Ted Hughes and Christianity

Proposes a radical reassessment of Hughes as a religious poet, demonstrating his loyalty to an essentially Christian metaphysic.

David Troupes (Author)

9781108483896, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 4 July 2019

262 pages
23.5 x 15.7 x 1.9 cm, 0.51 kg

'Ted Hughes and Christianity is a brave, unorthodox and unexpected book - but a very welcome one all the same. Troupes has emphatically made his case that Hughes is a thinker in the Christian tradition - and in his maverick fashion has written a highly entertaining and thought provoking book.'

Ted Hughes is one of the most important twentieth-century British poets. This book provides a radical reassessment of his relationship to the Christian faith, revealing his critically-endorsed paganism as profoundly and productively engaged with all the essentials of Christian thought. Hughes's intense criticism of the Reformation, his interest in restoring the Virgin Mary to her pre-Christian status as divine mother-goddess, his attempts to marry evolutionary science and scripture with a biological interpretation of the fall, his endorsement of the cross as the central symbol of the human condition, and the role of Christ in his myth of Sylvia Plath are among the many topics explored. Along the way, Troupes establishes strong thematic and intertextual links between Hughes and the American Transcendentalist tradition - a tradition which offers moments of vital illumination of Hughes's religious themes while encouraging a more generous trans-Atlantic appreciation of Hughes's literary affiliations.

1. The deeper life
2. The biological fall
3. The biblical fall
4. The crucifixion
5. Puritanism and the goddess
6. Sacrament and transcendence in River
7. Sylvia Plath: being Christlike
Afterword. Glimpses.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: poetry & poets [DSC], Literature: history & criticism [DS], Literature & literary studies [D]