Ted Hughes, Class and Violence

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Ted Hughes is widely regarded as a major figure in twentieth-century poetry, but the impact of Hughess class background on his work has received little attention. This is the first full length study to take the measure of the importance of class in Hughes. It presents a radically new version of Hughes that challenges the image of Hughes as primarily a nature poet, as well as the image of the Tory Laureate. The controversy over natural violence in Hughess early poems, Hughess relationship with Seamus Heaney, the Laureateship, and Hughess revisiting of his relationship with Sylvia Plath in Birthday Letters (1998), are reconsidered in terms of Hughess class background. Drawing on the thinking of cultural theorists such as Slavoj iek, Terry Eagleton, and Julia Kristeva, the book presents new political readings of familiar Hughes poems, alongside consideration of posthumously collected poems and letters, to reveal a surprising picture of a profoundly class-conscious poet.

Reviews

Overall this is an important addition to the field of Hughes studies that provides a basis for diverse new approaches to Hughess life and poetry. The books main strength lies in its synthesis of a wide range of rich materials: political, cultural, biographical and poetic. -- Carrie Smith, Cardiff University, UK * The Review of English Studies *
Bentley offers a Marxist reading of Hughes, distinguishing his own conclusions from those of other Marxist critics of the poet by concentrating on class and attempting to undo misreadings of Hughess intentions and sometimes unconscious inclinations. Bentley argues convincingly that Hughess early work is not at all blind to historys brutality. Bentley offers close readings of many of Hughess poems. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty. -- J. P. Baumgaertner, Wheaton College * CHOICE *
If in recent years we have seen the emergence of the other Sylvia Plath, Paul Bentley has given us the other Ted Hughes. Bentley shows that those labels often associated with Hughesnature poet, poet of violence, Darwinian primitivisthave obscured Hughess deep engagement with history, politics and biography. In a series of meticulous close readings, he reveals an ironist and self-parodist haunted by industrial slavery, colonial oppression, class warfare and parental trauma. Bentley suggests, convincingly, that we have been misreading Hughes all along: that his nature poems do not offer an illusory retreat from history, but rather a dark reflection of historys brutality. Ted Hughes, Class, and Violence is a groundbreaking study of a poet whose verse runs deep as England. * Heather Clark, Marlboro College, USA, *
The primary value of Bentleys book resides in how it drags this hitherto neglected dimension of Hughess work into the light and refuses to let it return to the shadows Weighing in at a mere 130 pages, this book is short and to the point Nevertheless, this remains a vibrant and valuable contribution to the burgeoning field of Hughes scholarship. -- S. J. Perry, University of Hull * English Studies *

Author Bio

Paul Bentley is Reader in English Literature at the University of St. Mark & St. John, Plymouth, UK. He is author of The Poetry of Ted Hughes: Language, Illusion & Beyond (1998) and Scientist of the Strange: The Poetry of Peter Redgrove (2002). He has published widely on modern poetry.