Historical Context
"Perfect Light" illuminates its origins from a photograph snapped in 1962, a revelation gleaned from the apparent ages of Hughes's children captured within. The exact moment when this poem emerged from Hughes's pen remains shrouded in mystery, as the "Sylvia" poems unfolded over a span of twenty-five to thirty years. Yet, unlike others from Birthday Letters, this particular piece elusively evaded publication in his earlier collections, suggesting it may have been woven into existence later in Hughes's artistic journey. His relentless quest for privacy obscures precise timelines for much of his autobiographical work, rendering any influence from societal, cultural, or political events rather unlikely. Nonetheless, during the 1990s, as Hughes prepared this collection for the world, both he and his homeland of Great Britain were experiencing transformative shifts.
A Decade of Change
The early 1990s unfolded with seismic political shifts in the United Kingdom. The resignation of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1990 marked a pivotal moment, her economic doctrines having left urban centers to languish, while her resistance to deeper British involvement in Europe ignited rebellion within her Conservative ranks. Despite these upheavals, the Conservatives clung to power in the 1992 elections, ushering in John Major, whose more centrist policies contrasted starkly with Thatcher’s. At the forefront of Major's agenda loomed the enduring strife between the British government and the Irish Republican Army of Northern Ireland. After peace initiatives led to a cease-fire in 1994, violence reemerged two years later, paving the way for renewed dialogues in 1997 and ultimately an accord to cease direct British governance in Northern Ireland by 1999.
Simultaneously, the collapse of the Soviet Union marked the official end of the Cold War, significantly impacting Great Britain, America’s steadfast ally, through a burgeoning unity within Europe. Yet, loyalty to the United States also meant standing shoulder to shoulder in the Gulf, as British forces joined the Americans in the 1991 assault on Iraq during Operation Desert Storm.
Europe and Beyond
Throughout the 1990s, Britain found itself grappling with its role within the European Union. A populace divided, some yearning for limited engagement while others advocated for active participation, faced challenges as disputes with fellow EU members sometimes hindered progress. The specter of mad cow disease in 1996 cast a shadow when other EU nations boycotted British beef imports, souring relations until 1999 when the EU sanctioned Britain's measures to control the outbreak. Nonetheless, France maintained its embargo, straining the British-French dynamic. Yet, amid these tensions, a landmark achievement arose with the 1994 completion of the Channel Tunnel, a project linking England not only to France but to the entire continental expanse of Europe.
Amidst these European entanglements, the late 1990s ushered in the "Euro" monetary system, embraced with varying degrees of enthusiasm across the continent. Tony Blair, champion of the new currency and leader of the Labour Party, ascended to the prime ministerial seat in 1997, advocating for decentralization and empowering Scotland and Wales with separate legislative bodies. A significant shift in parliamentary tradition saw hereditary peers stripped of voting rights in the House of Lords, a reform applauded under Blair's administration. The Labour Party's decisive victory over the Conservatives in the 2001 elections underscored the widespread support for Blair’s government.
The Personal Realm
Despite the whirlwind of political and social change, the intimate realm of Hughes's "Sylvia" poems remained largely untouched by governmental or economic affairs. Gossip of royal entanglements, the heart-wrenching demise of Princess Diana, or even the scientific marvel of Dolly the cloned sheep in Scotland, failed to stir the deeply personal nature of his poetry. While cultural and societal influences...
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are hard to dismiss entirely, those who cultivate creativity in solitude often find themselves less ensnared by external forces. As poet laureate, Hughes fulfilled his public obligations, yet in matters concerning Plath, his life remained a fortress of privacy.
Literary Style
Exploring Contemporary Free Verse
The poem "Perfect Light" embraces contemporary free verse, yet it retains a whisper of structure amidst its fluidity. Though the voice flows with a casual, unvarnished grace, the rhythm pulses with the insistent beat of repetition. This piece orbits around a triad of recurring words and themes. The word "daffodil" blooms five times, "innocence" is invoked thrice, while the shadow of inevitable failure looms twice in the second stanza. The first stanza dances a ritual of daffodils and innocence, wielding repetition like a hypnotist's charm to envelop the speaker's psyche. Flowers and sweet naiveté intertwine with every facet of the subject's being, their recurrence deftly avoiding monotony through ironic juxtapositions. Here, "daffodils" and "innocence" waltz with both the expected and the unforeseen, where daffodils symbolize fleeting beauty and innocence whispers of a life-long quest to reconcile and rise above past sorrows.
As the poem transitions into the second stanza, a more somber refrain takes hold, focusing intently on the desolation of failure. Phrases like "failed to reach" and "never reached you" resonate with power and poignancy, their impact amplified by a mere three-line separation. In a poem of such brevity, this technique weaves an unspoken unity into its fabric, binding the lines where cohesion might otherwise falter. Beyond this repetition, "Perfect Light" aligns with the hallmarks of contemporary free verse: it eschews direct rhyme, and it dances to its own rhythm, unfettered by traditional meter or form.
Bibliography and Further Reading
Sources
Auden, W. H., “Musée de Beaux Arts” in Collected Poems, Random House, 1991.
Bere, Carol, “Owning the Facts of His Life: Ted Hughes’s Birthday Letters,” in Literary Review, Vol. 41, No. 4, Summer 1998, pp. 556–61.
Emerson, Bo, “In a New Light,” in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, March 19, 1999.
Firchow, Peter, Review of New Selected Poems, 1957–1994, in World Literature Today, Vol. 70, No. 2, Spring 1996, pp. 407–08.
Merwin, W. S., “Something of His Own to Say,” in New York Times Book Review, October 6, 1957, p. 43.
Further Reading
Hughes, Ted, New Selected Poems, 1957–1994, Faber and Faber, 1995. When Hughes came out with this collection, many readers were surprised to find a selection at the end of this book of previously unpublished poems that were unmistakably written to and about his late wife Sylvia Plath. This comprehensive book provides an excellent overview of Hughes’s entire career and a first glimpse of the much-sought “Sylvia” poems.
Plath, Sylvia, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, edited by Karen V. Kukil, Anchor Books, 2000. Kukil, the supervisor of the Plath collection at Smith College, has carefully transcribed the journals Plath kept between 1950 and a few months prior to her suicide. There is perhaps no better way to try to understand her thoughts, emotions, and feelings about Hughes than to read them in her own words.
Scigaj, Leonard M., ed., Critical Essays on Ted Hughes, G. K. Hall, 1992. This book contains close to twenty essays by various critics, scholars, and poets and provides a good variety of Hughes analyses. Discussions include Hughes’s performance as poet laureate, his poetic style, and several articles on his major volumes of poems.
Wagner, Erica, Ariel’s Gift: Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, and the Story of “Birthday Letters,” Faber and Faber, 2000. Wagner’s exploration of the intense, destructive relationship between Hughes and Plath is considered one of the fairest, most comprehensive looks at the lives of these two poets. She includes commentary to the poems in Birthday Letters, pointing out the actual events that inspired them and explaining how they relate to Plath’s own work. This book is both a guide and a literary companion to Hughes’s final collection.
