Ted Hughes: Alternative Horizons

This is the first collection of essays to be published since the poet’s death. It is meant as a continuation of a more than thirty years old tradition of Ted Hughes studies, and it gathers contributions by most of the major international Hughes scholars, voicing their critical preoccupations at the turn of the century. Over the years, academic criticism on the poetry of Ted Hughes had established a map of well-trodden paths that this collection still strongly reflects. But the various productions of the latter Hughes, in poetry as well as in criticism, demanded some revisiting of the critical discourse on his work. The biographical dimension, for instance, has gradually gathered momentum, and it has become no longer possible to study the work of Ted Hughes without due reference to the life and work of Sylvia Plath.