Introduction

Abstract

The Introduction shows that, given the Trump administration’s stance on climate change and the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, the environmental humanities have never been more important. Jonathan Bate’s major new biography has generated further interest in Ted Hughes’s life and work. The Introduction sets out the book’s methodology, showing how significant developments in ecocriticism, ecopoetics, Anthropocene studies and animal ethics suggest innovative new interpretations of Hughes’s work. Respected ecocritical thinkers, such as Gifford, Bate and Scigaj, have analysed Hughes’s work before. However, new readings of Plath as an ecopoet (Knickerbocker 2012; Brain 2001) suggest the need to apply ecopoetic theory to Hughes in a more consistent and wide-ranging way than has been done before. The Introduction then gives a detailed chronology of Hughes’s life, writing and environmentalist activities, and summarises the arguments of the chapters that deal with each stage in his career.