The Thought Fox, Ted Hughes, 詩想-여우, 테드 휴즈

 

The Thought Fox

Ted Hughes

I imagine this midnight moment's forest:
Something else is alive
Beside the clock's loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.

Through the window I see no star:
Something more near
Though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:

Cold, delicately as the dark snow
A fox's nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now

Sets neat prints into the snow
Between trees, and warily a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to come

Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own business

Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.



"The Thought Fox" was first published in the British poet Ted Hughes's debut collection, The Hawk in the Rain, in 1957. One of Hughes's most popular poems, "The Thought Fox" is about creativity, inspiration, and the process of writing poetry. The speaker, generally taken to be Hughes himself (or a version of him), sits alone during the dark quiet of a winter night, fingers poised over a blank page. A fox appears outside the window and makes a tentative but purposeful journey across the snow, before leaping and into the speaker's mind—at which point the "page is printed," and the poem is complete. This "thought fox" can be thought of as a metaphor for inspiration and creative thought, which seem to come from a mysterious place separate from the speaker's conscious mind. The poem treats the fox in mostly literal terms, however, and in doing so proves the power of poetry to bring new worlds—and creatures—to vivid life on the page. 


Summary
The speaker sits alone in the middle of the night, surrounded by a forest that may or may not be in his imagination. He senses that something apart from himself is alive, as the clock ticks in the silence and his fingers hover over an empty page. He can't see any stars through the window, but feels that something is approaching him from the depths of the darkness, heading towards this isolated scene. 

A fox gently touches its cold nose to twigs and leaves in the darkness. Its eyes scan its surroundings, again and again, from moment to moment. 

The fox leaves tidy paw prints in the snow as it makes its way between the trees. Its shadow trails behind it like an injured animal. The fox's body, however, moves confidently and purposefully through clearings in the forest. 

The fox's eye widens, its green color becoming more intense and vivid as it concentrates on what's ahead—until its scent suddenly becomes immediate and visceral, and the fox enters the darkness of the speaker's mind. The speaker still can't see any stars through the window. The clock is still ticking, and the poem has been written. 

 

Themes
Creativity, Inspiration, and Imagination
“The Thought Fox” is a poem about writing poetry. The poem metaphorically depicts artistic inspiration as a fox—mysterious, twitchy, and unpredictable—that moves slyly through the darkness of the imagination. Through this metaphor, the poem shows that writing requires patience, concentration, instinct, and a bit of luck. The poem thus emphasizes both the role of the unconscious mind in creativity and the need for the poet to intentionally (or consciously) create the right conditions in order to coax a poem into existence. 

For the speaker, writing is a kind of waiting game. Creativity and inspiration might work in mysterious ways, but they can’t work their magic at all, the poem suggests, if the creator doesn’t sit down and eliminate distractions! The speaker thus sits at a desk in the dark solitude of a wintry night, with only the ticking clock for company. There aren't even any stars in the speaker’s window, which implies that he isn’t about to be struck with a lightning flash of divine inspiration. 

Instead, writing, as depicted here, requires a hunter’s stillness and patience. The speaker can sense the presence of "something else [...] alive" nearby, implying that creative inspiration is a mysterious force with its own agency. Yet writers can’t force an idea any more than a fox can force its prey—or a human hunter can force a fox—into the open; all they can do is make sure they’re ready for it when it comes. 

With the stage set, then, the speaker waits for the "thought fox" (again, representing creativity and inspiration) to arrive. And sure enough, step after tentative step, the thought fox makes its way across the dark, snowy forest (perhaps representing the darkness and mystery of the speaker's unconscious mind). 

The speaker's vivid description of the fox, with its delicate movements and attentiveness to its surroundings, echoes the creative process. Like a fox on a mission to find prey or a mate, the poet uses instinct to follow the trail of a poem. The speaker implies that a poet doesn't necessarily know what a poem is going to say before it’s written, and instead uses a kind of primal intuition akin to a wild animal’s. Through concentration and a kind of trust in the unconscious mind, a poem, like a fox, can just go “about its own business”—until suddenly it pounces. The fox "enters the dark hole" of the speaker's mind, and the “page is printed”; the poem—this very poem—is complete, seeming to have written itself. 

Note how the poem does a remarkable job of bringing what seems like a real fox to life for the reader, and in doing so uses the same imaginative power that the speaker is trying to represent through the fox. The fox is a creature conjured in the speaker's imagination to represent how that very imagination works its magic. In a way, then, the thought fox creates itself! The poem lives and breathes, bringing its creation to life—even as that creature is itself the source of creativity. 

The poem, then, depicts creativity as a mixture of deliberate choices on the writer’s part (the speaker’s willingness to sit down at the desk and wait) and a deeply mysterious process that takes place beyond the writer's conscious control. And perhaps, in using their own imaginations to bring the poem to life, readers undergo a similar process, encountering a thought fox where, just moments ago, there was nothing. 



詩想-여우

나는 상상한다 이 한밤중의 순간의 숲을 :
딴 무엇인가가 살아 있다
시계의 고독 곁에
그리고 내 손가락들이 움직이는 이 백지 곁에.

창문을 통해 나는 아무 별도 볼 수 없다 :
한층 더 가까운 무엇인가가
암혹 속에 더욱 깊긴 하나
고독 속에 들어오고 있다 :

차가이 어둠 속의 눈처럼 살포시
여우의 코가 닿는다 나뭇가지에, 잎사귀에 ;
두 눈이 동작을 알려 준다, 지금 막
지금 막, 지금 막, 지금 막

나무 사이 눈 속에 산뜻한 자국을 내는
동작을. 그리고 조심스레, 開墾地를 대담히 가로질러 온
절름거리는 그림자가
그루터기 곁에 움푹 팬 곳에

꾸물거린다. 눈 하나,
넓어지고 깊어지는 녹색,
눈부시게, 집중적으로
자기 자신의 의무를 다하는.

드디어, 돌연히 매운 강렬한 악취를 피우고서
여우는 머리의 어두운 구멍 속에 들어간다.
창문은 아직 별이 없다 ; 시계는 짹깍거리고,
종이는 프린트되었다.