Ted Hughes: The Afterbirth

 Length / Form 3 verse paragraphs

Allusion to Classical figure The Lotus Eaters; The Gorgon; Anubis

Comment The poem is about the birth of Hughes and Plath’s first son, Nicholas Farrar Hughes on 17 January 1962. Hughes is stunned by the act of creation but also the violence of the birth; blood and afterbirth make for quite a shocking sight. The most subtle classical allusion Hughes makes is also one of the most symbolic; in referring to the ‘hieroglyph of the hare’, he is alert to the fact that the hare is a mythic creature in many cultures: ‘To the ancient Egyptians, its hieroglyph signified the concept of being; in ancient Greece the lunar goddess, Hecate, was associated with the hare – the Chinese, too, associate it with the moon and augury’ (Erica Wagner, Ariel’s Gift, London: Faber & Faber, 2000. P.140). This poem is from Birthday Letters, the last collection by Hughes to be published in his lifetime. It is his most popular and critically acclaimed work due in no small part to the fact that it was the first time Hughes revealed details about his relationship and marriage with the poet Sylvia Plath, who committed suicide in 1963. The collection both confirmed and confounded criticism of Hughes who had been vilified about his conduct towards Plath ever since she had died. His poems convey heartfelt loss, love and admiration for and of Plath; allusions to her poetry underline the fact that Birthday Letters is very much a correspondence, indeed, a dialogue between the two poets.