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Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being
This enthralling tour de force of literary criticism, unprecedented in Shakespeare studies for its scope and daring, is nothing less than an attempt to show the Complete Works - dramatic and poetic - as a single, tightly integrated, evolving organism. Hughes supports his thesis with erudition and a painstakingly close analysis of language, plots and characters. A multitude of dazzling insights, such as only one great poet can offer into the work of another, is generated in the process, and our entire understanding of Shakespeare, his art and imagination, is radically transformed. '[This] huge study of Shakespeare, more than ten years in the making, is an unprecedented act of critical witness.' London Review of Books
560 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1992
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About the author
Ted Hughes
375 books725 followersEdward James Hughes was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1984 and held the office until his death. In 2008, The Times ranked Hughes fourth on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".
He married fellow poet Sylvia Plath in 1956, and they lived together in the United States and then in England, in a tumultuous relationship. They had two children before separating in 1962 and Plath ended her own life in 1963.
He married fellow poet Sylvia Plath in 1956, and they lived together in the United States and then in England, in a tumultuous relationship. They had two children before separating in 1962 and Plath ended her own life in 1963.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
August 16, 2011
If you want to see Shakespeare through the lens of folk myth and through the eyes a great modern poet who's travelled the distance, read this book. Its written with great passion and verve. Also If you are a fan of Peter Brook as I am you can feel his influnce (they worked together for many years)as if Hughes is articulating what Brook might have had in mind in much of his work.
to_finish_reading_soon
April 8, 2008How do you resist a title like that?
April 28, 2012
Originally published on my blog here in May 1999.
One of the last books written by Ted Hughes, this monumental piece of literary criticism aims to show connections between the plots and imagery of many of Shakespeare's plays. These connections are based around what Hughes calls 'the Tragic Equation', derived from the two early poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. The supposed fascination of Shakespeare with this theme is based on Hughes' reading of the spirit of the Elizabethan age, with the barely suppressed warfare between Catholic and Puritan reflected in the unconscious of a sensitive man like Shakespeare. (The two poems are explained as expressions of the central 'myths' of Catholicism and Puritanism respectively, Venus and Adonis dealing with the power of the Goddess - whether the Virgin or the Church is intended, Hughes doesn't say, and The Rape of Lucrece the downfall of the Goddess at the hands of Yahweh. The fact that these interpretations of the poems would be deeply offensive to both devout Catholics - the idea of the Virgin or the Church as a sensualist! - and evangelical Protestants - God as a rapist! - is not even considered.)
The Tragic Equation synthesised from these poems' themes goes something like this. The tragic hero falls in love with the pure woman; a moment of double vision means he sees her also as the faithless "Queen of Hell"; in rage, he destroys her, or himself; sometimes he or she returns to fuller life to end the play on a note of redemption.
There are, I think, many problems with Hughes' general idea. The major problems seem to stem from his own captivation with it, which makes him rather unwilling to consider other possible interpretations of the plays. The offensiveness of his Catholic and Puritan interpretations of the poems which has already been mentioned is a good example of this.
Hughes develops the Tragic Equation from play to play as he sees Shakespeare's use of it growing in understanding (which may be - probably to Hughes should be - unconscious); however, from a sceptical point of view, he ends up tailoring the details of the Equation to fit the play. The play that his analysis illuminates most is Othello, which is probably not coincidentally the play which the bare version of the Equation given above fits best. (The moment of double vision, caused by Iago's false but convincing accusation of Desdemona, and its expression by Othello, is the basis for one of the best sections of the book.)
There is a tendency to argue without supporting evidence, as when Hughes takes the view that the plays Pericles Prince of Tyre and The Tempest, which he views as the culminating use of the Tragic Equation, reflect Shakespeare's integration of mystical Gnostic parables with the equation. Hughes takes the popularity of the philosophical ideas of the Gnostics among the Jacobean intelligentsia on the one hand and Shakespeare's use of similar imagery and themes (to do with rebirth and a spiritual journey to enlightenment) on the other, and says the two must be connected. But, like the Equation itself, there is a lack of evidence that Shakespeare was really doing this. The connecting themes are sufficiently vague - and certainly part of the orthodox Christianity which every Elizabethan and Jacobean was taught as a child - that it would be possible to see them in just about any work of art; and to see a connection in the use of flower imagery is to my mind just silly.
Hughes is strongest, as you would expect from a poet of his calibre, when analysing Shakespeare's language in detail. His linked discussions of Shakespeare's use of neologisms and of the word "and" to create poetic effects are particularly interesting. ("And" is often used to connect two contrasting ideas, instantly creating a vivid picture in the imagination.)
Other than his eye for detail, the strongest points in the book are the analyses of the lesser known plays, such as Troilus and Cressida, Timon of Athens and Pericles. In general, Hughes' ideas are interesting and thought provoking, but just not convincing.
A final, minor, point: a book of this length and complexity should really have been given an index.
One of the last books written by Ted Hughes, this monumental piece of literary criticism aims to show connections between the plots and imagery of many of Shakespeare's plays. These connections are based around what Hughes calls 'the Tragic Equation', derived from the two early poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. The supposed fascination of Shakespeare with this theme is based on Hughes' reading of the spirit of the Elizabethan age, with the barely suppressed warfare between Catholic and Puritan reflected in the unconscious of a sensitive man like Shakespeare. (The two poems are explained as expressions of the central 'myths' of Catholicism and Puritanism respectively, Venus and Adonis dealing with the power of the Goddess - whether the Virgin or the Church is intended, Hughes doesn't say, and The Rape of Lucrece the downfall of the Goddess at the hands of Yahweh. The fact that these interpretations of the poems would be deeply offensive to both devout Catholics - the idea of the Virgin or the Church as a sensualist! - and evangelical Protestants - God as a rapist! - is not even considered.)
The Tragic Equation synthesised from these poems' themes goes something like this. The tragic hero falls in love with the pure woman; a moment of double vision means he sees her also as the faithless "Queen of Hell"; in rage, he destroys her, or himself; sometimes he or she returns to fuller life to end the play on a note of redemption.
There are, I think, many problems with Hughes' general idea. The major problems seem to stem from his own captivation with it, which makes him rather unwilling to consider other possible interpretations of the plays. The offensiveness of his Catholic and Puritan interpretations of the poems which has already been mentioned is a good example of this.
Hughes develops the Tragic Equation from play to play as he sees Shakespeare's use of it growing in understanding (which may be - probably to Hughes should be - unconscious); however, from a sceptical point of view, he ends up tailoring the details of the Equation to fit the play. The play that his analysis illuminates most is Othello, which is probably not coincidentally the play which the bare version of the Equation given above fits best. (The moment of double vision, caused by Iago's false but convincing accusation of Desdemona, and its expression by Othello, is the basis for one of the best sections of the book.)
There is a tendency to argue without supporting evidence, as when Hughes takes the view that the plays Pericles Prince of Tyre and The Tempest, which he views as the culminating use of the Tragic Equation, reflect Shakespeare's integration of mystical Gnostic parables with the equation. Hughes takes the popularity of the philosophical ideas of the Gnostics among the Jacobean intelligentsia on the one hand and Shakespeare's use of similar imagery and themes (to do with rebirth and a spiritual journey to enlightenment) on the other, and says the two must be connected. But, like the Equation itself, there is a lack of evidence that Shakespeare was really doing this. The connecting themes are sufficiently vague - and certainly part of the orthodox Christianity which every Elizabethan and Jacobean was taught as a child - that it would be possible to see them in just about any work of art; and to see a connection in the use of flower imagery is to my mind just silly.
Hughes is strongest, as you would expect from a poet of his calibre, when analysing Shakespeare's language in detail. His linked discussions of Shakespeare's use of neologisms and of the word "and" to create poetic effects are particularly interesting. ("And" is often used to connect two contrasting ideas, instantly creating a vivid picture in the imagination.)
Other than his eye for detail, the strongest points in the book are the analyses of the lesser known plays, such as Troilus and Cressida, Timon of Athens and Pericles. In general, Hughes' ideas are interesting and thought provoking, but just not convincing.
A final, minor, point: a book of this length and complexity should really have been given an index.
July 22, 2017
Over a year! Goof grief! Proper review to follow when I'm less tired...maybe.
October 30, 2018
On Halloween and that Old Time Religion
Looking for something literary about the real Old Time Religion this Halloween, perhaps with a Maria GImbutas Pan-European orientation?
For a luminous and beautiful exploration of European paganism and the original Mother Goddess faith, backed by immense scholarship and a decades-long passion for the subject, one can do no better than Ted Hughes' magnificent Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being. Plus, its one of the two indispensable works on Shakespeare, the other being Harold Bloom's Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human.
In this masterwork, Ted Hughes reconstructs paganism from the whole of the Bard's canon, unfolding a hidden text like a set of puzzle boxes. Read the great review in The Guardian here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
Compare Ted Hughes' description of the Mother Goddess as a sow and Jeanette Winterson's figure of Dog Woman in Sexing the Cherry;
"The Boar’s peculiarly hermaphroditic nature is almost universally recognised in mythology … But the sow’s combination of gross whiskery nakedness and riotous carnality is seized by the mythic imagination …
Most alarming of all is that elephantine, lolling mouth under her great ear-flaps, like a Breughelesque nightmare vagina, baggy with overproduction, famous for gobbling her piglets, magnified and shameless, exuberantly omnivorous and insatiable, swamping the senses. The sow has supplanted all other beasts as the elemental mother …"
And people wonder why Ted Hughes' attempt to cast Sylvia Plath, a lifelong depressive with countless suicide attempts and crippled by imaginary guilt, in the role of a goddess and destroyer to whom he could make of his life a sacrifice did not go well.
Ah, the foolishness. One cannot save others unless we can save ourselves.
Nature is equally balanced between life and death; any real faith based on values which are immanent in the natural world must exalt both and deny nothing. Such a faith would be free of guilt, of the idea of sin, and of the self-destructive drive and death wish which motivated Hughes and Plath as a tragic couple. Against the consuming and feral darkness of chaos and death, we must balance and celebrate the joy and freedom of life.
What's the use of freedom if it isn't any fun?
Happy Halloween.
Looking for something literary about the real Old Time Religion this Halloween, perhaps with a Maria GImbutas Pan-European orientation?
For a luminous and beautiful exploration of European paganism and the original Mother Goddess faith, backed by immense scholarship and a decades-long passion for the subject, one can do no better than Ted Hughes' magnificent Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being. Plus, its one of the two indispensable works on Shakespeare, the other being Harold Bloom's Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human.
In this masterwork, Ted Hughes reconstructs paganism from the whole of the Bard's canon, unfolding a hidden text like a set of puzzle boxes. Read the great review in The Guardian here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
Compare Ted Hughes' description of the Mother Goddess as a sow and Jeanette Winterson's figure of Dog Woman in Sexing the Cherry;
"The Boar’s peculiarly hermaphroditic nature is almost universally recognised in mythology … But the sow’s combination of gross whiskery nakedness and riotous carnality is seized by the mythic imagination …
Most alarming of all is that elephantine, lolling mouth under her great ear-flaps, like a Breughelesque nightmare vagina, baggy with overproduction, famous for gobbling her piglets, magnified and shameless, exuberantly omnivorous and insatiable, swamping the senses. The sow has supplanted all other beasts as the elemental mother …"
And people wonder why Ted Hughes' attempt to cast Sylvia Plath, a lifelong depressive with countless suicide attempts and crippled by imaginary guilt, in the role of a goddess and destroyer to whom he could make of his life a sacrifice did not go well.
Ah, the foolishness. One cannot save others unless we can save ourselves.
Nature is equally balanced between life and death; any real faith based on values which are immanent in the natural world must exalt both and deny nothing. Such a faith would be free of guilt, of the idea of sin, and of the self-destructive drive and death wish which motivated Hughes and Plath as a tragic couple. Against the consuming and feral darkness of chaos and death, we must balance and celebrate the joy and freedom of life.
What's the use of freedom if it isn't any fun?
Happy Halloween.
May 22, 2025
A bit like watching an inspired lecturer suddenly telling you he thinks that aliens are visiting him in his sleep.
April 30, 2021
While Frank Kermode's book on Shakespeare's language is a detailed study of the development of his writing style, Hughes book looks at Shakespeare's work within a mythological framework that incorporates elements from the two long poems 'Venus and Adonis' and 'The Rape of Lucrece'. Using the framing device of the Goddess of Complete Being, a double vision, Hughes looks at how Shakespeare was able to reconcile in himself the Catholic and Protestant impulses that divided a nation. And so the Puritan impulse to reject one aspect of the Goddess, the temple whore, gives way to rage and the desire to ravish the Goddess as Holy Mother. This study combines close reading with a 'big picture' point of view. Reading the 'Complete Works' is recommended before tackling this book. It makes you appreciate the detail in Hughes' discussion.
There are however problems with this interpretation. Given the problems in this country with domestic violence, some of Hughes' theory is hard to read. "Obviously it happens in life that a saddened Othello will rape his wife rather than murder her, but on stage, in a symbolic work, that would be pitiable weak and one-dimensional, locked into pathology, without resonance of any kind. Murder, on the other hand, as everybody understands, lifts the situation into a bigger theatre: it expresses the mythic stature of the original love, and of the injury it has suffered, and of its weird justice." (P 180-181). Urgh... "The beloved Female must die." Really? (P 182)
Ultimately, Hughes argues that, on the mythic plane, "The murder of the Goddess is the murder of the source of life: the destruction of mankind. (And all of Nature, and of Earth.) (P 221) So, in his adaptation of the mythology of the Goddess and the double vision, Shakespeare is working through the tragic error, "... that error of the Puritan rejection" (P 231) and therefore is about the acceptance of the Goddess...
There are however problems with this interpretation. Given the problems in this country with domestic violence, some of Hughes' theory is hard to read. "Obviously it happens in life that a saddened Othello will rape his wife rather than murder her, but on stage, in a symbolic work, that would be pitiable weak and one-dimensional, locked into pathology, without resonance of any kind. Murder, on the other hand, as everybody understands, lifts the situation into a bigger theatre: it expresses the mythic stature of the original love, and of the injury it has suffered, and of its weird justice." (P 180-181). Urgh... "The beloved Female must die." Really? (P 182)
Ultimately, Hughes argues that, on the mythic plane, "The murder of the Goddess is the murder of the source of life: the destruction of mankind. (And all of Nature, and of Earth.) (P 221) So, in his adaptation of the mythology of the Goddess and the double vision, Shakespeare is working through the tragic error, "... that error of the Puritan rejection" (P 231) and therefore is about the acceptance of the Goddess...
November 10, 2023
I want to reject received critical opinion about this book, namely that it is a slightly deranged example of Shakespearian hermeneutics, which would never have been published were it not for Hughes' reputation and so Faber's acquiescence. One knows one might be fighting against the tide however when the best that even a generous, fair. and extremely perceptive critic such as Seamus Perry can say is that this is a book of 'reckless charm'.
Nevertheless: you can reject the book's central framework of the 'tragic equation' (an actually quite complex linking of ancient myth to the tumultuous repercussions which were still being felt in Shakespeare's lifetime of England's move from being a Catholic state to a Protestant one, with 'Venus and Adonis' the first expression of the 'catholic' part of the equation and 'The Rape of Lucrece' its counterpart as the myth of Puritanism) if you want but that still shouldn't then obscure the fact that this book is deeply original and contains some of the most interesting writing on Shakespeare produced in the thirty or so years since its publication. In saying this I also note how easily one slips into and reproduces the language Hughes uses - starting of course with 'equation' - but again this is just terminology which oughtn't distract. As he said in a letter just prior to the publication of the book: 'my concepts are like philosophical or mathematical terms...but the book grew as an imaginative work'
So, brilliant, striking, innovative, creative. In places. Especially the first half of the book. The main problem for me is that second half of the book becomes extremely repetitive and Hughes' obsession with tying in more and more of the equation does start to wear, especially as the equation itself starts to expand and become a 'theophany' (and this part of the book is the only reading - of 'The Winter's Tale' - which I think especially perverse). But Hughes on 'Venus and Adonis' and 'Lucrece' is brilliant, as is his analysis of so called 'problem plays' such as 'All's Well that Ends Well' , 'Troilus and Cressida' and 'Measure for Measure'.
Hughes famously gave up reading English at Cambridge and switched to Anthropology after a vivid dream which changed slightly in his various tellings and recollections but which is immortalised in 'The Thought Fox'. In the dream a large fox walked into his room (after Hughes had fallen asleep failing to complete an essay), laid a bleeding paw on the page where Hughes was writing and said: 'Stop this – you are destroying us.' This book is a tantalising example of criticism and analysis freed from the Leavisite approach Hughes was being taught, which the fox decried, but also anything that has come since. It shows simply the possibilities of an open, widely read, mind[^1]. Does it matter that it becomes dogmatic and outstays its welcome? Not to me, I would not be without its living witness to Hughes vital iconoclasm, realised in 1992 in this book over 30 years after 'The Thought Fox', some of whose lines might have been added to the collection of epigraphs the book already has:
.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.
Nevertheless: you can reject the book's central framework of the 'tragic equation' (an actually quite complex linking of ancient myth to the tumultuous repercussions which were still being felt in Shakespeare's lifetime of England's move from being a Catholic state to a Protestant one, with 'Venus and Adonis' the first expression of the 'catholic' part of the equation and 'The Rape of Lucrece' its counterpart as the myth of Puritanism) if you want but that still shouldn't then obscure the fact that this book is deeply original and contains some of the most interesting writing on Shakespeare produced in the thirty or so years since its publication. In saying this I also note how easily one slips into and reproduces the language Hughes uses - starting of course with 'equation' - but again this is just terminology which oughtn't distract. As he said in a letter just prior to the publication of the book: 'my concepts are like philosophical or mathematical terms...but the book grew as an imaginative work'
So, brilliant, striking, innovative, creative. In places. Especially the first half of the book. The main problem for me is that second half of the book becomes extremely repetitive and Hughes' obsession with tying in more and more of the equation does start to wear, especially as the equation itself starts to expand and become a 'theophany' (and this part of the book is the only reading - of 'The Winter's Tale' - which I think especially perverse). But Hughes on 'Venus and Adonis' and 'Lucrece' is brilliant, as is his analysis of so called 'problem plays' such as 'All's Well that Ends Well' , 'Troilus and Cressida' and 'Measure for Measure'.
Hughes famously gave up reading English at Cambridge and switched to Anthropology after a vivid dream which changed slightly in his various tellings and recollections but which is immortalised in 'The Thought Fox'. In the dream a large fox walked into his room (after Hughes had fallen asleep failing to complete an essay), laid a bleeding paw on the page where Hughes was writing and said: 'Stop this – you are destroying us.' This book is a tantalising example of criticism and analysis freed from the Leavisite approach Hughes was being taught, which the fox decried, but also anything that has come since. It shows simply the possibilities of an open, widely read, mind[^1]. Does it matter that it becomes dogmatic and outstays its welcome? Not to me, I would not be without its living witness to Hughes vital iconoclasm, realised in 1992 in this book over 30 years after 'The Thought Fox', some of whose lines might have been added to the collection of epigraphs the book already has:
.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.
December 20, 2024
This book is worth a read for sure, but it is hard to shake the impression that Hughes got a bit carried away with the writing of it. It is far too long and repetitive for one thing and would have benefited from tighter editing. Still: Hughes admirably engages in a very close reading of Shakespeare's plays through the mythic lens of "The Tragic Equation" he proclaims to have discovered.
January 6, 2020
Interesting book, but way too long. I like it that he emphasizes the two poems that don't get read much these days as the key to unlocking the later plays. There were some interesting ideas, interesting interpretations, but in the end I would have cut at least 100 pages.
March 28, 2024
Ein Buch für die Happy Few, die das Gesamtwerk Shakespeares kennen und dabeisein wollen, wie ein kreativer Geist einen ganz eigenen Zusammenhang aus seinen Lesestudien herstellt
April 25, 2024
Yeah . . . no. In a sense Goddess of Complete Being is impressive, like in the same way that Graves's White Goddess is impressive (i.e., "Wow, psilocybin is a hell of a drug! Also, I think this man is a schizophrenic"). Hughes is unashamedly derivative of Graves, but instead of Welsh minstrel poetry he goes straight for the big guy (Shakespeare).
So we have a farrago of Gravesian / Jungian / nonsense-ian 'analysis' that makes Terence McKenna look very reasonable. Still, it's Hughes, and there's a fair amount of interesting material here, but only after you wade through analysis such as:
Or, you know, not!
So we have a farrago of Gravesian / Jungian / nonsense-ian 'analysis' that makes Terence McKenna look very reasonable. Still, it's Hughes, and there's a fair amount of interesting material here, but only after you wade through analysis such as:
An example of this 'translation downwards' typical of a Bruno-esque mnemonic system would be the following: Catastrophe (the general concept) = the corpus of Classical Tragedy (the category of real examples) = Achilles' heel (the symbol or 'seal,' by which that whole department of 'thought' would be switched into consciousness, like a file opened by a computer code-sign). Perhaps, as I say, the sudden emergence of the system, in the form of the Equation in All's Well, is closely related in this way too, to the fact that his new double language appears here for the first time, systematically adopted and developed. But having supplied him with that basic principle, Abstract concept = concrete symbol (unforgettable image), a Cabbala-like, spiritualizing image system could automatically impose the further development - abstract concept = sacred concrete symbol (unforgettable image belonging to the mythic system) - simply because all images would be 'sacred,' since all would be magnetized to their place on the Ladder of Ascent, of which his mythic system and Equation were now the dramatic form. Somehow or other, this is what happened. In All's Well, Shakespeare's makeshift, improvised 'language of the common bond' became simultaneously the sacred language of hierophany.
Or, you know, not!
September 10, 2013
This was okay. The length and depth of this book is truly fascinating. Hughes's research and ideas are astounding, but I still remain unconvinced that there is a link between the poems and plays he mentions. There are too many tenuous links, but many fascinating ideas and ways of reading here. I didn't finish the whole book, but focused on the start and end to see how he eventually drew his initial ideas to a conclusion. Perhaps if I read the chapters in between, I'd get a clearer idea of his Myth, but, at the moment, it seems much more legendary than critical.
May 10, 2014
Brilliant
May 14, 2015
A breathtaking amount of scholarship both on Shakespeare and on mythology.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews