biography
| name: |
Hughes, Ted
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popular name of Edward (James) Hughes
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1930–98)
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| biography:
| Poet, born in Mytholmroyd, West Yorkshire, N England, UK. He studied at Cambridge, where he read English for two years, then switched to archaeology and anthropology for his final year. After various sporadic jobs, he became a teacher, then went to the USA (1957-9). Best known for his very distinctive animal poems, his first collections were The Hawk in the Rain (1957) and Lupercal (1960). His mythopoeic imagination is attested in such later volumes as Cave Birds (1978) and River (1983), and in a startling critical work, Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being (1992). He married the US poet, Sylvia Plath, in 1956, but the marriage deteriorated, and he left her in 1962. After her suicide, a few months later, he destroyed the final volume of her journal, to avoid her children seeing it - an action which brought criticism as Plath's reputation grew, and he became increasingly reclusive. He was nonetheless responsible for bringing her work before a wider public, editing her collected poems in 1981. Selected Poems, 1957–81 was published in 1982, and he became British poet laureate in 1984. Later works include Rain Charm for the Duchy (1992) and Tales from Ovid (1997, Whitbread). He wrote a great deal for children, beginning with Meet My Folks (1961) and Earth Owl (1963). His story The Iron Man (1968, The Iron Giant in the USA) received a complementary volume, The Iron Woman, in 1993. Birthday Letters (1998, Whitbread), a series of poems about his relationship with Plath, written over 25 years, appeared unexpectedly. He was awarded the Order of Merit shortly before his death. |
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