RELIC

the text of the poem is on page 29 of your books

some introductory thoughts on what the poem is about

This is a thoughtful poem in which the speaker reflects on an jawbone of a creature he found washed up on the beach, following a long period in the sea.

The washed up, 'curved' jawbone prompts the poet to think about the processes at work since the death of the creature to whom the jawbone belonged.

This is short, intense poem, which seems to chart the thought-processes of the speaker as he responds to finding the jawbone.

In structure, the first section of this poem sets out the experience of finding the jawbone, whilst the final five lines of the second section provide some more generalised thoughts about the massive processes of the sea and its effect of the life absorbed into it.

There are some really simple statements in this poem, juxtaposed with some quite complex thoughts - notice the strikingly simple statements of fact ('I found this jawbone ...'; 'the deeps are cold'), and how they contrast with some complex phrases ('go down jaws, go gnawn bare' - what does this mean?).

A clue to the poem's significance lies in the title - 'Relic'. A relic in traditional medieval Christianity was a body-part of a saint (a holy person), or an object associated with a saint. Such objects were kept safely by the church, and were thought to have very special properties, often associated with healing and miracles. Hughes's curved jawbone in this poem might have been a relic to the medieval imagination, but the poem suggests that the word 'relic' when applied to the curved jawbone now denotes something very different. This jawbone has no healing or comforting properties of the kind traditionally associated with relics - in fact, in being washed up, almost randomly, the jawbone is a tribute to the massive, impersonal, all-consuming power of the sea and the other the natural processes which take place in our planet.

As often with Ted Hughes's early poems, he is determined to present nature and natural processes as a contrast to the kind of easy comforts which we might be hoping to find in poetry about nature. This approach is clear in the depiction of the 'sea's edge' at the start of the poem, with its vivid listing of what the sea brings to the beach. There's a kind of process at play here in this description, a massive process which flings at the beach and breaks up the small creatures of the sea ('crabs, dogfish') - 'broken by the breakers or tossed / To flap for half an hour'.

The simple phrase 'The deeps are cold' states the impersonal, obvious nature of the sea, an environment in which survival and natural processes of eating and disintegration dominate. There's no 'camaraderie' in the 'darkness' of the sea (the word 'camaraderie' might suggest the natural togetherness which humans often feel in difficult circumstances), but instead a sequence of processes involving eating, being eaten and decomposition.

Somehow, the simple sequence of facts adds up to something impersonal and rather comfortless. The description of an array of things which the sea throws back onto the shoreline ('shells, / Vertebrae, claws') underlines that the sea creates a set of randomly dismembered body-parts.

This 'cold' look at the randomly washed-up jawbone is followed by five lines in which the speaker sums up some general thoughts about the sea as home to a vast set of natural processes. There are some abstract statements too: 'none grow rich / In the sea', all underlining that there are vast processes in play, which, for the jawbone which once 'gripped' involve change from being a living jaw to becoming an abstract memento of such processes, the 'cenotaph' or monumental item which the jawbone has inevitably become.

some questions to consider

What do you like about this poem? What strikes you as the most interesting feature of it?

Have you ever found objects washed up on a beach and wondered about where they originated and what story they might tell?

Do you find that this poem has any element of 'comfort' to it? Or do you find it reassuring that Hughes appears determined not to extract easy symbolism from the jawbone, but instead to show us his view of the sea as a vast place of natural processing and processes?

Why do you reckon Hughes structures his poem in this way? What does the absence of a regular stanza-structure bring to the poem?

Notice how Hughes starts his poem with the event of finding the jawbone - this is in the past tense ('I found'). He then moves on to general statements about the sea ('continue', 'the deeps are cold') in the present tense or passive voice ('are finished'), but then returns to the past tense to complete the poem ('this ... jawbone did not laugh), and then notes with a shift to the present that the jawbone 'is now a centotaph'. What's the effect of these shifts in the narrative time?

What do you think Hughes means when he states that the items tossed around by the sea 'continue the beginning'?

Could this poem be seen as a poem for an agnostic or post-religious world, or is there any sort of traditional spirituality on offer here?

some creative writing to help you understand the poem more deeply

Think about visits you've made to beaches. What did you see? What are your most vivid memories of such places? What do you like most about beaches? Could any of those memories supply you with a poem? If so, try writing something of your own. How similar or different to Hughes's picture of a beach is yours?

Poems on related subjects by Ted Hughes

Heptonstall on page 78 of your books.

Crow on the Beach on page 99 of your books.

some other lovely poems in English about the sea, beaches and things found

photo

Beach near Whitby, Yorkshire, England - photo by James Harding

Page updated

Report abuse