Discussed in this essay:
Ted Hughes: The Unauthorized Life, by Jonathan Bate. Harper. 672 pages. $40. harpercollins.com.
Among those who knew Ted Hughes—friends, rivals, lovers, wives—it was universally agreed that, his other qualities notwithstanding, he was very, very good-looking. Six feet tall, broad-shouldered, and floppy-haired, his face lantern-jawed and slightly concave, he was almost a caricature of manliness. At Cambridge in the 1950s— where, a romantic competitor claimed, Hughes was “the biggest seducer” on campus—he favored an old black corduroy jacket and unbelted trousers. He hunted and fished and hiked and cooked (masculine meals: fried herring in oatmeal, black pudding in a skillet, goat stew). He was graceful, self-possessed, and kind. His voice was uncommonly resonant. He gave off, wrote his first wife, Sylvia Plath, a “queer electric invisible radiance.”…
