Ted Hughes Critics

"In the old world God and divine power were invoked at any cost - life seemed worthless without them. In the present world we dare not invoke them" ... "The old method is the only one."

"My poems are not about violence but vitality. Animals are not violent, they're so much more completely controlled than men."

"The reason for the problem about 'violence' in Hughes's work is his determination to acknowledge the predatory, destructive character of nature, of which man is a part, and not to moralize about it."

"the poems were reminders that we are all part of the same fabric"

"the means by which the surrounding world could suddenly be translated, understood, and experienced."

"the work of a poet whose great exploit was to bring the inner workings of the human brain out into the wide world, and at the same time draw the outside world into the mind."

the struggle "to establish a masculine identity is evoked repeatedly in Hughes' work"

"Hughes' nature had to include suffering, predation, decay and death."

"His vision for a while was of a world made of blood, of nature as monstrous."

"Hughes' words burn our hearts with love of Creation, but also with purifying guilt at what we have done to it and to ourselves."