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The elegiac aspect of Ted Hughes´ poetry has been frequently overlooked, an oversight which this book sets out to rectify. Encompassing a broad range of themes, from the decline of nature and local industry to the national grief caused by the First World War, this book is a comprehensive addition to the study of Hughes´ poetry.

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Acknowledgements Introduction Griefs for Dead Soldiers Instinct for Loss Singers of a Lost Kingdom Moortown Elegies? The Fruitful River Dust As We Are The Sorrows of the Deer Epilogue Endnotes Bibliography Index

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"Hadley´s primary focus, then, is the development of Ted Hughes´s work. ... His intended audience clearly consists of students and scholars interested in a new angle on Hughes´s poetic development. ... it offers a telling indicator of the wider development of Hughes´s artistic sensibility." (Patrick Gill, Symbolism, October, 2016)

´...Hadley is strongest when he follows the established elegiac trope of the river in Hughes´ River...in so doing, he not only examines the qualities that might make Hughes´ poetry elegiac but also places him in a lineage of established elegists who recuperate the deard to provide both solace and regeneration.´ M. Willhardt, Choice

´The Elegies of Ted Hughes is a welcome addition to the field of Hughes studies.´ - Sally Connolly, TLS

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EDWARD HADLEY is Associate Lecturer in Twentieth-Century Literature and Children´s Literature at the Open University, UK. He completed his PhD on Ted Hughes at Durham University, where he has taught classes on Metaphysical Poetry and Shakespeare.

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