Lovesong- Ted Hughes

He loved her and she loved him.
His kisses sucked out her whole past and future or tried to
He had no other appetite
She bit him she gnawed him she sucked
She wanted him complete inside her
Safe and sure forever and ever
Their little cries fluttered into the curtains

Her eyes wanted nothing to get away
Her looks nailed down his hands his wrists his elbows
He gripped her hard so that life
Should not drag her from that moment
He wanted all future to cease
He wanted to topple with his arms round her
Off that moment's brink and into nothing
Or everlasting or whatever there was

Her embrace was an immense press
To print him into her bones
His smiles were the garrets of a fairy palace
Where the real world would never come
Her smiles were spider bites
So he would lie still till she felt hungry
His words were occupying armies
Her laughs were an assassin's attempts
His looks were bullets daggers of revenge
His glances were ghosts in the corner with horrible secrets
His whispers were whips and jackboots
Her kisses were lawyers steadily writing
His caresses were the last hooks of a castaway
Her love-tricks were the grinding of locks
And their deep cries crawled over the floors
Like an animal dragging a great trap
His promises were the surgeon's gag
Her promises took the top off his skull
She would get a brooch made of it
His vows pulled out all her sinews
He showed her how to make a love-knot
Her vows put his eyes in formalin
At the back of her secret drawer
Their screams stuck in the wall

Their heads fell apart into sleep like the two halves
Of a lopped melon, but love is hard to stop

In their entwined sleep they exchanged arms and legs
In their dreams their brains took each other hostage

In the morning they wore each other's face

Source: http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poet=6616&poem=30213

 Mad Girl´s Love Song- Sylvia Plath
 
 
"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
 
The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
 
I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
 
God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
 
I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
 
I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"
 

Source: http://plagiarist.com/poetry/1412/

This paper is about Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, two poets who were a couple and, if we believe their own words, they loved each other very strongly. However, their relation was not very happy, and it was because they had very different behaviors (Sylvia Plath homepage). We are going to see this idea in the two following poems.

It is very significant that both poems share he same title “lovesong”, so we can suppose that they are talking about their relation. This is not sure, because Ted Hughes lived many love affairs, so maybe he does not talk about this concrete relation. Nevertheless, we can see some aspects that can help us to understand the relation Hughes-Plath.

It is also significant that the complete title of Sylvia Plath’s poem is “Mad Girl’s love song”, she’s saying with this title that this poem reflects herself, it is well known that she suffered psychological problems during her life. (Sylvia Plath homepage)

From Sylvia Plath’s poem we can deduce some aspects of this relationship. Firstly, we have to say that it is possible that this poem was written when Sylvia and Ted were not together, because when Plath talks about herself, she does it in the present tense, but when she says something about him she talks in the past tense. In the poem she says dearly that she has loved him: “I should have loved a thunderbird instead”, and she was not to finish the relationship, but he lied to him and she could not wait for more time: “I fancied you’d return the way you said, / but I grow old and I forget your name”. However this, she is still thinking about him, and she loves him: “I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed / and sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane”. And probably this situation affects her and makes that she fell into madness; Sylvias’ madness could be seen in these verses: “God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade: / exit seraphin and Satan’s men:/”.

Ted Hughes’s poem also talks about a love relationship, and he uses the past tense and the third person, so we can think that he’s talking without the rage and because he can see the relationship with more distance. The first verse is very significant: “he loved her and she loved him”. They loved each other, and during the poem Hughes describes the passion of both lovers, they are thirsty of each other. Here we have Hughes’ vision of love, Hughes finds love through passion. We can observe that in all the poem he is talking about him and her, and at the end, he starts talking with the pronoun they, this change is because they are now a couple, they were two different people, but sex allowed them to be a couple, and made possible the connection between them: “in their entwined sleep they exchanged arms and legs / in their dreams their brains took each other hostage”.

So, the conclusion is that these two poems give us the clue about the relationship of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes: she loved him and he loved her, but their behaviors were very different. Ted Hughes needed passion, and Sylvia Plath needed a person who supported her, so their relationship was condemned to fail. And this was the thought that Sylvia expresses with the verse: “I think I made you up inside my head”

Bibliography:

· Ted Hughes homepage

Ann Skea Ph. D. Visited 3 May 2006.

http://www.zeta.org.au/~annskea/THHome.htm

· Sylvia Plath homepage

Anja Beckmann. Visited 3 may 2006.

http://sylviaplath.de/