The Thought-Fox by Ted Hughes

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The Thought-Fox

I imagine this midnight moment's forest:
Something else is alive
Beside the clock's loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.

Through the window I see no star:
Something more near
Though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:

Cold, delicately as the dark snow
A fox's nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now

Sets neat prints into the snow
Between trees, and warily a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to come

Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own business

Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.

Ted Hughes

Read poems about / on: snow, star, dark, tree

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Victoria Holdsworth (11/8/2005 12:52:00 PM)
The Thought Fox is written in first person, omniscient

narration. You can see this by the way the author is

actually involved with the piece, taking a part within the

tale told: 'I imagine.....' line 1

This poem has a dramatic monologue effect, and the

poets use of hook lines, intrigue and encourage the

reader to discover what is in the forest that he tells of.

'Something else is alive

Besides the clocks loneliness

And this blank page where my fingers move.'

Here the poet has used enjambment for a pausing

effect, and this is a controlled energy, with a vibrant

immediacy. His personification of the clock being lonely

is hiding a double meaning, the clock being his brain,

cognitive thinking.

The Thought Fox is another of his 6 stanza poems each

containing the four-line format. In the 2nd stanza the poet

uses his poet licence.

'Through the window I see no star.'

This gives the impression that there is only on star,

however I think that the one star the he is looking for is

the one bright spark of an idea. There is then an air of

mystery brought into play with the poets use of a

caesura at the end of 'star' and the next lines.

'Something more near

Through deeper within the darkness

Is entering the loneliness: '

The tone is changed again to a more faster pace as an

animal is introduced, a fox.

Hughes has used a term called euphony in line 9 along

with illiteration.

'Cold, delicately as the dark snow.....'

A melodious sound comes from the words, something I

would associate with snowflakes falling.

In the second half of the third stanza, the focus changes

quite rapidly, however the affects are subtle.

'Two eyes serve a movement, that now

And again now, and now, and now

Sets neat prints in the snow....'

I can see the eyes of the fox now, but I can also see the

eyes of the character. The use of repetition is not just for

effect, it is telling us something more. The character is

trying to remember something and that is the reason for

the repetition, and he is working out in his head how it

would look on the paper. this is what's known as lateral

thought. A way of solving problems by apparently

illogical methods, a thought within a thought process.

This is where the omniscient narration becomes more

clearer.

At this point the character knows what is going to happen

thanks to the following:

'Between trees, and warily a lame

Shadow lags by stump and in a hollow

Of a body that is bold to come.'

Hughes uses this term, ' warily a lame ' as though the

animal and the character are unconvinced and the hollow

of the body is the space within his brain. Then again in

line 16, enjambment is used and causes the tone of the

piece to change.

Something is happening, something that poses both fear

and excitement.

'Across clearings, an eye,

A widening deepening greenness.....'

Hughes uses select words which rhyme and contain two

or three syllables to extend the rhyme and to create a

threatening tone, which creeps upon the words, ready

and uncertain for attack.

'Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox

It enters the dark hole of the head'

The shot is released. The tension has climaxed and the

thought has entered his head with the violence of an

animal.

Illiteration features heavily, with the use of the animals

description; the sound is quick and instant like the

movement of the fox.

In the last two lines of this piece, the ending is controlled

and closed, and Hughes draws me back to the

beginning two stanzas, making me re-cap on the subject

matter past, of the star, the window and the ticking of the

clock. Once again, I have gone back full circle to the

blank page.

'The window is starless still; the clock ticks....'

The use of caesura for pause is again, deliberate, and I

am reminded of the actions of the animal after the attack,

and then we have the final kill, the last line is pinnacle.

The prey is dead and so is his thought.

'The page is printed.'

I believe the poem signifies a change of life.

Whilst the poem has a theme of a second event running

through it, the poem contains images you cannot actually

see; yet we know they exist and happened at the same

time. The use of synchronics is a vital addition to the

piece.

The rules used are formality and imagery, the control of

speed, littered with metaphor and simile all to create a

deeper picture than the one being initially presented.

Compared to poems like 'Wind' which has a differing

focus with gothic overtone, The Thought Fox has a

vibrant crispness that contains psychological realism,

this is more composing thoughts and words or being

visited by a muse, whereas Wind is a poem of an

element already trying to change thoughts that have

been acted out.