On Ted Hughes, myth and personal tragedy - biographer Sir Jonathan Bate, at the Ledbury Poetry Festival

TED Hughes's biographer, Sir Jonathan Bate, spoke of a "carapace of mythic structure" over the former poet laureate's story; and he had his audience hanging on every word, in a packed Burgage Hall, as though he were discussing a great dead pharoah.

The hall was suspiciously packed, in fact, and a few casual conversations I had with audience members revealed that some were fans of Ted Hughes's verse and some were not, - not really; but all, I suspect, were fascinated by the life.

There is a real danger, then, that the biographical details of Hughes's life are of far more interest to most people than his actual accomplishments as a poet. His first wife, the poet Sylvia Plath, famously killed himself, as did his mistress, Assia Wevill, who also murdered Shura, the little girl she had by Hughes.

There were a few gasps of horror when Bate explained how Hughes had postulated that some persistent fate could have caused the Jewish Wevill, who had escaped from Nazi persecution, to put her head in a gas oven, after first putting crushed-up pills in Shura's glass of water.

Bate was very effective in revealing the personal in Hughes's poetry, and also in revealing how very much Hughes was influenced by myth.

But there remains the suspicion that Hughes's accounts, in verse, in letters, in journal entries, were really an attempt to control the narrative; to create new myths.

Perhaps he needed to explain, at least to himself, why two women he had loved had ended up killing themselves, with one of them committing child murder into the bargain.

According to Bate, Hughes on occasions could "binge on desire" and be highly promiscuous. Bate said that even at the time when Hughes had just left Plath for Wevill, he was having another affair with an aspiring poet called Susan Alliston.

Is it unreasonable, then, to suggest that Plath and Wevill killed themselves because, at least in part, they wanted and expected more from Hughes?

On the other hand, as Plath is a feminist icon, it would be dangerous ground indeed to suggest that any male, from a paternalistic position of strength, could be wholly responsible for a woman's hang-ups, unhappiness and self-harm.

And what of the poetry? Hughes wrote poems that are likely to be read for as long as English is spoken - at least in England. His "Pike", for instance described a "stilled legendary depth" which was "as deep as England".

Bate suggested that Hughes never developed a "transatlantic voice", unlike Seamus Heaney; but that, perhaps, is America's loss, not ours.

Gary Bills-Geddes.