A Linguistic and Stylistic Analysis of Ted Hughes’s “Hawk Roosting”

Abstract

The world of birds in Ted Hughes poems has always been the subject of a controversy and critical interest. His attempts to majestify their violence, and project their terrifying and brutal traits might tend to give the impression that the poet is the envoy of terror. However, a closer inspection indicates that the bird-of-prey-world is boldly a foil to project human concerns and moral behaviour. This study provides a linguistic and stylistic analysis of the poem “Hawk Roosting”. Metonymically, the figure of the Hawk in the poem stands for birds of prey, and allegorically, it refers to political dictators in human history. The study, and for the first time, applies the concept of mind style, dramatic monologues and mask lyrics in its analysis to reflect the Hawk’s strange psychology and worldview depending on the rhythmic form and stylistic features. Thus, the study shows how distinctive linguistic features—such as, the use of pronouns, simple present tense, polysemy, enjambment, and deviant constructions among others—relate to the mental representation of the Hawk’s world. This view indicates that there would always be a Hawk to plague, or a dictator to rule, no matter where you are, or which time you live in.