PERTANIKA JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

The skylark is a tiny brown bird with a small crest on its head. It is slightly larger than a sparrow and is popularly known for its uninterrupted song during its upward flight. The bird is found in most parts of England and many European countries. A closer examination of English poetic tradition reveals that several English poets have anthologised this tiny bird, including famous poets such as Wordsworth, Shelley, Hopkins, Meredith, Rossetti, Rosenberg, and C Day-Lewis. The late poet laureate Ted Hughes also wrote about the skylark in our times. Even Shakespeare and Goethe have eulogised the skylark in their plays. Since Thomas Hardy has written a poem about ‘Shelley’s skylark,’ it is evident that traditionally ‘To a Skylark’ by Shelley is the most popular of all ‘Skylark’ poems. However, Hughes’s poem on skylark merits our attention because it is entirely different from the general trend of all other skylark poems written until his time. Therefore, this study explores how the skylark became a symbol of poetic inspiration for different generations of poets by analysing the two famous poems on skylark written by Shelley (1792–1822) and Hughes (1930–1998). While Shelley depicts the skylark as a pure spirit of joy, Hughes considers it an embodiment of cosmic energy resulting from the bird’s struggle for flight against the earth’s gravitational pull. Therefore, the different perceptions of Shelley and Hughes about the skylark constitute the essence of this discourse.

• Baby, K. T. (2022). Patterns of cosmic energy and violence in the poetry of Ted Hughes (1st ed.). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

• Barthes, R. (1977). Elements of semiology. Hill and Wang.

• Eco, U. (1997). A theory of semiotics. Indiana University

• Hirschberg, S. (1981). Myth in the poetry of Ted Hughes: A guide to the poems. Wolfhound Press.

• Kristeva, J., & Moi, T. (2002). The Kristeva reader. Blackwell.

• Lechte, J. (1994). Fifty key contemporary thinkers: From structuralism to postmodernity. Routledge.

• Panecka, E. (2018). Shamanic elements in the poetry of Ted Hughes. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

• Sagar, K. M. (1978). The art of Ted Hughes. Cambridge University Press.

• Shawa, W. A. (2015). Stylistics analysis of the poem ‘To A Skylark’ by P. B. Shelley. IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 20(3), 124-137. https://www.academia.edu/27382505/Stylistics_Analysis_of_the_Poem_To_A_Skylark_By_P_B_Shelley

• Skylark poems. (n.d.). Nosleepingdogs. https://nosleepingdogs.wordpress.com/poems-in-which-skylarks-appear/

• Skylarks by Ted Hughes. (n.d.). Lyrics.lol. https://lyrics.lol/artist/21050-ted-hughes/lyrics/3746304-skylarks

• “To a Skylark”: Critical Appreciation. (n.d.). Literaturewise.in. Retrieved May 14, 2022, from https://www.literaturewise.in/mdl/mod/page/view.php?id=272

• To a Skylark by Percy Bysshe Shelley. (n.d.). Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45146/to-a-skylark

• To a skylark poem summary and analysis. (n.d.). LitCharts. https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/percy-bysshe-shelley/to-a-skylark

• To a Skylark. A poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822): A study guide. (n.d.). Cummings Study Guide. https://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides8/Skylark.html#Figuress

• West, T. (1985). Ted Hughes. Methuen.

• Zaiter, W. A. (2018). Romanticism in context: Shelley’s and Keats’s verse and prose: Keats’s letters and Ode to a Nightingale, Shelley’s defense of poetry and skylark. International Journal of Comparative Literature and Translation Studies, 6(3), 34. https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijclts.v.6n.3p.34