Dr Steve Ely, senior lecturer in creative writing at The University of Huddersfield, discusses their research on the work of the poet Ted Hughes.

Ted Hughes by Fay Godwin © British Library Board

In 2022 I was awarded an AHRC grant to complete a two-year programme of research entitled Ted Hughes’s Expressionism: Visionary Subjectivity. The research is designed to explore and expound the view that Hughes’s most distinctive, original and best work—the work that made his name—is essentially Expressionist, characterised by a visionary subjectivity that transforms content in order to present his own unique view of the world. Although his work is almost always rooted in observation, most clearly so in poems that take animals and nature as their ostensible content, Hughes is rarely content with limiting himself to realist or naturalistic representations. Imagination, argument and didactic intent combine in his work to create symbols and metaphors that articulate his own apocalyptic truths. Beyond this, an important secondary aim of the research is to use Expressionism to understand Hughes in the context of twentieth century movements and tendencies in the arts in general, not simply in ‘English Literature’, thereby facilitating a broader and more nuanced understanding of the achievement and status of an artist still too often understood as a ‘maverick’.

Expressionism is an elusive and contested term, and not one typically applied in Hughes studies, or indeed, in English Literature, and part of my research—and the work of the symposium—will be to explore, expound and critique its meaning in this context. An exciting range of talks—Hughes and German Expressionist cinema, Hughes and Alchemy, Hughes and ‘absolute music’, a number of presentations on Hughes’s relationships and affinities with other artists and writers including Peter Brooke, Barrie Cooke, Oskar Kokoschka, Franz Marc, Alan Moore, Janos Pilinsky, Sylvia Plath, William Shakespeare and Dylan Thomas, and several analyses of key works, including Seneca’s Oedipus, Crow, Gaudete, Capriccio and ‘Mayday on Holderness’, ‘The Howling of Wolves’ and ‘Anniversary’—will break new ground in doing so. Of course, many of the talks draw extensively on research conducted in the British Library’s rich and endlessly rewarding Ted Hughes archive.

I’m a poet with a dozen or so publications under my belt, including Englaland (2015), Lectio Violant (2021) and The European Eel (2021). However, a lifelong interest in Hughes led to a parallel career as an English literature academic, as Director of the Ted Hughes Network at Huddersfield University, where I also teach Creative Writing. These two strands came together to inform this research. Initially, an interest in developing a better understanding of my own processes and methods of artistic creation led me to explore and become more self-conscious about my own writing in a cross-disciplinary context. This led to the realisation that the application of a similar approach might provide a fruitful method of interrogating and understanding Hughes’s encyclopedic oeuvre, to gain a sense of where—in all that diversity and richness—his main achievement lies.

An important step on the journey to Ted Hughes’s Expressionism: Visionary Subjectivity was the publication in 2020 of James Keery’s Apocalypse!, a revisionist anthology of the neglected and maligned poetry of the 1940s, its predecessors and antecedents, in doing so demonstrating the ‘visionary modernist’ context which provided the matrix for Hughes’s emergence—and to some extent ‘explains’ his singularity in the Movement-dominated English poetry scene of the mid/late Twentieth century. In 2022 Professor John Goodby and I organised dual symposia—Apocalypse I and Apocalypse II, at Sheffield Hallam University and the University of Huddersfield respectively—inspired by Keery’s work and insights. Apocalypse’ (book and symposia) helped catalyse my thinking and led to the AHRC application and my current research.

Indeed, as the research has developed, apocalypse is increasingly becoming an important concept in helping me to articulate my understanding of Ted Hughes’s Expressionism. There’s a two-fold sense to this. In the Greek, ‘apocalypse’ means a revealing, unveiling or vision—an inner experience triggering an urgent, highly subjective response. Of course, ‘vision’ is a key aspect of Expressionism. However, through the content and notoriety of the Apocalypse of S. John the Divine (the Book of Revelation in most Protestant Bibles), a second understanding of apocalypse—disaster, catastrophe, the end of the world—has become dominant. Much of Hughes’s poetry is concerned to address and articulate apocalypse in this sense, not only in his eco-poetry and his address to the atrocity and conflict that characterises the modern world, but also in his work addressed to ontology and being, his sense that humans are catastrophically cut-off from the spontaneity of their natural lives and are thus not only unable to live in harmony with themselves, their peers and the natural world, but are consequently locked into disastrous cycles of alienation, violence and self-harm. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to come up with a general definition of Expressionism to inform my research. However, I’m increasingly thinking that ‘apocalypse’ might be key: visionary work, rooted in a singular world view, articulated via imagination and addressed to urgent themes, as so much of Hughes’s work is, is almost certain to produce Expressionist work.

Material from the Ted Hughes Archive

Ted Hughes Expressionism: Visionary Subjectivity will take place in the Pigott Theatre, Knowledge Centre, British Library on 15^th September, 2023. Attendance is FREE to members of the public, but Eventbrite booking is required.  More details, the symposium programme and the booking link can be found here: https://research.hud.ac.uk/institutes-centres/tedhughes/expressionism/symposium/.

Natalie Lucy talks about their project mapping the Caribbean Diaspora through the letters of Andrew Salkey. 

I am a PhD student at UCL. I started a part-time placement at the British Library in September which finished at the end of February. I was supervised by Eleanor Casson, who, until recently, was working on the Andrew Salkey archive and Stella Wisdom, Digital Curator. The aim of the project was to map the Caribbean diaspora through the correspondence of the writer, broadcaster and poet Andrew Salkey. Well-known both as a meticulous chronicler and a prolific correspondent, the many fascinating and frequently poignant, letters in Salkey’s extensive archive reflect a network of Caribbean writers and academics for whom Salkey served not only as something of a nexus but also as a facilitator in their careers. More importantly, though, the correspondence shows the movement of these writers within a wider context of the diaspora, a feature which we have visually presented through the digital applications, Gephi and Kepler.    

Why did I apply for this project?

My thesis explores the way that the trickster character, Anancy, has historically been reinvented, primarily at key political points, to say something about heritage and identity and how he emerges in the literature of British writers and artists, particularly those with Caribbean heritage. A significant part of my research concerns the ways that Anancy was appropriated in the writing of the Caribbean Arts Movement, a dynamic group of artists and writers formed in London in the mid-1960s. Andrew Salkey was one of the three founders of CAM, along with John La Rose and Edward Kamau Brathwaite. He had been in London since the early 1950s and had already demonstrated his potential influence as something of an ‘enabler’, both through his immense generosity towards his fellow writers and his connections both within the writing world and at the BBC. The project offered an exciting opportunity. Not only would I be able to access Andrew Salkey’s archive, which would undoubtedly enhance my research, but the project had the potential to explore the dynamics between the writers and to bring to life something of the networks, which were so key to the establishment of a literary and cultural foundation.

What are Gephi and Kepler?

Gephi is an open graph visualization platform. It has been used in a variety of projects, to illustrate both social networks, which are evidenced within correspondence, and historical patterns of movement.  In these projects, Gephi has been used as a way to make data more accessible and, by visually animating it, more engaging.

Static visualisation of the Caribbean Diasporic network found in Andrew Salkey’s correspondence files, using Gephi Visualisation Platform. Credit: CC-BY The British Library

Kepler is an open source geospatial analysis tool, which was originally created by Uber to map Uber drivers around the world. This offered a useful application through which to map the movement of the Caribbean writers in Salkey’s correspondence during key periods. 

Static visualisation of the movement of the Caribbean Diasporic network found in Andrew Salkey’s correspondence files using Kepler. Credit: CC-BY The British Library

Gathering the Data

The first stage of the project was to acquire the data that would ultimately be used in the visual map of the diaspora. Salkey was a meticulous archivist, retaining a significant quantity of the letters he received; he was also a diligent and attentive correspondent. Salkey’s friends were prominent Caribbean writers and publishers and Salkey’s archive contains the letters of Samuel Selvon, his distinctive language reminiscent of his groundbreaking novel The Lonely Londoners, George Lamming and Jan Carew.

A selection of letters from Sam Selvon to Andrew Salkey, Add MS 89377/7/54. Credit: CC-BY Samuel Selvon Estate

The initial data was limited to the date and location of the correspondence, information that could suggest the patterns of movement within the diaspora. The idea was that it would provide a framework with which to start to explore the potential of the project. 

The letters were so rich in detail, however, that other information was also recorded. I was able to note when correspondents mentioned other countries that they were planning to visit or when they spoke about other writers within the network. This provided an additional layer of information, which helped to broaden the analysis of the Caribbean diasporic network, linking people with each other as well as with Salkey.

Static visualisation of the Caribbean Diasporic network found in Andrew Salkey’s correspondence files with biographical information. Credit: CC-BY The British Library

One of the recurring themes of the letters was the evident impact that these writers had on each other, not only as a network through which to promote their work, but also to seek some form of solidarity. In numerous letters, Andrew Salkey is asked for advice or practical assistance. Sometimes this is a request for a review of their work, or a recommendation for a lecturing post, or his opinion on a piece of writing. Further clues are revealed by the fact that some of the letters also contain Salkey’s additional notes, handwritten in the margin or a penned tick beside a request.

What did I Learn?

In addition to the fascinating insight into the important work that the British Library does, I have discovered something about Andrew Salkey himself.  What evolve within the letters are essentially a series of stories of friendships, between remarkable writers and artists. Sometimes, the extent of appreciation for Salkey’s generosity in helping so many other writers and friends can also be glimpsed within the, frequently poetical, words on the page. Samuel Selvon’s letters to Salkey are habitually humorous, but occasionally he steps outside his mocking, affectionate style, and says something that is profoundly moving. In one letter to Salkey on 15 March 1975,  he writes: ‘you have a great gift, Andrew, so great, that even with those few words, and my inability to express myself as you do, you will understand and appreciate what I am trying to say. That is the quintessence of your genius - that behind the ballad and the episode that other human beings will laugh kiff-kiff at and enjoy you can see with the inner eye and analyse with the unique power that God gave you.'

A letter written by Sam Selvon to Andrew Salkey 15th March 1975, from Add MS 89377/7/54. Credit: CC-BY Samuel Selvon Estate

Natalie Lucy was a PhD placement at the British Library from September 2022 until February 2023. In this blog, Natalie explains her interest in the project, development of the project through the content of the correspondence, as well as what she learned from the placement. This blog is linked with another post on the Digital Scholarship Blog, which gives more detail on the digital visualisation applications used for this project.

Linked Blog:

Mapping Caribbean Diasporic Networks through the Correspondence of Andrew Salkey

In 2022, the British Library received a selection of rare books and manuscripts from the Honresfield Library, originally collected by industrialist William Law (1836–1901). This collection was purchased by the Friends of the National Libraries and shared across a number of UK institutions. The Honresfield Library contains several items of significant historical and literary importance.

The life and death of Jenny Wren, for the use of young ladies and gentlemen, Hon.129.(12) Many chapbooks were decorated with simple woodcuts, sometimes coloured, either by the seller or the owner.

Among the items that were allocated to the British Library are a collection of curiously small volumes in uniform brown watered silk bindings with green spine labels betraying their contents: “Chap Books”. This collection comprises of 764 individual pamphlets, bound together in seventy parts. The volumes are numbered on their spines, and suggest three distinct series: 1-48, 1-19, and four un-numbered. This division is reflected, and expounded, in the 1891 Sotheby sales catalogue listing them:

“48. Chap Books. A collection of numerous small popular work for children, with woodcuts arranged in 20 vol. uncut, v. y. – An extensive collection of chap-books, garlands, children’s books, &c. with woodcuts arranged in 49 vol. 12mo, uncut, v.y. – Manuscript catalogues of both series by W. Maskell. 70 vol.”[1]

Comparing the current British Library holdings with the 1891 catalogue entry reveals a few discrepancies. Notably, one volume is missing from each numbered series: neither no. 49 nor no. 20 feature in the present British Library holdings. Furthermore, the remaining four unnumbered volumes are not accounted for here. However, item 49 in the sales catalogue includes a further eight volumes of “Chap and Toy Books”, sold to Maggs, which may suggest the origin of these additional four volumes.

The Sotheby entry also mentions a manuscript catalogue, which is dated 1872 and survives in the present collection. It further introduces us to the original compiler of the collection, the Rev. William Maskell (1814?-1890). Maskell was a liturgical scholar and collector who was in the habit of building up collections of books and works of art and selling them to public institutions[2]. The British Museum Library acquired a large number of liturgical works from Maskell within his lifetime, with a major portion of his collection being sold to the Museum for £2,240 in 1847[3]. However, these chapbooks remained in Maskell’s private collection until his death in 1890 and were sold by Sotheby in the following year. Contemporary annotations in the sales catalogue suggest the volumes were purchased at auction by Bain (possibly the London booksellers James Bain) and were likely acquired by William Law not long after this.

Manuscript catalogue of chapbooks, children's books, garlands; &c. &c., Hon.112.(1) William Maskell kept a detailed manuscript catalogue of his chapbook collection. The catalogue is organised alphabetically, with entries relating to the numbers which can be found on the spines of the bound volumes. For each entry, Maskell provides the volume number, short title, format, place and year of publication (where available).

The sales catalogue also attests to the impressive scale of the collection: “so complete a collection of chap-books would occupy many years even if possible to procure them in the different towns of England and Scotland in which they were printed.” The collection represents examples of printing from 53 different towns and cities in England, Scotland and Ireland, spanning c.1770-1865. These imprints include the names of printers whose body of work is largely absent from research library catalogues.

The misfortunes of a bad boy, Hon.134.(5) Some chapmen, such as W. Davison of Alnwick, produced multiple series of popular tales to be collected. This printing of The misfortunes of a bad boy was no. 21 in a series of halfpenny chapbooks produced by Davison in the early 19th century.

The collection also varies enormously in the nature of its content. ‘Chapbook’ is an infamously slippery term used to describe abridgements, alphabets, ballads, cries, dreadfuls, fables, garlands, histories, rhymes, songsters and morals, among other things. Their physical appearance and cheap, sometimes crude, production are also defining marks. Chapbooks of this period were often illustrated with woodcut blocks, which were typically re-used across publications, sometimes even being shared by different printers[4]. The indeterminate status of the chapbook is well illustrated by the sheer variety of size, shape, theme, and tone of the pamphlets represented in Maskell’s collection. Most of the collection is in remarkably pristine condition, with only a small selection bearing markings of former owners[5]. Some volumes include pencil inscriptions, possibly by William Law, generally commenting on their contents. In addition, there is one chapbook titled, “A pleasant and delightful dialogue between honest John and loving Kate. Part the first.” (1791) which has been loosely inserted alongside a copy of the second part of the same story[6]. This title does not appear in the 1872 manuscript catalogue.

The wonderful advantages of drunkenness; to which is added, Protest against whisky, Hon.163.(11) Chapbooks were produced on various subjects, from popular children’s tales, to more serious moral works. This early 19th century Scottish chapbook was a pamphlet decrying the dangers of excessive drinking.

The Maskell collection provides a useful resource for study into the production of British and Irish chapbooks in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries. It is also an interesting example of chapbooks being collected, rather than used, and provides the opportunity for further study of Maskell and Law as collectors of cheap printed materials. This collection complements substantial holdings of chapbooks and cheap print already in the British Library collections. The Maskell collection has been fully catalogued online and can be found within shelfmark range Hon.112.(1) - Hon.183.(14).

 

[1] Sotheby’s, Sales Catalogue for the Late William Maskell, 26 February 1891.

[2] de Ricci, S.M.R.R., English Collectors of Books and Manuscripts 1530-1930 and Their Marks of Ownership, 1930, p.143.

[3] Harris, P. R. “The development of the collections of the Department of Printed Books, 1846-1875.” The British Library Journal 10, no. 2 (1984): 114–46. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42554204.

[4] Dutta, A., Bergel, G., and Zisserman, A., ‘Visual Analysis of Chapbooks Printed in Scotland’. In The 6th International Workshop on Historical Document Imaging and Processing (HIP '21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, (2021) 67–72.  https://doi.org/10.1145/3476887.3476893

[5] See Hon.119.(2), Hon.121.(8), Hon.124.(4), Hon.129.(5), Hon.129.(11), Hon.129.(12), Hon.138.(4), Hon.138.(5), Hon.140.(6) and Hon.169.(6).

[6] See Hon.156.(6).