Linguistics and Literature Studies Vol. 6(1), pp. 35 - 39
DOI: 10.13189/lls.2018.060105
Reprint (PDF) (274Kb)


Subverting the Rational: An Appreciation of Cave Birds by Ted Hughes


Zhang Pinggong *
Faculty of English Language and Culture, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, China

ABSTRACT

This article aims to explore how in the Cave Birds poems Ted Hughes employs innovative poetic strategies to subvert the established and dominant value system of modern humanism and rational determinism. His critical attitude towards dominant value system of secular humanism and scientific determinism is constant, and his criticism about modernity enters a new stage in Cave Birds. The affirmation of what he considers as positive actually involves a good deal of abstraction from the complex predicament of human in modern world. The form of individuality and the wholeness of being that the poet propagates in Cave Birds basically demand a disengagement of consciousness from the outer reality. Through an internal and metaphorical expression of an individual's transformation, his poetic works attempt to defamiliarize the recurrent subject matter of Human-Nature relationship.

KEYWORDS
Ted Hughes, Subversion, Cave Birds

Cite This Paper in IEEE or APA Citation Styles
(a). IEEE Format:
[1] Zhang Pinggong , "Subverting the Rational: An Appreciation of Cave Birds by Ted Hughes," Linguistics and Literature Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 35 - 39, 2018. DOI: 10.13189/lls.2018.060105.

(b). APA Format:
Zhang Pinggong (2018). Subverting the Rational: An Appreciation of Cave Birds by Ted Hughes. Linguistics and Literature Studies, 6(1), 35 - 39. DOI: 10.13189/lls.2018.060105.