LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 19:11 November 2019
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

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Language and Diction in Ted Hughes’s Poetry

Dr. V. Madhukumar, M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.


Ted Hughes (1930-1998)
Courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Hughes

Abstract

Language is quite literally the material of any writer’s trade. Every literary work is a selection from a given language. Bateson states that literature is a part of the general history of language and is quite completely dependent on it (English Poetry and English Language, p. VI). Literary language does contain thought and is highly connotative. Moreover, it is far from being merely referential. It has its expressive side: it conveys the tone and attitude of the writer. Language becomes extraordinarily important for the study of poetry. The study of poetic language generally includes the study of metre, diction and syntax, metaphor and image along with its ambiguity and obscurity. The study of a poet’s language is a pre-requisite in determining the quality of his work. Ted Hughes’s work is not a series of ringing statements but re-enacted encounters and adventures. Hughes likes to use rough language, slangy vernacular and puts words together in an unusual combination to complement his description of savagery of animals, elemental ferocity of nature and esoteric mythology. Hughes’s search of an appropriate language for his much-diversified themes produces a baffling mixture of a variety of literary forms: heroic epics, folk epic, myth, cycles, lyrics, chants, incantations etc. His verse is, of course, traditionally hyperbolic and largely relies on mimetic sound effects, onomatopoeia, and mimetic syntax.

Keywords: Ted Hughes, poetry, colloquial language, onomatopoeia, quagmire, surrealism, self-identity

Critical Analysis

Ted Hughes has praised the directness and simple colloquial language of Shakespeare and Keith Douglas. Hughes himself calls it ‘utility general purpose style’ that is marked by simple, workaday phrases deliberately dispensing with any privileges of diction. ‘A utility general purpose style, as for instance, Shakespeare’s, was that combines a colloquial prose readiness with poetic breadth, a ritual intensity and music of an extraordinarily high order with clear direct feeling, and yet in the end nothing but casual speech’ (Introduction, Selected Poems of Keith Douglas, p.14).

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Dr. V. Madhukumar, M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.
Associate Professor and HOD
Department of English
S. G. S.Arts College
Tirupati-517501, Andhra Pradesh
Mob: 9440257300
drvmkumar@yahoo.co.in
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