Reading Ted Hughes

A brilliant new study of one of the great English poets of the 20th Century by a distinguished critic and scholar.This book opens with a section on Hughes's life including the relationship with Sylvia Plath and the effect of her suicide on his poetry and reputation followed by a review of Hughes's artistic strategies his poetic language and influences on his work. including the poets of Eastern Europe. The body of the book offers an approach to reading New Selected Poems (1995) taking in turn each of the remarkable and remarkably varied works from which the poems were selected - The Hawk in the Rain Lupercal Wodwo Crow Cave Birds Season Songs Gaudete Remains of Elmet Moortown Diary River and Wolfwatching. It concludes with a review of Hughes's reception and a six-page bibliography. Professor Roberts's books include Ted Hughes: A Critical Study (with Terry Gifford Faber 1981) D. H. Lawrence Travel and Cultural Difference (Palgrave 2004) and Ted Hughes: A Literary Life (Palgrave 2006.