Ted Hughes’ Poetry of Healing

Abstract

Ted Hughes’ poetry is commonly associated with depictions of the often cruel and unforgiving world of animals and nature, and in this way does not immediately offer the impression of being a place in which to sensitively appreciate, let alone diagnose or ‘cure’, illnesses. Yet a number of his poems attempt just this. The evidence for Hughes’ conviction that poetry is an agent of healing is plentiful. It is testified to not only by his verse, but also in his letters and his translations of classical texts. A number of critical works support this claim, concentrating on the t herapeutic, healing powers invested in and exhibited by Hughes’ poetry.¹ The central concern here, however, is to consider Hughes’ depiction or understanding of illness; poetry may well harbour a bio-medical dimension so far as Hughes is concerned, one facilitating ‘a change in the psychic odds’ (LTH 703), but it is an approach which can give rise to problematic ethical as well as aesthetic issues.