- 116
Hughes, Ted.
Estimate
15,000 - 20,000 GBP
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Description
- Fine collection of 22 autograph and typed letters and 16 postcards signed ("as ever, Ted...", etc), together with two postcards and one autograph letter signed by Carol Hughes, to Nick Gammage (one to "Miss O'Keefe", and one to "R. Lewis"), various sizes (chiefly folio and 4to), chiefly Court Green, North Devon, 26 November 1969—10 October 1998 (the final letter from Carol Hughes in January 1999 responding to Gammage's letter of condolence after the poet's death in November 1998), most with autograph envelopes, together with autograph draft and typescript of his poem "Enter Hamlet, staring into the air..."
a fine discursive series with some extensive discussion on the intentions behind his poetry, his methods of writing, a number of his most celebrated poems and also his views on other poets, religion, modern history and the relationship of mankind to the natural world
the series commencing when his recipient was an English student in the late 1970s, and wrote to him about Gaudete ("...the test will be, will anybody be reading Gaudete in twenty years?...The only thing is to ignore the public, & go ahead in your own way..."), then responding to a request for views on D.H. Lawrence ("...Lawrence...is blended into the cultural air as we breathe. It is not easy to know what is our own and what came through him – it is probably impossible, since so many salient ideas of his were not original with him either..."), then on his own work, such as the poem "Wind" in his first collection and later poems in Remains of Elmet inspired by the football match in Heptonstall Slack in the ridge of the Pennines, where his parents lived and where his father played ("...For some reason, I found myself just very stirred. Something to do with the time-warp---my father's boyhood, his time on the war (nearly all his football friends killed)---and simply with the joyful, heroic sort of pathos, I suppose, of this little dressed up, brief figures, in that gigantic, archaic, landscape..."), commenting, often at substantial length, on the ideas behind his work, for instance What is the Truth ("...the original idea was---that God's Son should learn about Man by hearing man's account of the creatures he loves best i.e. the creatures he oppresses, mythologises, misuses, kills, eats..."), religion ("...the ultimate field of hypocrisy..."), Christianity ("...Any re-alignment of man to the Natural World and to woman, any restoration of the Natural world and woman to their rightful sanctity, must entail rejection of many attitudes formulated and reinforced by puritan Christianity..."), history, including a four page disquisition on the formative impact of the First World War on his father's generation, the British nation and his own work ("...As the actual survivors...have died off... the country has changed to an incredible degree. What was a shared single, sacred sort of mythology has simply gone..."), his negative views on the teaching of English at Cambridge ("...some very talented people disappeared in the 'psychic cleansing'..."), the misrepresentations of him in the printed media, his dislike of hearing what others think of his work ("...as when a child is admired, in its hearing, for something it does naturally. Ever after – that something is corrupted with self-consciousness..."), his "connection" with the Palaeolithic world ("...all my early years were lived in a dream of being such a hunter..."), his early reading ("...by 18 I was obsessed by Shakespeare and Yeats to the exclusion of almost all else except some music and folklore..."), the difficulty of being Poet Laureate in the "peculiar conditions" in which we live ("...the media proprietors...have located an inexhaustible vein of resentments in the great disaster of our times...the disintegration of the union, the resurgence of old tribal differences..."), covering the genesis, intention and performance of other works such as Crow ("...the Oedipus Song was written to be sung by a gigantified African voice as accompaniment to a mime burlesque performed around the Phallus statue that stood centre stage at the end of the play. I still think it could have been good. Instead, we simply had 'Wot, no bananas' and the cast jiving about the stage and into the auditorium..."), Seneca's Oedipus (a long detailed letter, covering his ideas behind the language in the play – "...to strip the basic rhythm of the language to two or three fundamentals...", his relationship with the actors and director Peter Brook, and particularly that with Irene Worth, who played Jocasta: "...Irene...did have a kind of aggressive, tigerish, elemental approach. She gripped my imagination...Also, I was strongly attracted to her...Then in Persia, through my fault, it somehow went wrong..."), Shakespeare and the Complete Goddess of Being, his early poem "Song", his River poems, and many other of his stories and poems, as well as his opinions on other writers such as John Clare, T.S. Eliot ("...it could be that his poetic healing career lasted only so long as he was stepping out of his own sickness..."), S.T. Coleridge, Robert Graves ("...I first met the White Goddess September 1954...what really interested me were those supernatural women...") and Wilfred Owen ("...I did have a reservation about him: first, he was an officer. Throughout my war my father as an infantryman...refused promotion..."); the later letters often responding to queries and questions relating to Gammage's editing of the volume celebrating Hughes' work (eventually published as The Epic Poise after Hughes' death in 1999) [together with:]
draft autograph poem (beginning "Enter Hamlet, staring into the air..."), 25 lines, heavily worked and revised, one page, no date, accompanied by later typed version, signed by Hughes, and copies of Hughes' poems "Unknown Soldier" (with an autograph note beneath, inscribed "For Nick Gammage. From Ted Hughes"), "Three Voices" (12 pp., with some autograph notes, with accompanying note by Keith Sagar) and "Venus and Adonis", with related material
the series commencing when his recipient was an English student in the late 1970s, and wrote to him about Gaudete ("...the test will be, will anybody be reading Gaudete in twenty years?...The only thing is to ignore the public, & go ahead in your own way..."), then responding to a request for views on D.H. Lawrence ("...Lawrence...is blended into the cultural air as we breathe. It is not easy to know what is our own and what came through him – it is probably impossible, since so many salient ideas of his were not original with him either..."), then on his own work, such as the poem "Wind" in his first collection and later poems in Remains of Elmet inspired by the football match in Heptonstall Slack in the ridge of the Pennines, where his parents lived and where his father played ("...For some reason, I found myself just very stirred. Something to do with the time-warp---my father's boyhood, his time on the war (nearly all his football friends killed)---and simply with the joyful, heroic sort of pathos, I suppose, of this little dressed up, brief figures, in that gigantic, archaic, landscape..."), commenting, often at substantial length, on the ideas behind his work, for instance What is the Truth ("...the original idea was---that God's Son should learn about Man by hearing man's account of the creatures he loves best i.e. the creatures he oppresses, mythologises, misuses, kills, eats..."), religion ("...the ultimate field of hypocrisy..."), Christianity ("...Any re-alignment of man to the Natural World and to woman, any restoration of the Natural world and woman to their rightful sanctity, must entail rejection of many attitudes formulated and reinforced by puritan Christianity..."), history, including a four page disquisition on the formative impact of the First World War on his father's generation, the British nation and his own work ("...As the actual survivors...have died off... the country has changed to an incredible degree. What was a shared single, sacred sort of mythology has simply gone..."), his negative views on the teaching of English at Cambridge ("...some very talented people disappeared in the 'psychic cleansing'..."), the misrepresentations of him in the printed media, his dislike of hearing what others think of his work ("...as when a child is admired, in its hearing, for something it does naturally. Ever after – that something is corrupted with self-consciousness..."), his "connection" with the Palaeolithic world ("...all my early years were lived in a dream of being such a hunter..."), his early reading ("...by 18 I was obsessed by Shakespeare and Yeats to the exclusion of almost all else except some music and folklore..."), the difficulty of being Poet Laureate in the "peculiar conditions" in which we live ("...the media proprietors...have located an inexhaustible vein of resentments in the great disaster of our times...the disintegration of the union, the resurgence of old tribal differences..."), covering the genesis, intention and performance of other works such as Crow ("...the Oedipus Song was written to be sung by a gigantified African voice as accompaniment to a mime burlesque performed around the Phallus statue that stood centre stage at the end of the play. I still think it could have been good. Instead, we simply had 'Wot, no bananas' and the cast jiving about the stage and into the auditorium..."), Seneca's Oedipus (a long detailed letter, covering his ideas behind the language in the play – "...to strip the basic rhythm of the language to two or three fundamentals...", his relationship with the actors and director Peter Brook, and particularly that with Irene Worth, who played Jocasta: "...Irene...did have a kind of aggressive, tigerish, elemental approach. She gripped my imagination...Also, I was strongly attracted to her...Then in Persia, through my fault, it somehow went wrong..."), Shakespeare and the Complete Goddess of Being, his early poem "Song", his River poems, and many other of his stories and poems, as well as his opinions on other writers such as John Clare, T.S. Eliot ("...it could be that his poetic healing career lasted only so long as he was stepping out of his own sickness..."), S.T. Coleridge, Robert Graves ("...I first met the White Goddess September 1954...what really interested me were those supernatural women...") and Wilfred Owen ("...I did have a reservation about him: first, he was an officer. Throughout my war my father as an infantryman...refused promotion..."); the later letters often responding to queries and questions relating to Gammage's editing of the volume celebrating Hughes' work (eventually published as The Epic Poise after Hughes' death in 1999) [together with:]
draft autograph poem (beginning "Enter Hamlet, staring into the air..."), 25 lines, heavily worked and revised, one page, no date, accompanied by later typed version, signed by Hughes, and copies of Hughes' poems "Unknown Soldier" (with an autograph note beneath, inscribed "For Nick Gammage. From Ted Hughes"), "Three Voices" (12 pp., with some autograph notes, with accompanying note by Keith Sagar) and "Venus and Adonis", with related material
Condition
Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, when appropriate.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."