Introduction.
Hughes’ poem The Thought Fox explores the mystery and power of poetic creation. This act of creation results in the triumphant resolution of the poem where the last line declares, ‘the page is printed.’ Interestingly, the poem is about the creation of a poem; it explores the strange journey of a barely experienced ‘fox’ idea from ‘darkness’ to the ‘page.’Interestingly, As we read the poem, the reader feels as if we are eavesdropping on a very intimate, liminal moment of poetic manifestation; as the ‘fox’ abandons its mysterious outside ‘dark snow’ habitat and becomes known and thus absorbed within the poet’s poem. Ironically then, the final resolution of the poem with its triumphant ‘printed page.’ appears to dissolve the fox’s existence entirely. The wild, predatory creature has thus become tamed and known and it may feel as if the poet has no further use of this particular creature or muse.If we wonder how the ‘thought fox’ inspires the poet’s imagination sufficiently to create a powerful and memorable poem, then the answer lies with the wild fox’s movement towards the poet’s creative ‘loneliness.’Look at the opening stanza and the sense of expectation as the patient poet senses the initially formless existence of the fox. ‘Something else is alive.’ The power of this suggestion lies with the acknowledgement which hesitates to even name the idea as the ‘fox’ but rather evokes a mysterious, magical connection between the poet and the unknown ‘alive’ presence. The mysterious threshold setting of the poem as ‘this midnight moment’s forest’ emphasises the magical, as the poet has to show trust and patience as he awaits an imaginative movement towards his consciousness. The use of the transferred epithet, ‘ the clock’s loneliness’ underlines the mysterious power of this very pregnant moment in the poet’s creative quest for a new poem.In the second stanza we see the mystery still preserved and respected; ‘something near/ though deeper within the darkness.’ This seeming contradiction highlights the power and mystery of the approaching poetic idea. Like a literal fox, the creative idea edges towards the poet’s consciousness whilst at the same time holding itself back from being visible.When the mystery is made more visible in stanza three we still sense the tentative fragile quality of the developing idea: ‘a fox’s nose touched twig, leaf.’ We are not encountering the whole fox because the poet is aware of only fragments of his idea, hence the use of synecdoche to only allow glimpses of the fox/ creative idea rather than the entirety of the creature.This use of fragmentation and contradiction is repeated in the next stanza where the diffident fox ‘ lags by stump’ is also described as ‘ bold to come.’ Such contradiction captures the elusive nature of the ‘wild’ creature which is imagination itself. Everything is about timing so that the manifestation of the poem can appear rather than disappear.Conclusion.The whole poem gives representation to the hesitant, mysterious yet powerful movement of the ‘ inspirational yet elusive, wild’ fox’ as it approaches the mind of the poet sitting at his desk inside. Ironically it may even feel that the poet is the real predator trapping the untamed ‘wild’ fox imagination for his own use as the sensory immediacy of the fox muse yields to the poet’s desire for conquest through the use of sensory detail that is briefly violent and then dismissive
