Form and Perspective in Ted Hughes' Birthday Letters

Introduction: Form and Content in Birthday Letters

The relationship between form and content has come under special scrutiny in the past century of literature and criticism, to the point that many twentieth-century poets can be fully understood only through the lens of formal analysis. Ted Hughes, the sometime-infamous husband of Sylvia Plath, marked himself as a poet of this vein in his 1998 collection Birthday Letters, which contains poems about — and largely directed to — Plath and their relationship, including her eventual suicide. These poems come from many perspectives, reflecting the complex array of moods and thoughts Hughes harbored concerning the woman for whose death he has been reviled by many. An examination of several poems from this collection reveals the clear relationship he establishes between formal representation and meaning, especially in the creation of differing and even conflicting perspectives.

The many perspectives Hughes brings to bear on his relationship with Plath are evidenced by his varied choices of language and formal construction throughout Birthday Letters. The tone of "Fulbright Scholars" is almost joyful compared with most of the later poems; this account of his first sighting of Plath — without even realizing it — shows a certain innocence that Hughes rarely portrayed as part of their relationship. After passing by her picture, Hughes buys a peach: "the first fresh peach I had ever tasted." Despite the sexual imagery linking his first glimpse of Plath with this peach, there is the innocence of a world newly discovered — the speaker here is naive and open. The relatively long line length used in this poem mirrors the process of slow discovery that seems to mark this version of the beginnings of their relationship. Other perspectives in later poems are equally matched by their form.

Innocence and Discovery in 'Fulbright Scholars'

The same scene presented in short, clipped lines would have added a decidedly prurient aspect to the poem, and Hughes was quite capable of this effect when he desired it. Often, however, he was more subtle. In "Sam," for instance, the stanzaic breaks give the text a clear structure, with the very short final stanza adding a definite bite. The longer first stanza tells the story of Plath on a runaway horse; this is then commented upon and analyzed; and finally Hughes draws a four-line comparison to the way he was treated by Plath: "you strangled me… flung yourself off and under my feet." The abrupt turn at the poem's end is used to elicit a specific response of shocked sympathy from the reader, which marks only one of Hughes' attempts in Birthday Letters to exonerate himself from responsibility for Plath's suicide.

Neither of the two above-mentioned poems is entirely consistent in tone, and the length of their lines and stanzaic structures can of course be read in several ways. In "The Shot," however, there appears to be a deliberate conflict set up in both the form and the content of the poem. Lines of greatly differing length appear in sharp juxtaposition as the speaker contemplates what could have been versus what was:

Structure and Sympathy in 'Sam'

In my position, the right witchdoctor
Might have caught you in flight with his bare hands,
Tossed you, cooling, one hand to the other,
Godless, happy, quieted.
I managed
A wisp of your hair, your ring, your watch, your nightgown.

Conclusion: Form as Meaning in Hughes