The Voice of Nature in Ted Hughes's Writing for Children. Correcting Culture's Error by Lorraine Kerslake

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Voice of Nature in Ted Hughes's Writing for Children. Correcting Culture's Error by Lorraine Kerslake Anto Thomas Chakramakkil THE VOICE OF NATURE IN TED HUGHES'S WRITING FOR CHILDREN. Correcting Culture's Error. By Lorraine Kerslake. Routledge, 2018, 82 pages. ISBN: 978-1-138-57367-3 Keith Sagar, the veteran Ted Hughes scholar-critic, opens The Laughter of Foxes: A Study of Ted Hughes (2000) by describing Hughes as the greatest British writer of the second half of the twentieth century. Indeed, Hughes wrote for children extensively throughout his career; yet, surprisingly for a writer of his stature, there weren't, I think, any book-length critical studies on his writing for children—until Lorraine Kerslake's The Voice of Nature in Ted Hughes's Writing for Children: Correcting Culture's Error set a milestone in children's literature criticism. But it is not just for this reason that I feel the book deserves critical attention. Of course, it does generate certain original ideas on Hughes's perception of children's literature. Another noteworthy reason is that The Voice of Nature is included in The Routledge Environmental Humanities series and the book perfectly configures with the objectives of the editors of this series, for it is an original and inspiring venture recognizing global environmental catastrophe resultant of a crisis of culture. Kerslake argues that Hughes's concept of the therapeutic value of nature is more assertive in his children's literature. At times bordering into a biographical reading, Kerslake considers Hughes's works for children as the panacea that aided him to come to terms with his own personal tragic struggles. Further, this study explores Hughes's shamanic experiences and his mythic re-creations, and above all, it delineates the ever-permeating and progressive journey Hughes made into ecoconsciousness. [End Page 75] Therefore, I consider Kerslake's study as the gospel-truth proclamation of Hughes's bonding of ecology with environmental ethics in his writings for young people. In her introduction, Kerslake drives home the necessity to write a full-length critical study that examines in detail Hughes's contributions to children's literature. The aim of the book is to elucidate the eco-therapeutic values that Hughes perceived and portrayed in his poems, plays, and prose for children. Hughes's ecoconsciousness is attributed to a deep sense of environmental responsibility, and I enjoyed reading the text because it provides the discerning reader with a holistic sense of the central arguments that follow, which unravel in two main segments. Part I shapes the background reading, deals with Hughes's childhood, and then presents Hughes as an environmental writer. In chapter 1, "A Life Close to Nature," Kerslake maps Hughes's creative universe onto the geographical makeup of his childhood. Whereas Neil Robert's article "Ted Hughes's Paradise," which appeared in the book Ted Hughes, Nature and Culture (2018), recalls Hughes's early years of hunting and roaming through nature with his brother Gerald, Kerslake gives a more picturesque description of Hughes's childhood and helps the reader visualize Hughes as Rousseau's Emile. The second chapter, "Reconnecting with Nature," presents Hughes's early awareness of environmental degradation. Kerslake convincingly argues that Hughes was profoundly influenced by early environmentalists like Rachel Carson. Having underpinned the ecocritical and ecofeminist theories that persuaded Hughes, Kerslake presents Hughes as an environmental activist engrossed in environmental campaigns in the 1980s and deeply concerned with issues such as river pollution. Part II traces "the seeds of Hughes's children's writing" (chapter 3) and subsequently makes a detailed literary analysis of Hughes's writings for children. Kerslake offers a critical appreciation of Hughes as an eco-playwright (chapter 4), an eco-poet (chapter 5), and an eco-storyteller for children (chapter 6). In the closing chapter, she sums up the major arguments and delineates perspectives for future research especially by exploring the depth of Hughes's educational achievements. What strikes particularly in this study is the author's mission to make the reader perceive all her arguments through the double periscope that enables one to view everything through Hughes's shamanic quest and through his dichotomy of nature/culture or...