, Illinois. In 1915, he was class poet of his grammar-school graduating class in Lincoln. From 1916 to 1920, he attended Central High School in Cleveland, where he was a star athlete, wrote poetry and short stories (and published many of them in the Central High Monthly), and on his own read such modern poets as Paul Laurence Dunbar, Edgar Lee Masters, Vachel Lindsay, and Carl Sandburg. His classmates were for the most part the children of European immigrants, who treated him largely without discrimination and introduced him to leftist political ideas.
While studying in England, Sylvia Plath met Ted Hughes, an English poet. Plath married Hughes on December 7, 1956. Plath and Hughes moved back to the United States in 1957. While in the country, Plath worked as a professor at Smith College teaching English Language and Literature; however in 1959, Plath gave up teaching and moved back to England to continue her writing. In 1960, Hughes and Plath had their first child, Frieda. Two years later, the couple had their son Nicholas. The same year Nicholas was born, Hughes left Plath for another woman. Hughes affair greatly impacted Plath’s writing as well as her other relationships with men such as her father’s. (Smithipedia)
Rampersad, Arnold. "Introduction.(THREE POEMS BY LANGSTON HUGHES)(Critical Essay)." Poetry 4 (2009): 327. Academic OneFile. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.
Aurelia Schober, Plath’s mother, was studying at Boston University when she fell in love with her professor that taught German and biology, Otto Plath, whom she would marry in January 1932. Later in that same year on October 27, Plath was born to the couple. Plath’s father passed away when she was only eight. (Academy of American Poets) From then on, Plath began publishing her poems. In everything she did, she strived towards being flawless; she had straight A’s, was a good daughter, and earned prestigious prizes (Gilson). Schober aided in pushing her daughter towards excellence and always made sure Plath knew how proud she was of her. In fact, Sylvia’s mother collected her daughter’s achievements and praised her highly for them (Liukkonen). By 1950, she had been given a scholarship to attend Smith College and had hundreds of publications, which she would add to substantially in the time she spent at Smith (Gilson).
Plath, Sylvia. The Journals of Sylvia Plath. Ed. Ted Hughes and Frances McCullough. New York: Ballantine Books, 1982.
Hughes, Langston. The Big Sea: An Autobiography by Langston Hughes. New York: Hill and Wang, 1940.
Anb.org, (2014). American National Biography Online: Hughes, Howard. [online] Available at: http://www.anb.org/articles/10/10-01809.html [Accessed 5 May. 2014].
Plath was born in the seaside town of Winthrop, Massachusetts during the year of 1932. In her first eight years of life, Plath was troubled with the birth of a new sibling, the death of a parent, and the start of a war. These eight years were the calm before the stormy life of Sylvia Plath. As an only child, Plath felt threatened by the new baby in the family. Her new sibling, Warren, sparked a disdain for children that Plath would harbor for the rest of her life. In 1940, Plath’s father died and essentially robbed the children of a proper relationship with their mourning mother. The family moved inland where Plath focused on writing poetry until she began to attend Smith College in 1950.
As England’s Poet Laureate, and recipient of both the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry and T.S. Eliot’s prize for poetry, Ted Hughes was an acclaimed poet. The shadow of Hughes late wife, Sylvia Plath, kept Hughes stagnant in his career, in which he was known as “Her Husband” (Middlebrook). Hughes most recent collection of poems, Birthday Letters, took him over twenty-five years to write, and contains poems which recount the marriage of the couple. Hughes wrote the poems as a loving gesture towards Sylvia, but the poems were misinterpreted as “an attempt to adjust the public record in the wake of her confession and the mass of commentary which has grown up around them” (Spurr 3). Hughes incorporated into his poetry the ideals of postmodernism, his somber life and relationships, simplistic formatting, imagery, and allusions. Hughes influenced the world through his animal images and multifarious tones.
Hughes' racial identity was formed from both a myriad of influences that accumulated over his life and also by the shadows of events that happened before his birth. Hughes' young life was segmented into distinctly different times with distinctly different influence. Which relative he lived with and which city, state, or country he was residing in all seemed to be constantly changing and constantly dividing up his li...
Ferguson, Margaret W. , Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy. The Norton Anthology Of Poetry. shorter fifth edition. New York, New York: W W Norton & Co Inc, 2005. print.
Poems, Poets, Poetry: An Introduction and Anthology. 3rd ed. Ed. Helen Vendler. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s,
According to “Sylvia Plath” Sylvia Plath struggled with severe depression throughout her life. She first experienced depression during her third year of college because of insecurities and self-esteem issues. Furthermore, Plath’s troubled marriage with Ted Hughes fueled her depression later in life; he had cheated on her with a younger woman and left her to raise their two children. Once again, she was overcome by self-esteem issues and anxiety that led her down a dark path. Plath attempted suicide three times, and she succeeded on her third attempt at the age of thirty. She died
Plath’s father died early in her life leaving her with unresolved feelings, and this brought a lot of troubles later on in life. Sylvia was a great student but when she was overwhelmed with disappointments after a month in New York, she attempted suicide (“Sylvia Plath”). After receiving treatment and recovering, she returned to school and later moved to England where she met her future husband, Ted Hughes (“Sylvia Plath”). Their marriage with two children didn’t last when Ted had an affair. They separated and Ted moved in with the new woman, leaving Sylvia and their two children. Battling depression during this time, Sylvia soon ended her life. She left behind numerous writings that many might see as signs of her depression and suicide attempts.