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Unit 5: The Thought Fox by Ted Hughes

and then we have the final kill, the last line is pinnacle. Notes

The prey is dead and so is his thought.
‘The page is printed.’
I believe the poem signifies a change of life.
Whilst the poem has a theme of a second event running through it, the poem contains images
you cannot actually see; yet we know they exist and happened at the same time. The use of
synchronics is a vital addition to the piece. The rules used are formality and imagery, the
control of speed, littered with metaphor and simile all to create a deeper picture than the one
being initially presented.
Compared to poems like ‘Wind’ which has a differing focus with Gothic overtone, The Thought
Fox has a vibrant crispness that contains psychological realism, this is more composing thoughts
and words or being visited by a muse, whereas Wind is a poem of an element already trying
to change thoughts that have been acted out.

The poet starts the poem with the words that it is a lonely room in a dark night. Everything
is quiet so that the tick-tick sound of the clock impresses upon the persona (the “I” in the
poem) the darkness, the silence and loneliness. The persona has a blank page before him and
his fingers move on it. Outside it is all dark; even the stars are not there in the sky. Yet deep
in the darkness, the persona sees something moving and entering the loneliness.
The presence that moves in deep darkness is like a fox touching the twigs and leaves with its
nose. What the persona sees are two eyes that move in the darkness and leave their footprints
on the snow. Then a lame, cautious body in the form of an eye comes brilliantly and concentratedly
toward the room. With the stink of a fox it enters the hole of the persona’s head. The window
is still without stars and is dark and lonely. The clock continues to tick and by now the page,
the blank page has received the footprints of the thought-fox in the form of a poem.

5.1 Introduction to Author

Ted Hughes is consistently described as one of the twentieth century’s greatest English poets.
Born August 17th, 1930 in Mytholmroyd, Yorkshire, his family moved to Mexborough when
he was seven to run a newspaper and tobacco shop. He attended Mexborough grammar
school, and wrote poems from the age of fifteen, some of which made their way into the
school magazine. Before beginning English studies at Cambridge University (having won a
scholarship in 1948), he spent much of his National service time reading and rereading all of
Shakespeare. According to report, he could recite it all by heart. At Cambridge, he ‘spent
most..time reading folklore and Yeat’s poems,’ and switched from English to Archaeology and
Anthropology in his third year.
His first published poem appeared in 1954, the year he graduated from Cambridge. He used
two pseudonyms for the early publications, Daniel Hearing and Peter Crew. From 1955 to
1956, he worked as a rose gardener, night-watchman, zoo attendant, schoolteacher, and reader
for J. Arthur Rank, and planned to teach in Spain then emigrate to Australia. February 26 saw
the launch of the literary magazine, the St Botolph’s Review, for which Hughes was one of six
co-producers. It was also the day he met Sylvia Plath; they were married in four months.

Hughe’s first book of poems, Hawk in the Rain, was published in 1957 to immediate acclaim,
winning the Harper publication contest. Over the next 41 years, he would write upwards of
90 books, and win numerous prizes and fellowships including the following (in that order):
Harper publication contest, Guiness Poetry Award, Guggenheim fellowship, Somerset Maughan
award, city of Florence International Poetry Prize, Premio Internazionale Taormina Prize,

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