Analysis Of 'Disharmony' In Ted Hughes' Poems Based On Conceptual Blending Theory

Ted Hughes is one of the most famous British Laureate poets. He has a great love for nature and is well-known for his nature poems. The intensity of violence in his poems has attracted much attention in the literary world and well established him as"nature poet","animal poet"and"violence poet".Cognitive linguists argue that language is a sort of cognitive activities and it is a product of human perception of the objective world. Both using and understanding a language are cognitive operations. To understand poetry which is a special form of literary language, it undoubtly requires common cognition. Conceptual blending is a common human cognitive abilities as well as one cognitive model of cognitive strategies.This thesis applies conceptual blending theory to analyze"disharmony"in Ted Hughes'poems. By means of an integration-disintegration-integration analysis of nine poems of Ted Hughes, the thesis explores the theme of disharmony, namely,"the disharmony in nature","the disharmony between nature and human beings"and"the disharmony among human beings". After the analysis, we find that: 1) Conceptual blending can effectively analyze the"disharmony"in Hughes'poems and the"disharmony"is realized by the final emergent structure in the blend; 2) Pure one blending network of the four is not enough to reach the purpose of disclosing the"disharmony"in the poems. Most poems are multiple blends and the multiple blends can be regarded as continual blending of two basic blending networks. The thesis aims at illustrating that conceptual blending theory is an effective tool and means in interpreting literary works. It can further dredge up the meaning and philosophy in poems and contribute to bridge the gap between literature and linguistics. Besides, it offers another method to appreciate Hughes'poems.