Different Ways in Which Ted Hughes Portrays Nature in His Poems

Compare the different ways in which Ted Hughes portrays nature in his poems as well as themes and ideas, you should consider the poems techniques? Ted Hughes is an English poet who was inspired by nature at his homeland in Yorkshire and wrote countless poems on this topic. I have studied several poems (Thistles, The thought fox, the jaguar, the horses, Hawk roosting, Pike, and Ghost Crabs). Within these poems I am going to compare the ways and techniques in which Ted Hughes portrays nature using poetic technique and language.

Firstly Ted Hughes Uses personification to portray human senses and appearances, In ‘Thistles’ it says ‘fighting back over the same ground’ and ‘spike the summer air’ . These quotes from the poem create imagery as if the thistles have actually come alive and are fighting. This is used to make the poem interesting to the reader. Secondly in ‘Hawk Roosting’ it says ‘Nothing has changed since I began ‘. This poem is written from the hawks perspective . This is done so we as humans can see and relate to what the character and feelings of the hawk are.

The hawks’ thoughts portray its natural instincts in the wild, it says ‘I kill where I please because it is all mine’. This shows that Hawks are ruthless killing machines and think that they are top of the picking order. This technique brings the character alive and creates more satisfaction for the reader. Ted Hughes uses anthropomorphism which is writing from an animal’s perspective. This is only used in one of the poems I have studied called ‘hawk roosting’ . This technique is brilliant at portraying the natural characteristics of an animal.

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In Ted Hughes’ poem ‘The Horses’ he uses pathetic fallacy to alter the image of the animals. Ted Hughes writes ‘steaming and glistening under the flow of light’, this makes the horses seem Godly and magical. This technique creates imagery therefore making the moment in the poem special and unique. In many of Ted Hughes’ poems he makes nature seem superior to us. For example in ‘Pike’ he says ‘stunned by their own grandeur’ and ’past nightfall I dared not to cast’. These lines create the illusion that pike are dangerous large hunting animals that even humans should be scared of.

But all they are is small fish that eat smaller fish at the bottom of a pond. But yet they seem worse in the poem due to the way Ted Hughes has described them. Ted Hughes makes nature seem superior to us in ‘The Horses’ when he says ’steaming and glistening ‘and ‘with draped manes’ these lines make the horses seem magical and much better than us as they seem so pure and seem to have so much strength especially in the line ‘their hung heads as patient as the horizons’. This makes them seem like majestic statues standing there boldly and purely.

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