Ted Hughes
born Aug. 16, 1930, Mytholmroyd,
Yorkshire, Eng.
died Oct. 28, 1998, London
English poet whose most characteristic verse
is without sentimentality, emphasizing the
cunning and savagery of animal life in
harsh, sometimes disjunctive lines.
At Pembroke College, Cambridge, he found
folklore and anthropology of particular
interest, a concern that was reflected in a
number of his poems. In 1956 he married the
American poet Sylvia Plath. The couple moved
to the United States in 1957, the year that
his first volume of verse, The Hawk in the
Rain, was published. Other works soon
followed, including the highly praised
Lupercal (1960) and Selected Poems (1962,
with Thom Gunn, a poet whose work is
frequently associated with Hughes’s as
marking a new turn in English verse).
Hughes stopped writing poetry almost
completely for nearly three years following
Plath’s suicide in 1963 (the couple had
separated earlier), but thereafter he
published prolifically, with volumes of
poetry such as Wodwo (1967), Crow (1970),
Wolfwatching (1989), and New Selected Poems,
1957–1994 (1995). In his Birthday Letters
(1998), he addressed his relationship with
Plath after decades of silence.
Hughes wrote many books for children,
notably The Iron Man (1968; also published
as The Iron Giant; film 1999). Remains of
Elmet (1979), in which he recalled the world
of his childhood, is one of many
publications he created in collaboration
with photographers and artists. He
translated Georges Schehadé’s play The Story
of Vasco from the original French and shaped
it into a libretto. The resulting opera,
from which significant portions of his text
were cut, premiered in 1974. A play based on
Hughes’s original libretto was staged in
2009. His works also include an adaptation
of Seneca’s Oedipus (1968), nonfiction
(Winter Pollen, 1994), and translations. He
edited many collections of poetry, such as
The Rattle Bag (1982, with Seamus Heaney). A
collection of his correspondence, edited by
Christopher Reid, was released in 2007 as
Letters of Ted Hughes. In 1984 Hughes was
appointed Britain’s poet laureate.
