The Thought Fox was first published in Ted Hughes’s poetry collection The Hawk in the Rain in

1957. This poem is his breakthrough which indicates his turn from metaphysical poetry towards
mythmaking. This poem is particularly significant for the inclusion of his main themes and stylistic
approaches. The poem basically deals with the writing process.
At the beginning of the poem, the paper is black and as we come to the end, the paper is filled. In
between, the speaker describes the creative process.
The speaker in the poem is alone and sitting at his desk with a blank paper and the time is midnight.
The night is quite silent, absolutely dark and it is starless. The speaker imagines that something else
is alive in the forest at midnight. That something else, when it is far is cold. The poet describes that
something as the fox which metaphorically stands for the thinking. The thinking at the beginning is
quite far. Gradually our mind revisits the subject of our thinking and develops command over that
subject. Gradually, the subject becomes the major part of our thinking and once the subject enters
our head, it makes us restless; it always seeks an expression to that situation, the poet
metaphorically describes as the ‘hot stink of fox.’ Once we express we got the psychological relief
and satisfaction.
He feels it is disturbing him, but the disturbing force is not outside, it is in his mind. The darkness
of the night, metaphorically stands for the darkness in his imaginative faculty which is silent and
strangely exciting him. He feels the fragile, dim and blur idea, but cannot make a concrete idea and
draw a line. He has to feel it, sense it and give it a fuller form with the help of his consciousness and
language. The movement of this particular thought is compared with the fox in the darkness whose
presence can just be felt, but not seen.
The fox is coming near and near and suddenly it enters into the head of the poet. This process is
metaphorically referred to the entering of the dim and blurry idea and becoming clear and familiar
to the poet. The ticking of the clock symbolizes the ticking of the poet’s mind to express it in any
form. Finally, the fox enters into the head and the blank paper of the poet is printed. The blank sheet
of paper can only be printed when there is thought and imagination. So, the title is the thought fox.
The final stanza celebrates the pleasure of poetic creation. The action is described as the ‘sudden
sharp hot stink of fox’ where the immature and raw idea suddenly with the sharp stink gets realized
and flow through the pen onto the paper. The blank paper is printed and this is the happiest situation
for any poet. Now the dim and mysterious fox which was figureless in the darkness has got the
shape of the poem.
Ted Hughes is popularly known for the use of animal imagery. The title of the poem itself is loaded
with animal imagery where the fox is compared with the thought process of a writer before
composing something great. Both for the fox to make a move and for the thought to be released,
they need silence and solitude. The measured and quick steps of the fox is the process of
contemplative writing, and the use of ‘now’ for the four times focuses on the careful steps a fox
takes before entering into the head of the poet. This process beautifully connotes the forming of the
thought more clear and concrete. The shadow of the fox is becoming more clear and clear and its
advancement through the snowy woods, leaving the foot print beautifully and artistically states that
the dim thought is now clear and it is being printed in white paper. The white snow with the foot
print stand for the blank paper printed with the poetic creation of the poet.
Stanza 1
The poem begins with the words I imagine. Thus it is clear that it is all about the imaginations of
the poet, not something real. The poet imagines he is in a forest in the midnight.
He is not alone there as something else is alive in addition to the time which is lonely and the blank
page where his fingers move. In the beginning, it seems that he is imagining himself to be in the
forest but by the end, we come to know that he is rather on his chair.
The forest here symbolises his mind in which something i.e. a thought comes, though he is alone
having just running time and a paper as his companion.

Stanza 2
Now, as there is something, the poet tries to see throw the window (perhaps refers to going into his
mind). There is something but not as far as a star but very near (& hence cannot be a star) which
is though deeper within darkness and is entering the loneliness i.e. killing the loneliness.
The stanza ends in suspense. However, by relating this stanza to the first one, we can say that it is
the thought or an innovative idea which is about to strike his mind.

• Stanza 3
The something is now visible. It is a fox whose cold, delicately as the dark snow nose touches twig
leaf. Dark snow is an oxymoron because snow is never dark and here means the cold nose of the
fox.
The line indicates that the fox is coming near to him and right now only its nose is visible which is
touching the leaves in the forest. Now two eyes also become visible. The phrase now and again
now, and now, and now means that it is coming near but the line has not completed yet.
Stanza 4
The first line is the final part of stanza 3′ last line (Enjambment). The fox is setting neat prints now
and again now, and now, and now. Thus this repeated phrase shows the slow movement of the fox
towards the poet.
Neat prints mean that they are quite visible in the white snow. In a deeper sense, they refer to the
words which are being inscribed in the imaginary poem of the poet and which are quite visible.
The fox is setting footprints between trees very carefully. Its shadow seems to be lame as the snow
near the stump (bottom part of a tree). The shadow is coming behind a body (of fox) which is about
to come.
The phrase bold to come depicts that fox is cautious. This sentence also remains uncompleted which
perhaps symbolises the pausing of the fox near the tree.
Stanza 5
Across the clearing means the area without forest i.e. snow and in the deeper sense the paper.
Suddenly, the fox reaches the poet. The poet feels an eye which is getting wider or bigger
has deepening greenness, brilliance and is concentrated on its own business. The two eyes (in
Stanza 4) have now merged into a single wider eye (in Stanza 5).

Stanza 6
The fox with its stink (smell, which makes it feels us) suddenly enters the dark hole of the head i.e.
the fox or the creative thought suddenly comes into his mind which was dark or without a clue or
idea.
All this happened yet the window is starless still; the clock ticks i.e. everything is as normal (as in
the beginning) but the poet’s creative idea is on the paper and hence a poem is written.

critical reading of a poem about poetic inspiration

‘The Thought-Fox’ is one of the most famous poems by Ted Hughes (1930-98). It is also one of the
most celebrated poetic accounts of the act of writing poetry, or rather, more accurately, trying to
write poetry and the arrival of inspiration. You can read ‘The Thought-Fox’ here. Below we sketch
out our interpretation of the poem, analysing its language and meaning.
The Thought-Fox’ explores and analyses the writer’s struggle for inspiration, which is depicted in
the poem by the fox. In summary, the speaker of the poem sits and tries to write a poem, the sound
of the ticking clock and the blank page before him taunting him. He casts around for inspiration, but
rejects the typical poetic trope of the stars (‘I see no star’), instead sensing the arrival of a fox into
his ‘loneliness’. The fox is described in terms of its nose, its eyes, its paws leaving prints in the
snow (the whiteness of the snow similar to the blankness of the white page in front of the poet),
suggesting that the poet’s imagining of the creature is coming in partial details, much as inspiration
often arrives gradually though vividly. (Unless you’re Archimedes, there is no Eureka moment – or
not many.) The poem ends with the whole fox becoming fully formed in the poet’s mind’s eye – or
rather not just his eye but his nose too (‘sudden sharp hot stink of fox’). The poet successfully
writes his poem, as if printing his words across the white page is simply a case of mirroring the
paw-prints of the animal across the snow. The window remains ‘starless’: old-fashioned and clichéd
poetic tropes were not required here. The poem is written – as, indeed, ‘The Thought-Fox’, a truly
meta-poem, is now complete.