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The second edition (1978) of  my first book on Hughes has now been reissued by the Cambridge University Press at £20.

The back cover reads as follows:

Dr Sagar believes that when we see Ted Hughes' work as a whole, with each book a stage in a psychic adventure involving new stylistic challenge, we shall see it to be the achievement of a major poet. In this study of Ted Hughes, Dr Sagar gives most of his attention to individual poems, their meaning and coherence, their relation to each other and to the poetic tradition, their sources and background (often in mythology and folklore), and their relevance to living in our time. He began reading Hughes in 1957 when The Hawk in the Rain appeared, and has followed his development closely ever since: here, with benefit of hindsight, he attempts to retrace that journey. A chapter is devoted to each major work.

Since the first edition of this book appeared in 1975, Hughes published three important collections. Season Songs in 1976, Gaudete in 1977, and Cave Birds in 1978. All represent important stages in Hughes' development. For this second edition, Dr Sagar added a chapter on each of these, revised the earlier text, and brought the comprehensive bibliography up to 1978.

'Sagar is a convinced and, on the whole, convincing reader of Hughes' poems; he thinks they are among the superior achievements of modern poetry ... I am glad that Sagar's book will raise questions that are crucial not only to the reception of Hughes' poetry but to the definition of contemporary English feeling.'

Denis Donoghue, New Republic

 

I have written some two-thirds of a new critical study. Would any publisher interested in this book please contact me at keithsagar@tiscali.co.uk.

Summary:  I believe that some of Hughes' finest and most important work, for which all the earlier books are preparation, is to be found in the three collections published between 1979 and 1983, Moortown, Remains of Elmet and River. It is here that Hughes finally resolved the problems he had hitherto wrestled with in relation to nature and the female, and was able to worship the source of life in verse which is radiant, yet rooted in the elements - air, stone, earth, water. It is primarily on these volumes that I would base my claim that Hughes was the greatest Engish-language poet of the second half of the twentieth century. Surprisingly, these collections have received far less attention than Hughes' earlier and later work.

The book will trace the early influences, both biographical and literary, which shaped Hughes' sense of nature, then follow the development of this sense from his early horror of nature to his eventual worship if it. I shall also examine the way in which Hughes' attitude to nature colours his writings for children and his critical works, especially Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being.

Chapter Outline

Preface
Chapter 1	Prologue: Antecedents
Chapter 2	Influences
Chapter 3	The Hawk in the Rain, Lupercal, Wodwo
Chapter 4	Crow, Prometheus on his Crag
Chapter 5	'Myth and Education', 'The Environmental Revolution', 'Ted Hughes and Crow', 'Shakespeare's Poem',  'Orghast: Talking without Words'.
Chapter 6	Gaudete, Orts, Cave Birds, Adam and the Sacred Nine
Chapter 7	Moortown Diaries
Chapter 8	Earth Numb
Chapter 9	Remains of Elmet
Chapter 10	River
Chapter 11	What is the Truth?, The Iron Woman
Chapter 12	Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being, A Dancer to God, The Snake in the Oak
Appendix	Variant texts of Remains of Elmet
Bibliography
Index

'The Thought-Fox' is, for many readers, especially young readers, their favourite Hughes poem. The mere glance I gave the poem in The Art of Ted Hughes is completely inadequate. There was even less excuse for neglecting the poem in The Laughter of Foxes. I have tried to do justice to it in the essay which can be downloaded free here.
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