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Ted Hughes: The Life of a Poet

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TED HUGHES: THE LIFE OF A POET by Elaine Feinstein was a fabulously engaging read about the "other half" of the famous Sylvia Plath-Suicide Poet story. Hughes, born in Yorkshire, read English, Anthropology and Archeology at Cambridge, and met Plath, the ambitious American while she was on a Fulbright to Cambridge, after he had graduated. Their meeting was violent and dramatic (she bit him on the cheek when they kissed at a party he had brought another date to), and they quickly married. They had two children, and after she discovered his affair with another woman, they separated. During a harsh London winter, Plath killed herself by putting her head in an oven and leaving on the gas, and Hughes suffered the weight of that death for pretty much the rest of his life. That's the short story. The long version, as told in Feinstein's book is fair, multilayered, well and accessibly written, and includes informative critical comments of his work, and follows the path of his career. After Plath's death, Hughes maintained a relationship with the object of his affair, Assia Wevill, and other women. She had a daughter with him, and suffering her own depression, she killed herself AND their daughter within 10 years of Sylvia's death. Hughes was marked by some feminists as a horror of a husband, which was based on Sylvia's own viewpoint in her poems (poems that Hughes published, even though he was horrified at Sylvia's use of personal incidents for public poetry). Later, Hughes married a woman named Carol Orchard, and they were married for nearly 30 years. He also seems to have had numerous affairs in his life, and yet found Carol to be a stabilizing influence. Feinstein's work is important because she gives us a fuller picture of Britain's Poet Laureate Hughes (a work she began after his death in 1998 from cancer). Hughes, in an effort to protect his children with Plath, Freida and Nicholas, liked to maintain privacy about his life with Plath (and also, one suspects, because he just WAS private). When his book of poems about Plath was published in the years before his death, BIRTHDAY LETTERS, positive feeling was overwhelming for him, as people read the beautiful poems that spelled out his love, fear, hurt, empathy and his sense of powerlessness in the face of Plath's need in his relationship with her. This is a book you may read with other books around. I got out Plath's COLLECTED POEMS and Hughes's LUPERCAL and BIRTHDAY LETTERS to refer to. I recommend this biography to anyone. The dramatic events of his life make this compelling to those who have never read a word of his poems, and it stands as well, as fine example of the art of biography alone. Feinstein, who knew Hughes socially after the death of Plath, is sympathetic to him, but fair, I felt. As the quote on the book states, this is a book that needed to be written. It was written well.

This biography is wonderfully written and compulsively readable. But most importantly, it finally sheds light on the full, real, complex people that Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath were. It also dispells and negates much of the awful Anne Stevenson/Olywn Hughes biography, "Bitter Fame".

This book captures the man that captured Plath. It's a much for all fans of both.

I know that a good number of people would purchase this biography on the basis of what new light could be shed on Ted Hughes' relationship with you-know-who, or through curiosity on what the infamous poet was really like, from birth to death, but either way, I think you'll be satisfied and a whole lot more once you put it down.

I checked this out at my local library and became immersed in every chapter in no time flat. The book is hard to put down because it is written extremely well and offers broad insight into everything that made Hughes who he was. It's obvious that Hughes was a very engaging presence even in childhood, and the biography, like so many others, inevitably plunges into his first meeting and ultimately unstable relationship with Sylvia Plath (an entire chapter serves as a quick summary of Plath's life before the fated meeting).

What separates this biography from, say, "Her Husband", is that after Plath commits suicide, the book carries on in Hughes' favor, chronicling his rather difficult life onward, indulging us with every detail as to the seemingly major damage done to his reputation in the wake of Plath and Assia's suicide, his short-lived relationships with the few women in his later years, his artistic struggles, and his eventual redemption. The book does not glorify him or draw a biased line just because it's his biography, although some would beg to differ; it simply tells it like it is. Some moments of his life were great, but most were rife with darkness, and it makes you understand that he was not a man to be hated for his indiscretions, but a man to be cherished for his grand vision and bold demeanor. There is no question that he and Plath, two extraordinary poets that made each other famous, have made their peace in the afterlife.

I am appalled by the factual inaccuracy and imbalance of this book.

Stylistically much of it is overdone beginning with chapter titles such as "The Last Flowering". In addition, the author's tendency to sensationalize, often mixed with a disturbing tendency to force conclusions from unrelated facts, falsifies her account, as in: "William [Hughes' father] had golden hair which, as a child, Ted liked to comb, learning as he did so the fragility of the human skull beneath" [p. 7] or "The discovery that he could never look forward again to more than occasional visits from his brother knocked Ted out, as he put it, even though he received the Gold Medal for poetry in 1974." [p. 186]

Even when referring to original texts Feinstein manages to embellish and falsely paraphrase. On p. 8 she claims Hughes' "The Deadfall" told of a woman "dreaming of the cries of dying men on the night of the Normandy landings." [p. 8] But the story only tells us of a character who, on the night in question, becomes increasingly agitated, gets out of bed and looks out of the window to see that "above the church, the whole sky was throbbing with flashing crosses." ["The Deadfall" 1].

Feinstein does not bring across the Sylvia Plath whom Hughes was fascinated by, whom he loved. And though a published poet herself, she even fails to do justice to Plath's (and Hughes') poetry. Throughout this book, poetry is repeatedly dunked into a shallow interpretation of biography, very effectively depriving it of any other life and foreclosing other possible readings. So we are told that "the focus of 'Daddy'" were "crucially on Sylvia's masochism, a common enough element in female sexuality, which feminism is unlikely to eradicate" [p. 132] or that "Sylvia's image of Hughes as a vampire substitute for her dead father with a 'Meinkampf look' and 'a love of the rack and the screw' would live in the minds of readers for nearly half a century [...]." [p. 132-3] Never does it seem to occur to Feinstein that a 'criticism' like her own caused this situation. Plath's poem never mentions Hughes and it was years after its publication that the questionable interpretation of the male figure in the poem as Ted Hughes became fashionable. Feinstein, however, chooses to unreflectingly repeat the verdict.

The distribution of chapters is highly imbalanced but telling: Compare 16 pages (1 chapter) of "Childhood" spanning 20 years (1930-50), with some 151 pages (10 chapters) spanning eighteen years (1951-69), with a meagre 66 pages (7 chapters) dedicated to the remaining 29 very active years until Hughes' death. Worse than Feinstein's pre-occupation with the more colourful facets of this "Life of a Poet" (affairs and such) is her large ignorance towards aspects of Hughes' life and work which may ultimately be more important to the reader in the long term.

So, she manages this "Life of a Poet" without an explanation or an understanding of many topics which considerably influenced Hughes' writing and outlook. There is nothing substantial on Hughes' ideas of art or his interest in mythology and folklore, or environmentalism and education, nor on such topics as Shamanism, Astrology and Alchemy. Nor is there anything substantial on his poetics or on central poetic themes, which pre-occupied him.

A majority of works are only mentioned or given flimsy paragraphs outlining the general context (e.g. "Cave Birds", "Wodwo" or "Remains of Elmet"). Of over a dozen major children's books Feinstein mentions "How the Whale Became" and includes brief notes on "What is the Truth?" and "The Iron Man", which barely scratch the surface [cf. p. 175 on "The Iron Man"]. Feinstein also ignores major essays, which would, as a side effect, have thrown light on Hughes' general outlook.

Where Feinstein does offer literary criticism, she often presents herself as clueless. So she describes "Gaudete" as "a puzzling book" [p. 203] and does not seem interested in attempting to overcome that first impression. Instead we are given a highly superficial and biased summary of other people's responses to "Gaudete" - in the typical jumble of off-the-point remarks (to colour her argument) and unrelated (and unverifiable) assertions (1st sentence): "Whatever reason Hughes had for choosing this story inside his failing marriage to Sylvia Plath in 1962, it was Faas's knowledge of the two suicides in Hughes' life that lead him to read the poem as 'personal'. Both Keith Sagar and Ann Skea offer interpretations of the poem, which see spiritual resurrection rather than misogyny as the source. Michael Schmidt - the poet, critic and publisher - described the book as 'appalling'. Yet a Yorkshire poet of another generation, Simon Armitage, wrote an admiring letter of praise to Hughes about Gaudete, as if he intuited something of what Hughes had in mind." [p. 204] Such 'criticism' gets the reader nowhere.

Feinstein even ignores the well-known record of Hughes' publications if it fits her need for content in support of her legend. As if there were no Laureate publications to write about, she falsely chooses poems from the 1970s to characterize Hughes' poetic voice in the 80s. [p. 224] But not only are these poems ("Moortown Diary", 1989) re-publications from 1979 - most of them, like "Ravens", which she quotes, are even dated! - Feinstein's choice appears even more peculiar if one considers the fact that she had already (correctly) mentioned "Moortown Diary" in the 70's context [cf. 194-5].

Taken as a whole, "The Life of a Poet" is a poor excuse for a biography. Feinstein's ignorance towards the work of Ted Hughes and towards major aspects of his life is incredible for a book which claims to "attempt to understand the man behind the poems and to tell the history of his life as he experienced it." [p. 1]. And although it contains many interesting facts and details, the overall factual account is patchy and inaccurate, while the literary criticism offered is often weak or questionable.

This is not a bad book. It is well structured. It is elegantly written.

As background for a curious general reader, it is admirable. But it fails to paint the essential picture of Hughes.

For this and other generations, a large, all-encompasing work, examining Hughs' life, poetry and sources of inspiration, is badly needed to put this major writer of the 20th century in true perspective.

This book, though well written, contains far too much information on Plath. True, we must understand Plath to get at Hughes, but the book seems to be telling the chapters on Plath from her point of view. I would like to see a biography of Hughes from solely his point of view b/c he deserves that.

Hughes as a callow husband is a caricature. He was born in Yorkshire in 1930. His father had served in the Lancashire Fusiliers in the First World War. World War II gave Ted Hughes the opportunity to learn to cope with material scarcity. The 1944 Education Act enabled any brilliant student to pursue admission to Oxbridge. He attended Mexborough Grammar School. In 1948 he won an Open Competition to Pembroke College, Cambridge. His personal canon of poets by then included Rilke, Yeats, Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Keats, and Hopkins. After national service, he entered Pembroke in 1951 to read English. Hughes felt that for reason of social rancour, the university was a destructive experience for him. He had natural reserve and natural good manners and made an impression on contemporaries. He found it hard to write poetry as an undergraduate, but his dedication to becoming a poet did not lessen. Ted was fascinated by the theories of Robert Graves.

Ted Hughes married Sylvia Plath when she was at Cambridge on a Fulbright Scholarship. In some respects the couple wanted to live like D.H. Lawrence and Frieda. Sylvia, though, was not really suited to a vagabond life. She sought a secure existence in financial terms. Fortunately Ted looked forward to meeting American poets at Smith College where Sylvia was to be an instructor. He found it difficult to function in America. Leaving Horthampton for a freelance writing life in Boston pleased Ted but made Sylvia anxious. In 1959 the couple was determined to return to England. Ted, among other things, feared American conformity.

In April 1959 Ted was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. He wrote material for the BBC. Much of Ted's spirit was sacrificed to placate Sylvia. By this time Frieda had been born. The family moved to Court Green in Devon in 1961. At that time THE BELL JAR was completed. Ted became convinced, in retrospect, that it had been an error to move to Devon. Nicholas was born in 1962. Ted and Sylvia separated after Ted developed a friendship with Assia Wevill. Nevertheless, they went as a couple to Ireland, and made plans to go to Spain. Sylvia was writing. In her intense love of syllables she resembled Ezra Pound.

Sylvia sought a divorce, not Ted. By December 1962 she had moved back to London. Ted gave her money and lived on funds borrowed from his aunt. In the final week of her life Sylvia confessed to Ted that a divorce was the last thing she wanted. Assia felt her own life was linked to Ted's through Sylvia's death. Ted was determined to publish Sylvia's last poems. He considered them stunning. Olwyn, Ted's sister, was to help with the children. Ted became an advocate for other poets. He supported poetry in translation. Poetry was seen as a spiritual strength. Sylvia Plath's worldwide fame was posthumous.

Ted lost his mother, Assia, and their daughter Shura around the same time. In 1970 he married Carol Orchard. Hughes released his copyright claim to Aurelia Plath to enable her to publish LETTERS HOME.
The problem was that Sylvia Plath's letters were not an accurate statement of the facts. The portrait that emerged of Hughes was extremely damaging.

Vilified by Sylvia's supporters, Ted was urged by friends to tell his own story. He was appointed Poet Laureate December, 1984. Ted came to feel that he had made a mistake in suppressing Sylvia's personal problems. He had sought to protect the feelings of his children and Sylvia's mother. Anne Stevenson's book, BITTER FAME, came out in 1989.

In the end Ted decided that in poetry he must confront his ghosts. BIRTHDAY LETTERS, 1997, tells his own story. He died of a heart attack in 1998. Ted Hughes discovered his poetic voice early. This book details the ruses a major poetic talent was compelled to use to circumvent the downward pull of Plath's mega-fame. Everyone will enjoy reading how Ted Hughes averted a catastrophic blow to his own life prospects. He was very steady in output and very brave.

Elaine Feinstein writes clearly and with fairness and affection about Ted Hughes. She gives a general idea of his life. She does not however really try to deal with the central moral question about Hughes life and work. And this is the question of his relation to women and why two central relationships in his life ended in disaster.

Feinstein also does not write about Hughes wife of many years, nor really about his children. The picture we then have is very incomplete.

There is a sense of some kind of ' cover-up' and this is increased when it becomes apparent that not only was Feinstein a friend of Hughes she was a quite close friend of Hughes sister who has a major part in the whole Plath controvery .

There too is no deep reading of the poetry.

Nonetheless there is an appreciation of Hughes relation to his parents his brother and his sister, his Yorkshire background. The true biography of Hughes however waits to be written.

Its a pity my review comes late in the queue, because this book is not as bad as other reviewers make out.

Essentially, this book is a history of Ted Hughes life. It makes no great claims to interpret his ideas inside the covers. What I liked about this book was its attempt to make a balanced description of what happened with Sylvia Plath and the other significant people in his life. The author avoids the rancor and emotionalism that must certainly have engulfed Ted in the years subsequent to Sylvias suicide.

Its the first account of Ted I have read which suggests that although he had a weakness for beautiful women, he was very patient and kind with Sylvia and tried to help her even after their separation. He continued to support her growing fame after her death. In this book he comes over as a likeable, thoughtful man  a gentle giant amidst circumstances fraught with extremity.

Elaine Feinstein, British poet and writer, herself an acquantaince of Hughes, succeeded in writing a fine and clear account of Hughes' prolific career as a poet. This book is very non-biased, well researched, and expertly written. Feinstein taps into Hughes' unique and artistic interpretation of the world, and shows how is poetry reflects that. Feinstein writes that Hughes himself "was not writing to stun or to startle, but to understand," and Feinstein achieves as well a clear understanding of Hughes in his own right, not as the murderous mysogynist some may believe him to be. She focuses on Hughes' interest in mysticism, folk talkes, the occult, British as well as world literature, and his strong sense of individualism. Brilliant book, I'd reccomend it strongly to any interested in Hughes, Plath, or poetry.