Wind

“Ariel” by Sylvia Plath (1965)

The titular poem from Sylvia Plath’s second volume of poetry is one of her most famous. The book, edited by Ted Hughes, was posthumously published two years after Plath's suicide. It heralded Plath’s ascension onto the list of most important American writers of the 20th century. Plath’s later poems, beginning with “Ariel,” were written toward the end of her life, during her marriage to Hughes.

Contrasted with her earlier poetry, they are more confessional, or autobiographical, with no detail of her domestic life and grappling with mental illness spared. When Plath and Hughes lived in the Devon countryside, she had a beloved horse named Ariel. In the poem, written while Plath and Hughes were separated, the speaker rides the horse at dawn. As the day moves from darkness to the rising of the sun, the speaker becomes more transfigured, feeling as one with the animal. Colors and the natural world are at play here, as in Hughes’s poetry. Ultimately, the rider moves further and further toward freedom. Hughes included a poem in Birthday Letters titled “Night Ride on Ariel.”

“Hawk Roosting” by Ted Hughes (1960)

This poem, a dramatic monologue, showcases Hughes’s obsession with the natural world by presenting a narrative from the point of view of a bird of prey whose existence is directly tied to the killing it does to survive. No sentimentality exists in the imagined mind of the hawk, but neither does Hughes condemn its intent and action. The poem fluidly moves from inside the hawk’s thoughts to a more expansive musing on the inherent violence of the natural world. Forcing the natural world into a ethical discussion is fruitless, the poem implies. It is, ultimately, the hawk’s decision that the state of things should remain as they are. The themes in Hughes’s poetry are on full display, suggesting people must be practical and resolute in understanding how the world truly works.

“The Thought Fox” by Ted Hughes (1957)

Published in the same volume as “Wind,” this poem hints at the reasons for Hughes’s return to writing poetry while at Cambridge. In his early university years, Hughes was unhappy with the critical study of literature and was not successful in his schooling. After a failed attempt to work on an essay, he had a dream in which a fox appeared to him and told him to stop this kind of critical writing. As a result of this dream vision, Hughes changed his major course of study to anthropology and archeology and began to write poetry again. The poem describes a poet’s search for creative inspiration, and is, like most of Hughes’s work, focused on its subject through the lens of the natural world which, while separate and distinct from the human one, is a controlling force.