Ted Hughes: The Perfect Forms

Length / Form Twelve lines, four stanzas

Allusion to Classical figure Socrates; Priapus

Relationship to Classical text Allusion to Socrates (‘smiling, complacent as a Phallus'; ‘Here is Socrates, born under Pisces’) and Priapus (‘Visage of Priapus’) in a poem about the signifiers of religion.

Comment This poem is from Hughes’s second collection of poem Lupercal. Taking its name from the Lupercalia fertility festival of ancient Rome, Hughes laces his poems with images and symbols associated with the festival to the effect that the poems read like a series of incantations in an attempt to reinvigorate his writing.