Ted Hughes: Humanities

Length / Form 20 lines of half-rhymed couplets

Allusion to Classical figure Julius Caesar

Relationship to Classical text Reflection on the violent history of the world, starting with ‘when Caesar clamped mankind in his money-mould'.

Comment This poem is from a limited edition collection of poems entitled Recklings (1966). Hughes called his book Recklings because it means weak and feeble in much the same way as the word ‘runt’. It is likely, therefore, that Hughes did not value these poems highly. This is one of the first of several occasions in which Hughes printed collections of his verse on private printing presses run by his friends so that he could help make money for them.