Violence in Ted Hughes’s Lupercal: A Reading

Abstract

Abstract

Ted Hughes’s second volume of verse Lupercal (1960) tends to depict that the essence of existence - both of life and the phenomenal universe is solely founded upon violence. In the world of nature, birds, beasts, fishes, insects and human life, there is a continual war- a battle inside and with external forces. And there is always a victory of the powerful. That is the law. Power dominates and powerful exists, and the antagonists are either destroyed or devoured. The eater-eaten relationship determines the course of life on earth. This is true both in the world of animals as well as human. The words ‘values’, ‘culture’ and ‘humanity’- are all coined by man for appropriating the demonic act of power and subjugation. Hughes unveils this raw truth in his Lupercal.