Critical Appreciation

“Pike”, from Ted Hughes's Lupercal (1960), begins as a close study of a fish and ends as an experience of fear, and a critical appreciation must show how that movement works. This lesson gives a plan for writing one, with a model answer on theme, structure, language, tone and mood, and evaluation, all in our own words.

“Pike” presents the pike as a perfect, ancient killer and then draws the speaker into its world: first through pike kept behind glass that destroy one another, then through an old, deep pond where he fishes at night, and finally through a closing moment of dread. A critical appreciation of the poem explains its central idea, which is the perfect, unsentimental violence of nature, and shows how the structure, the vivid and muscular language, the bold comparisons and the shifting tone and mood create that idea. The lesson sets out a six-part plan, gives a model of about 330 words, and lists the points that earn marks.

What you are writing. A critical appreciation explains what a poem says, how its techniques create their effects and how well it succeeds. It is not a summary or a paraphrase. “Pike” is under copyright, so this lesson describes it in our own words; when you write, support each point with a few words from your own copy and the stanza number.

The poem in context. “Pike” appears in Lupercal (1960), Hughes's second collection, which won the Hawthornden Prize. The pike is a freshwater predator: a typical ambush hunter that lies perfectly still among weeds and then strikes, with sharp backward-pointing teeth, and it will eat its own kind when food is short. Hughes builds the poem on this real behaviour.

How the poem is built. The poem is made of short four-line stanzas with no regular rhyme scheme, and sentences often run across the stanza breaks, which gives it a relentless forward drive. Its movement can be followed in five stages.

• Opening stanzas: the pike is presented from outside, almost like a specimen. A very young fish, only a few inches long, is already perfect in every part, with tiger-like markings, and it is a killer from birth with a fixed grin. It lies motionless in weedy water and has the unchanging equipment of jaws and teeth.
• Middle stanzas: the speaker enters the poem. He and others keep three pike behind glass and feed them, and they eat one another until only one is left. Later, two large pike are found dead beside the pond, one jammed in the other's throat.
• The old pond: the speaker moves from the safe distance of the glass to a deep pond that was once part of a monastery, whose depth is compared to the depth of a whole country, and which holds pike so huge and old that he hardly dares to cast after dark.
• Night: he fishes in the dark, frightened, aware of splashes on the water and of owls.
• Final stanza: a presence rises slowly from the dark water below him and watches him. The hunter has become the hunted.

Theme. The central idea is the perfect, amoral violence of nature. The pike is not wicked; it is made for killing, and the poem neither condemns nor softens it. A second idea is the movement from detached observation to personal fear: the speaker begins as a watcher and ends as someone being watched. Some critics also read the dark pond as an image of the deep, unseen layers of nature or of the mind.

Language and devices.

• Imagery: vivid, concentrated pictures of colour, shape and stillness, such as the tiger-like markings, make the fish physically present.
• Comparison: a bold comparison makes the pond's depth match that of a whole country, giving the water historical and almost mythic scale.
• Word-making: Hughes turns a noun into a verb to describe the fish's colouring, a typical habit that gives the line energy.
• Sound and rhythm: hard consonants and heavy stresses give the lines a hammering, muscular quality, and enjambment carries the reader forward.
• Diction: blunt, unromantic words for killing and appetite keep the poem unsentimental.

Tone and mood. The tone is awed, serious and unflinching. The mood begins as cold fascination and darkens into dread, with the final stanza the most disturbing.

A model critical appreciation (about 330 words). Ted Hughes's “Pike”, from his second collection Lupercal (1960), is one of his best-known animal poems. It begins as a study of a fish and ends as an experience of fear, and the movement between the two is the secret of its power.

The central idea is the perfect, amoral violence of nature. Hughes presents the pike as a creature built for killing, a predator whose weapons and instincts seem unchanged for ages, and he neither condemns it nor makes it gentle.

The structure moves from observation to involvement. The opening stanzas look at the pike from outside, almost impersonally, stressing its perfect form and its readiness to kill from birth. Then the speaker enters the poem, first with the pike he keeps behind glass, which destroy one another, and then with the old, deep pond where he fishes at night. The poem is built from four-line stanzas without a regular rhyme scheme, and sentences often run across the stanza breaks, which gives it a relentless forward movement.

The language is concentrated and physical. Hughes uses vivid visual imagery, such as the tiger-like markings of the young fish; he turns a noun into a verb to give the colouring energy; and he makes a bold comparison that likens the pond's depth to that of a whole country. Hard consonants and heavy stresses give the lines a hammering, muscular rhythm.

The tone is awed, serious and unflinching, and the mood changes from cold fascination to dread. The final stanza is the most disturbing: the speaker, fishing in the dark, senses a presence rising slowly towards him from below, watching. The hunter has become the hunted, and the reader shares his fear.

In my view the poem succeeds because it never explains the fear away. It leaves us with respect for the power of nature and an uneasy sense of what lies beneath the surface, in the pond and perhaps in ourselves.

What earns marks. A clear central idea; accurate description of the poem's movement; Device, Evidence, Effect for language; a distinction between tone and mood; a reasoned personal judgement; short quotations with stanza numbers; and fluent, organised paragraphs.

Mistakes to avoid.

• Retelling the poem stanza by stanza.
• Judging the pike as evil. Hughes shows it as a force of nature.
• Naming devices without effects.
• Giving a stanza count or line detail you have not checked in your own copy.
• Forgetting to evaluate.