This is the second of two podcasts recorded with Dr. Mike Sweeting on the topic of Ted Hughes's relationship with religion - specifically Christianity. Mike concludes his observations with his thoughts on how some of Ted Hughes's later work - particularly some of the poems included in Birthday Letters, the last collection published in his lifetime - indicate a change of attitude on Hughes's part: a willingness to acknowledge the suffering he has caused others as well as the suffering he has experienced; an aparent willingness to make amends; and a tendency towards elegy and lamentation.
Works mentioned in the podcast:
'Crow blacker than ever' from Crow: from the life and songs of the Crow (2020) with an introduction by Marina Warner. London: Faber & Faber.
'The Shot' from Birthday Letters (1998) London: Faber & Faber.
'October Salmon' from River (1983) with photographs by Peter Keen. London: Faber & Faber.
'The Strand at Lough Beg' from 100 Poems (2018) London: Faber & Faber.
For listeners who would like to read further about Ted Hughes and religion, Dr Ann Skea writes:
I would also reccomend Dr Krishnendu Gupta's article in vol. 8 issue 1 of The Ted Hughes Society Journal (http://thetedhughessociety.org/the-ted-hughes-society-journal-open-access) and David Troups's book length study Ted Hughes and Christianity (2019) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
The opening and closing music is from String Quartet No 14, opus 131, oerfomed by the Orion String Quartet. (The extract is reproduced under Creative Commons licence IMSLP: Creative Commons Atribution Non-commercial No Derivative 3.0.)
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