Analysis of the Poem Snow by Ted Hughes - A Literary Essay Example

The poem Snow is a piece of art that is brief and detailed in its imagery. Besides, its among the greatest, beautiful and sad loving poetries in Capriccio. In line 11 of the poem which states, "the thick, loose flocculence of life" burns out "in the air," the author uses a soft and cold tone in demonstrating how he managed to survive an airplane crash in an Arctic blizzard. Like snow in his artistic piece of art, Ted Hughes reflects his adventure during his movements from space into Earth, and consequently the regenerative powers of nature that connects the Heaven and Earth. Therefore, this paper seeks to highlight the analysis of snow by Ted Hughes with regards to its structure, language, and theme.

In Ted Hughes pieces of art, the Snow, the theme that is extensively covered in the poem, is the reformative powers of nature that connect the Heaven and Earth. For instance, in line 6 of the poem, the author states that the movements from the space downwards towards earth and the "oven of empty fire" symbolize the divine contraction of human life before the creation of each exhalation. When the analysis of this line used by Ted Hughes is critically done, its imperative to note that, unlike the oven, it's the fire that is empty. This is because the regenerative powers of nature that link the Heaven and Earth can either nurture the spiritual life of the human beings and thus bring the union with the divine, or buries the spirits which are empty of the soul-fire.

Throughout the poem, Ted Hughes has managed to paint a picture of all the images situated in a time dominated and a fixed earthly location. The figures pictured by the author throughout the poem are both real and ghostly. For instance, the soft chandeliers of snowflakes on her sparkly black fur hat portrays the real image of the Yorkshire Village of Haworth. However, the constellations falling through Judean thorns are the memories and the imaginations of the biblical stories of the birth and the death, creation, and destruction of spiritual divine and cosmic level.

The language used in the poem is complex and symbolic. For instance, the use of charcoal crimped in describing the coat as a result of the snow is metaphoric. The absence of commas between the two words suggests that both the color and the skin of the author were all crimped by the hot charcoal, and thus portraying the fire image of the poem. Additionally, the fact that the coat protected the narrator from the falling/heaven and the falling constellations is symbolically used to describe both the life and snow.

Ted Hughes uses snow to metaphorically refer to the destructive powers of mercury by melting away. The author demonstrates how his life in the poem is "burning out in the air" similar to the snow and mercury, air is an element of mercury. The ability of snow to melt and flocculate and bury everything shows the alchemical powers of mercury to dissolve and coagulate, just like the snow, and consequently the destructive and regenerative powers of mercury. Therefore, the air and nothingness which vanishes with the snow demonstrate the divine contraction before each new creation exhalation.

The poetic structure of the poem Snow is written with the fundamental building-block of prose in the sentence. Snow is written in a standard form with the appropriate line lengths as there are a few fitted ideas and phrases that end the line of the poem making it easier for the readers to take a little pause. For instance, Snow falling. Snowflakes clung and melted and While they drank their coffee. You escaped among others. Ted Hughes has appropriately managed the use of end-stopped lines and thus making it easier for the natural stopping points in the poem.