Ted Hughes: Nicholas Ferrer

Length / Form 33 lines, 7 quatrains, 1 stanza of 5 lines, occasional half rhymes throughout.

Allusion to Classical place Mentions Rome, ‘as it bloomed in Rome’

Comment This poem is from Hughes’s second collection of poem Lupercal. Taking its name from the Lupercalia fertility festival of ancient Rome, Hughes laces his poems with images and symbols associated with the festival to the effect that the poems read like a series of incantations in an attempt to reinvigorate his writing.

Further Reading

Stuart Hirschberg. Myth in the Poetry of Ted Hughes, Totowa, N.J.: Barnes and Noble, 1981.