Analysing Ted Hughes and Liz Lochheads poems
Ted Hughes, Britain's Poet Laureate and easily the most well-known poet of his generation, died of cancer on October 28th 1998. Born August 17, 1930 in Mytholmroyd, a former mill town in the Yorkshire Pennines, Hughes came from humble origins, his father a World War I veteran, carpenter and later shop-keeper. Whatever drove Hughes to become a poet, one of the main influences he cited was the musicality of the West Yorkshire dialect: "Whatever other speech you grow up into, presumably your dialect stays alive in a sort of inner freedom, a separate little self".
Many people believe that's Hughes' poems were miserable and dark .However in answer to this he said ""My poems are not about violence but vitality... about the split personality of modern man, the one behind the constructed, spoilt part."
Liz Lochhead was born in Motherwell (Lancashire) in 1947 and attended Glasgow School of Art.
Hughes Stadium
Naval officers standing with William Morris Hughes
Hughes OH-6A CayuseHer outstanding works include Dreaming Frankenstein and Collected Poems, published in 1984. Liz Lochhead has also worked in other fields of the art world including broadcasting as a performing poet and also has experience as a dramatist. She continues to live in her home city of Glasgow. The feminist movement in English literature, to which Liz Lochhead contributed has existed since the beginning of the nineteenth century.
In this coursework I will be analysing poems from both Liz Lochhead and Ted Hughes and then comparing both poets. First I will be comparing Hughes
One of Hughes closest friends once stated that "Hughes' admiration of nature is often set against his lack of admiration of man. These things are balanced against each other in several of his poems such as wind"
In Wind, there is a conflict between the man and the power...