Transcendentalism: The Anatomization of Ted Hughes’ Works

Abstract

This research anatomizes Ted Hughes’s works as in Ted Hughes: Collected Poems edited by Paul Keegan, in the light of Transcendentalism. The primary aim of this research is to identify and explicate the streaks of Transcendentalism in Hughes’s work. The secondary aim is to decipher Hughes’s use of Soul Alchemy as a magical, transforming power. The objective of this research is to prove the existence of a Supreme Being. It also discusses both Transcendentalism and Hughes’s spirituality, side by side. The research shows there lies organic unity in everything and everything has divinity within it, and that there is an urge in all to explore the Self and the unknown. This also explicates the common spiritual Truth underlying all religions, the value of intuition and fourfold vision. The study fills the gap in research on Transcendentalism and its overpowering position in Hughes’s works, which makes this unique. It also expounds the occult powers of poetry. Transcendentalism, Husserl’s Phenomenology, Huxley’s Perennial Philosophy and Jung’s Alchemy and Individuation also have been critically viewed as groundwork for this research. Thematic, phenomenological and psychological approaches have been employed to analyze the Transcendentalism in Hughes’s works. The preternatural abilities of Hughes are examined in this study. Future researchers can satisfy their spiritual needs and can form their research by becoming acquainted to his work in the light of Transcendentalism as is deciphered in this study.

Keywords

• Alchemy
• otherworldliness
• transcendentalism