The Thought-Fox

Question 2

The Thought-Fox

Answer 2

compound noun conflates the abstract with the concrete

Question 3

midnight moment’s forest

Answer 3

rural landscape - metaphorical resonance - physical space and the space of the the imagination

echo of Blakes ‘the Tyger’ - ‘forests of the night’?

Question 4

clock’s loneliness

Answer 4

transferred epithet - speaker’s lonliness

time

Question 5

Through the window I see no star/ Something more near

Answer 5

‘star’ an ancient form of navigation and heavy with traditional poetic value - romance, light, hope, guidance… Instead of the star, our poet is fascinated by/inspired by something else’.

juxtaposition

Question 6

deeper within darknes

Answer 6

dental/ plosive alliteration - depth, unknown

Question 7

twig, leaf

Answer 7

asyndetic list of fox’s progress through landscape

Question 8

And again now, and now, and now

Answer 8

each ‘now’ is a footprint

Question 9

warily a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to come

Answer 9

distorted by uneven surface - more suspense as shadow acts as harbinger of body - grand “body that is bold to come’

Question 10

A widening deepening greenness

Answer 10

snow - grassier area
inspiration, motivation to write

Question 11

Brilliantly

Answer 11

flaming orange - fiery in contrast with snow

Question 12

Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox

Answer 12

arresting immediacy of ‘sharp hot stink’ => organic imagery, ugly sensory imagery

Question 13

enters the dark hole of the head.

Answer 13

lack of inspiration in the darkness

Question 14

starless still

Answer 14

‘the marriage of inner and outer worlds’ - neil roberts

1. stationary still
2. still starless

Question 15

page is printed

Answer 15

harmony - fusion between fox’s (foot)prints and his ‘printing’ on the page
ars poetica = poem about writing poetry

Question 16

What collection was this published in? And when?

Answer 16

Hughes’ first one, ‘the Hawk in the rain’ (1957)

Question 17

Who typed up ‘the Hawk in the Rain’ and encouraged Hughes to submit it into the New York Poetry Centre First Publication Award, which it won?

Answer 17

Plath

Question 18

What did Robin Skelton write about the Hawk in the Rain collection?

Answer 18

‘All looking for the emergence of a major poet must buy it’. - Robin Skelton

Question 19

Helen Mort quote

Answer 19

Hughes’ presentation of animals often becomes ‘…a disconcerting encounter with the other’ - Helen Mort