Ted Hughes - The Warm and The Cold
Ted Hughes - The Warm and The Cold
Ted Hughes - The Warm and The Cold
Overview
As in 'Wind' and 'Tractor', in this poem, Hughes describes how the natural world copes
with extreme weather conditions. Whilst the animals seem to be well-adapted and 'warm'
despite the 'cold', ('And the badger in its bedding/ Like a loaf in the oven'), the farmers appear
to be suffering, turning in their sleep 'like oxen on spits'.
Each stanza begins with a description of the 'freezing dusk', before explaining how animals are
dealing with the weather. Each animal is given a simile.
This creates a sense of the animals having something in common, and a sense of order and
predictability to the poem.
Revision
Figurative Language
Again, Hughes uses personification and metaphors and similes...
The 'freezing dusk' is compared, in similes, to 'a slow trap of steel', 'a nut
screwed tight', and 'a mammoth of ice'.
The landscape is personified, 'trees and hills ands all That
can no longer feel'.
As is the moon, which due to the cold 'has
lost her wits'.
A metaphor is used to describe the spectacular night, 'the starry
The simile isn't visual, like the owl of line 14 being 'like a doll in its lace', rather the comparison
is in terms of ideas.
A nurse works in a tense and difficult environment, her smile in this kind of situation is like a
little piece of happiness, a fleeting, momentary beauty. The 'bare-blown hill? is exposed in a
difficult, dangerous environment. The deer are like a fleeting moment of beauty and joy.
Form
The form of the first three stanzas is unchanging, constant. The repeated form and the regular
rhyme scheme create a sense of order, balance and harmony.
As in 'Work and Play' and 'Tractor', in the last two stanzas the form opens up so that three things
are isolated, separated from the security of the rest of the poem.
Why do you think the line 'A star falls' is on its own?
"Because the effect is of the line being isolated, like the solitary star it describes. The line
also is surrounded by white space, creating a sense of it falling"
The final rhymes link the mad moon, 'wits' with the farmers, on 'spits'.
Summary
Subject
The poem is about how nature adapts easily to adverse weather, and about
how man suffers in it. Presumably the farmer is on a 'spit' because he is
worrying about his cattle or crops, and is powerless to help them.
Attitude
The tone of the poem seems to be one of gentle wonder. The images of the
animals are all of comfort and warmth. And even the potentially grotesque image
of the tortured farmers seems rather comic.
Style
Hughes mainly shows us his talent for thinking of fresh and
arresting similes in this poem.
But as in all the poems he also employs metaphor and personification.
Once again, he cleverly adapts his form to underscore the ideas
in the poem.
Similes
A simile is a way of comparing one thing to another. Similes are common in both
poetry and prose.
Similes always include the words like or as. In his poem The Warm and the
Cold, Ted Hughes uses a series of similes to depict the way in which animals, birds
and insects are perfectly adapted to survive the harshness of cold winter weather:
Freezing dusk has tightened
Like a nut screwed tight
On the starry aeroplane
Of the soaring night.
But the trout is in its hole
Like a chuckle in a sleeper
The hare strays down the highway
Location
The title board of the poem shows the house at Lumb Bank near Heptonstall, which Ted Hughes once owned and
which he gave to the Arvon Foundation for its work promoting writing. The poem is read over archive footage of
winter and autumn landscapes. After the poem is finished, we see boys from the Art Department at Queen Elizabeth
School, Barnet talking about the poem and their own artwork inspired by it.
Summary
'The Warm and the Cold' is taken from Hughes's collection Season Songs - a diary of the seasons in a form of poetry
that is very close to song. This particular poem has a structure that feels very musical, with alternating verse and
chorus, or call and response, sections.
The four-line sections that set out the brutal power of winter, using industrial imagery - 'trap of steel', 'nut screwed
tight' - are followed by eight lines with a definite rhythm and repeated structure - 'And the badger in its bedding /
Like a loaf in the oven'.
The final seven lines of the poem are like the final coda in a piece of music - two short three-line stanzas
sandwiching a single line all on its own - 'a star falls.' The sense of song is intensified by the frequent rhymes
throughout the poem (steel/feel, sleeper/deeper, wits/spits) and the poem is deliberately laid out on the page to pick
out the sections, just as a song would be. As the poem moves on, the images of the sheltering creatures move from
beautifully simple comparisons - 'the butterfly in its mummy / Like a viol in its case' - to more unusual but effective
ones - 'The hare strays down the highway / Like a root going deeper'. In the final eight-line section the comparisons
become even more imaginative and poetic - 'The flies are behind the plaster / Like the lost score of a jig'. It is
noticeable that the only reference to human beings in the poem - the 'sweating farmers' - is not particularly flattering
and serves to point out the achievements of the animals.
What Ted Hughes Said
'This poem is one of a sequence of poems written for the four seasons of the year... for a children's festival... the idea
I think was they would be set to music.
'It's made up of images of creatures in this very cold part of winter, which are enduring cold that many of them
might not survive, and nevertheless in a way surviving happily... I always feel that animals must be in a sort of state
of bliss to be able to go through what they go through and tolerate it...'
Have a little read: ... Comparison of Ted Hughes poems: The Warm And The Cold
and Work and Play The first thing that you notice about these two poems is the
similarities in subject. Work and Play and The Warm and the Cold both feature the
presence of wildlife and the countryside. The Warm and the Cold: And the butterfly
in its mummy Like a viol in its case And the owl in its feathers Like a doll in its lace.
Work and Play The swallow of summer, she toils all the summer A blue-dark knot of
glittering voltage A whiplash swimmer, a fish of the air. Both of these verses project
the main theme of each poem as the countryside and wildlife. There are though,
some differences. Like the layout of the poems. Work and Play is set out with three
lines at the start of each stanza then five small lines at the end of the stanza, of
which there are four. The end stanza changes to one beginning sentence and four
ending the piece. The Warm and the Cold however, has three verses of twelve lines,
then a finishing part where seven lines are spaced out to give a slowing down
effect. This poem also has a recognisable effect where nearly every other line is a
simile. E.g. But the trout is in its hole Like a chuckle in a sleeper. The hare strays
down the highway Like a root going deeper. The snail is dry in the outhouse Like a
seed in sunflower. The owl is pale on the gatepost Like a clock on its tower. The
language of each poem is also very different. Work and Play has an almost sarcastic
view, mocking the people featured in it. E.g. Nude as tomatoes With sand in their
creases To cringe in the sparkle of rollers and screech. The cynicism in the poem
makes it enjoyable to read, giving you a different view of sunbathers on a beach.
Not tanned and beautiful, but ugly, burnt raw. However, The Warm and the Cold is a
deep, emotional poem referring to the beauty of different types of animals and
habitats. Work and Play's main subject is the swallow, but also projects a deeper
meaning that gets the reader thinking about the effect of humans on the
countryside. Ted Hughes describes the sunbathers as 'roasting and basting' in the
sun and mosquitoes as 'man-eating flies, jab electric shock needles' into the
helpless day-trippers. This sentence being a very sarcastic comment. Hughes
comments on the swallow throughout the poem, projecting her as a beautiful
'boomerang of rejoicing shadow'..
To decide on the tone, you need to think about the ideas and attitudes
in the poem, and then decide:
what the overall feeling of the poem is
how you would read it aloud.
Is this poem:
calm, peaceful and without bitterness? Perhaps winter is, after all,
a good time - it allows the animals the rest and peace they need.
slightly sinister and dangerous? Look particularly at the end of the
poem.
This poem is about really cold weather at night time. In contrast to this, all the creatures are
described as going deeper, hiding away or finding somewhere safe and warm to hide.
In Stanza 1 the freezing weather is being described as being like a trap of steel. But:
In Stanza 2 the cold has got worse, with everything freezing up, like a nut being tightened up as
far as it will go. The night is rather like an aeroplane, soaring up to the stars. But:
In Stanza 3 the cold is now like a steel vice, and the world has been frozen up like a mammoth
trapped within a block of ice. But:
The flies have hidden away in the house, behind the plaster.
All three stanzas follow the same pattern. There are four lines that are about the cold and the
tight grip it has on the world. Then there are eight lines about the creatures which manage to hide
away from the cold. Since they have twice as many lines, this may suggest that the warmth is
stronger than the cold: that the warmth somehow wins.
Then the pattern changes. The poet seems to suggest that it so cold that the moon is driven mad
by it. The moon is being personified here. Finally, there is the image of sweating farmers so
hot in their beds that they turn over like oxen on spits. They are certainly warm enough, but it
isn't an attractive image!
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Language
There are two sets of images. The cold is described as a steel trap, a tightly screwed nut, and a
steel vice. All of these are industrial images, which suggest a tight grip of cold on the world.
There is also the idea of a mammoth's being frozen solid into a block of ice. This is hyperbole
(exaggeration) as it suggests the return of the Ice Age.
In contrast, the creatures are all described as hiding away and sheltering somewhere warm and
cosy. The badger is like a loaf in the oven and the trout is like a chuckle in a sleeper which
suggests quiet, private laughter and is a happy image.
In another contrast, in the last few lines, the farmers are also inside and warm, but are likened to
roasting meat turning on spits, which gives an unfavourable impression. The animals are happy
because when they sleep they have no cares. But the farmers are unable to sleep because of their
worries.
Most of these ideas are expressed as similes, with something being like something else, eg
like money in a pig. The sparrows are sheltering in the ivy to keep warm, but there is also the
idea of their being kept as safe as money being saved in a piggy bank.
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Structure
Then there are seven lines left. They are arranged in three lines, one line,
three lines.
This perhaps suggests that everything in Nature is very well organised and tidy. Everything has
its place, and the creatures all adapt to the weather conditions. It also suggests the regular pattern
of the seasons. This means that the form of the poem adds something to the meaning.