Hughes dies as he wrote, with rugged obstinacy 1 Edition

TED Hughes was a man of secrets. For 35 years, he kept silent his true feelings about his first wife, Sylvia Plath - who committed suicide in 1963 -until his volume of autobiographical love poetry, Birthday Letters, burst upon the public earlier this year. Friends living near his home in Devon had s...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inScotsman (Edinburgh, Scotland : Daily)
Main Author CATHERINE LOCKERBIE Literary Editor
Format Newspaper Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Edinburgh (UK) Scotsman Publications 30.10.1998
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:TED Hughes was a man of secrets. For 35 years, he kept silent his true feelings about his first wife, Sylvia Plath - who committed suicide in 1963 -until his volume of autobiographical love poetry, Birthday Letters, burst upon the public earlier this year. Friends living near his home in Devon had suspected his illness, having seen him suffering from hair loss. Earlier this month, having won the Forward Poetry Prize for his volume Tales from Ovid, he declined to attend the award ceremony - not in itself unusual for this most intensely private of men - and sent a message saying: "I would far sooner be here with you than where I am." Leading poets in Scotland also spoke of Hughes's enormous impact. Edwin Morgan spoke of the "almost brutal" force and vigour of his verse. Professor Robert Crawford, of the University of St Andrews, said: "It's an absolute shock. Hughes was very widely read and influential on people such as Seamus Heaney. He is one of the few poets who is a household name, and that says something about the impact and power of his work."
ISSN:0307-5850