The Poems of Ted Hughes

"The Thought-Fox"

"The Thought-Fox" by Ted Hughes is a poem about writer narrating his story of a fox searching for prey walking through the forest on a winter's night. While the fox tries quietly to sneak up on his prey, the prey and the writer being paranoid about what lurks on the path. The poem is twenty four lines and the rhyme pattern of the six stanzas switch from ABBA to AABB to ABAA, which makes us take a long walk through the forest with the characters and the writer as he writes the story. With his rhyme pattern switching, it makes it seem like the writer is trying to make up his mind where the fox should eventually go or even catch his prey.
There are no caesuras except for a "-" in the title, which I don't know if that counts as a caesura or not. Hughes uses assonances, such as, "more near" and "widening deepening," to describe the path's end which the writer is writing with his excitement. The poems has many naturalistic alliterations, including, "midnight moment's . . .," "deeper with darkness," "touches twig," "body that is bold," "starless still," "page is printed."
Hughes repeats the word "now" four times in lines eleven and twelve, to create intensity and to put emphasis that we are reading this story while he is writing it. These alliterations describe the time, atmosphere, and the mood of the setting and tells us the narrator is a writer. Hughes also mentions "clock," "snow," "dark," and "fox" twice throughout the poem, which are key players. Hughes includes an onomatopoeia, "clock ticks," in line twenty three, so we know time is running out for this night and the prey and we know his being outsmarted by the fox is inevitable.

"Theology"

"Theology" by Ted Hughes is a poem that defends the serpent's actions of tempting Eve to eat the apple in the garden of Eden and the title is perfect because the imagery of the word "theology" could mean we could interpreting the Bible story the right or the wrong way. It depends of the point of view. This poem is told from the serpent's perspective which makes him look the good guy.
The poem also makes references to Adam, Eve, and God, who are key characters in the original story. In this poem they seem like the villains who are trying to stop the serpent from doing his job. The poem is only twelve lines long and a simple poem, but has a lot of story and smooth beat packed into it. "Theology" is very rhythmical for a poem that has no set rhyme pattern, with only rhyming words in the second stanza. It reminds me of a children's nursery rhyme.
Hughes breaks off complete sentence into two lines using enjambment and there's an alliteration in line five, "Adam ate the apple," implying the importance of Adam's transgression as well as Eve's. Hughes uses an assonance with a repeated, "Eve ate Adam" and "The serpent ate Eve." The assonances emphasizes that Eve is both the martyr and the villain, like the serpent. There is a caesura in line ten and eleven, "Sleeps his meal off in Paradise- Smiling to hear God's querulous calling." These lines make it seem like the serpent is waiting for his reward or is happy he took down God's mortals by himself.