An Ecological Study Of Ted Hughes's Poetry

Ted Hughes is one of the most representative poets in contemporary Britain and most of his poems have close relationship with nature and animals.Besides,violence also frequently appears in his poems,he is thus known as not only a “Nature Poet” as well as but also a “Violence Poet”.Although scholars and critics have always paid much attention to Ted Hughes' s poems,their studies are mainly revolved around a single poem sequence or only one poem.In addition,such researches approach his poems only from the perspective of natural ecology which deals with the relationship between man and nature,and therefore,the vision is not wide enough.This thesis has the opinion that Hughes' s ecological poems not only showed great concern over the relationship between human and nature but also the relationship between a man and another,man and society,and man and himself.Hughes keeps a watchful eye on the status of ecological imbalance,including natural ecology,social ecology and spiritual ecology;he also actively sought for the root of ecological crises and probed for a way out.It provides insights and references for this study.This thesis includes three parts.The first part gives a general introduction to the whole thesis including an overview of Ted Hughes and his poetry,literature review,motivation and significance of the study,research methodology and questions as well as ecocriticism theory and its feasibility in Ted Hughes' Poetry.The main body of the thesis analyzes Ted Hughes' s poetry from three aspects.That is,consciousness of ecological crisis,healing power of Hughes' s poetry and ecological convergence.Primarily,crisis of natural ecology in Ted Hughes' s poetry including environment pollution and abnormal climate,which mainly states environmental problems,thus his awareness of environmental crisis is revealed.The paper finds that Hughes condemns the anthropocentric encroachment of human beings on nature and he never hesitates to admit the intrinsic value of nature.Secondly,this section mainly focuses on the crisis of social ecology in Ted Hughes' s poetry in order to probe into the indifference between humans and their moral degeneration.Hughes criticizes the limits of scientific method and technocracy and holds that civilization is rooted in nature.Thus,he subverts the dichotomy between civilization and nature,and puts forward his thinking on social ecology that society and civilization should keep a balanced development with nature;thirdly this thesis analyzes the belief crisis and spiritual disillusionment of human beings from the angle of spirit ecology.Hughes thought that he lived in a turmoil era with profound changes in economy and society.Based on such a context,where industrial revolution viciously developed,materialism and the idea of taking technology as supreme took root in people's minds,people lost faith and felt confused as a result of the two world wars,depressed society and struggle among ideologies,which contributed to the crisis of spiritual ecology together with serious differentiation of relationship between the human and themselves.Then,this paper makes an analysis of healing power in Ted Hughes' s violence poetry including violence concept of Ted Hughes,vicious violence of human as well as benign violence of nature,so as to warn that people's destruction to nature is an irreparable vicious circulation and arouse people's attention to ecological issues.Meanwhile this part aims to further exploring the root of ecological crises and probing for a way out.The last part is the conclusion.In Hughes' s poems the three relationships,between man and nature,between man and the society and between man and self are interrelated,and thus,nature,society and spiritual world form a three-dimensional ecological entirety.The poet from various aspects shows his own ecological idea and the ecological problem faced by the human,alleviates and resolves the spirit crisis of the human through violence poetry,and confirms the great significance of nature in the whole ecological environment system.Hughes aims to call for people's attention to the ecological issues with his powerful poetry,and he also actively sought for the root of ecological crises and probed for a way out,that is,return to nature,not only to external nature but also to internal nature,and finally achieve the perfect harmonization of the world.