Examine the significance and treatment of the natural world in the poetry of one or more writers from the module. The poets Ted Hughes and Dylan Thomas.

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EN1 014 – Twentieth-Century English Poetry - An Introduction

Martin Matthews

Total Words – 1713

Word used in Quotes – 203

Word Count - 1510

Examine the significance and treatment of the natural world in the poetry of one or more writers from the module.

The poets Ted Hughes and Dylan Thomas both explore the beauty of the natural world and at the same time the cruelty and violence contained in it.  This is apparent in Hughes’s poem ‘Pike’.

Pike, Three inches long, perfect

Pike in all parts, green tigering the gold.

Hughes uses the opening two lines of the poem to express the magnificence of the pike and how the pike would seem to be ‘perfect’ in every way.

Killers from the egg the malevolent aged grin

In the third line due to the introduction of ‘killers’ Hughes breaks the ‘perfect’ image of the Pike in the poem.  The audience is made to realise due to the juxtaposition of beauty and violence, that this perfect creation of nature is made to kill and destroy other ‘perfect’ creations.  Of course it could be said that the pike is a ‘perfect’ killer, so therefore the pike is still perfect, the perfect predator.  

They dance on the surface among the flies.

Or move, stunned by their own grandeur,

Over a bed of emerald, silhouette

Of submarine delicacy and horror.

The above quote is an example of the contrast between the beauty and ugliness of nature.  When Hughes personifies the pikes and makes them ‘dance’ he gives them a harmless image.  While the pikes are dancing ‘among the flies’ it could almost be a scene from a cartoon or a child’s story and the pike is just an innocent character.  The motion of dancing is not associated with a predator, indeed the personification of a pike dancing on the surface makes the pike out to be having fun, rather than trying to kill.  Hughes momentarily takes away the pikes ‘evil’ and predator tendencies replacing them with a far more likeable pike, which has the innocence of a child that can do no harm.

Hughes describes the pikes as being grandiose and being ‘stunned’ by this.  Once again Hughes uses personification to enforce how perfectly made these organisms are by giving the pikes the ability to be stunned by their own magnificence.  This perfection and ‘grandeur’ is destroyed once again, through Hughes describing what goes on underneath the fairy tail pike on the surface.  The significance of Hughes doing this is to bring the pikes and nature into the world that we as people live in and understand.  Hughes makes organisms such as the pike a person in their own right, that we can understand or feel disgusted with for the way they prey on others.  It would be fair to say that Hughes draws parallels with humans and the world of nature; the pike is merciless as are a lot of people.  Indeed the dancing pike on the surface can be compared to a person who is pleasant and seems like they can be trusted.  However as with the ‘horror’ that goes on underneath the dancing pike, Hughes could be saying who knows what kind of horror goes on underneath a person’s front.  

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‘He was Wordsworth soaked in blood and cruelty, bleak and euphoric. He changed the face of English literature’.  Hughes in the previous quote was compared to the poet ‘William Wordsworth’.  It could be said that in many respects Hughes’s

poetry follows a similar theme to Worsdworth's poetry.

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze

Hughes like Wordsworth explores the beauty of the natural world, the ‘host of golden daffodils’ is similar ...

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