DICTION AS THE REVELATION OF FEMININITY: A STYLISTIC APPROACH TO TED HUGHES’ “THE RIVER IN MARCH” AND “SHEEP”

Abstract

The objective of "Diction as the Revelation of Femininity: A Stylistic Approach to Ted Hughes'                       
"The River in March" and "Sheep" is to examine the diction employed in Ted Hughes' "The 
River in March" and "Sheep." The present research paper adopts a stylistic approach to explore 
the choice of words that have assisted the poet in bringing forth femininity in the selected poems. 
His dexterous usage of the English language has grabbed him a reverenced position in the field 
of English literature. Ted Hughes, a Poet Laureate and an eminent poet of the twentieth century, 
is a self-reflecting poet who has strived to understand the complexities of the creative process. 
His language is singular, and his poetic style is lucid and fluent, stressing nature and its objects. 
Critics have commented that Hughes' interests in the Yorkshire dialect and the traditional oral 
literature have contributed to play a distinguishable role in the tone of his creative composition. 
His poetic language is enhanced with rhetorical devices, and the language he has employed has 
motivated him to carry out the present research. It employs the definition of personification as 
the stylistic toolkit to scrutinize the enriched poetic language in order to detect how diction 
reveals femininity in the respective contexts.