Hughes - February Flashcards
About
The destruction of the myth of the Nibelung wolves
S1
6 regular quatrains
-Restrictive – lack of individuality and expression may be indicative to the enclosed and limited lives the wolves are forced to live due to human cruelty
S2
-Enjambment
-Wolf’s spirit lives on and still perceives hope within the future
-Hughes Shamanism – closely linked to animals – animal spirit
Critic
Bate “A truth discovered through helpless suffering”
P1
“Wolf with its belly stitched open”
-Stark statement suggests how this brutality cannot be embellished
-Symbolic “stitch” fairytale paradigm of LRRH – lack of human acknowledgment
P2
-Sadistic “long grin” that reigned superior in the Norse myths is reduced to “a photograph”
-Places the poem in the present and suggests how it is current societal values that have caused this – almost accusatory
-Post-war industry
P3
-Triplet “dancing” “smiling” “begging” ridiculing the malevolent beast they once were
-“smiling” – Jester imagery
-Selective breeding – unnatural
P4
“Vanished head”
-degradation of their image – we have killed who they once were for our own amusement
P5
“Mouths clamped well onto the world”
-determined stories will remain and be remembered and not forgotten
-White Goddess and Shamanism
