Theology

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1961

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

“Theology” is an example of free verse, as the lines don’t rhyme or have a specified number of unstressed and stressed syllables. The poem is free to look how it wants. The absence of traditional form and meter advances the iconoclastic subject matter and harsh tone. The poem breaks from historical forms just as it deviates from established beliefs about what occurred in the Garden of Eden.

The lack of a musical meter and mellifluous sounds reinforces the unpleasant situation. Adam gives in to temptation, Eve consumes Adam, and the Devil/serpent eats Eve. These are not agreeable events, so it makes sense for the poem to have a discordant meter and a flat sound.

Hughes does impose form by making the lines relatively even. All three stanzas are quatrains, as the poem comprises three stanzas of four lines. The neat lines and stanzas create order, which reflects the precise retelling of events. Although it's turbulent, the poem isn’t chaotic. The tone is matter-of-fact. There’s an identifiable hierarchy, with Adam at the bottom and the serpent at the top in “Paradise” (Line 10). The form links to the poem’s clear sequence of events and power structure.

Allusion

Allusion is a literary device where the poet references certain things or people without explicitly naming them or explaining them fully. Hughes’s poem centers on allusion: He nods toward what happened in the Garden of Eden without naming Genesis or Christianity. The speaker makes no mention of good and evil or the Devil. The use of allusion creates a close relationship between the speaker and the reader. It’s as if the poem begins in mid-conversation, with the informal “[n]o” (Line 1). The speaker is debating the reader, assuming the reader already knows the alleged "facts" (Line 4), and can rely on allusion.

Allusion adds to the postmodern elements of the poem. It creates a puzzle. The reader has to link the apple to temptation, Adam to man, Eve to woman, and the serpent to the Devil and evil. Allusion empowers the reader, similar to how the speaker feels empowered to recount how the creation myth is wrong.

Alliteration and Assonance

The poem’s sequence of words creates a harshness. Hughes uses alliteration and assonance to produce the clamorous sound. With alliteration, words starting with the same consonant are placed near one another. With assonance, similar vowel sounds appear near each other and echo.

Line 5 features assonance, as three out of the four words start with the letter “a.” Line 6 also features assonance: “Eve” and “ate” sound alike, and “ate” and “Adam” start with the same letter.

In Line 7, we see alliteration: the “serpent ate Eve.” The “t” sound in “serpent” and “ate” echo one another. We also see alliteration in Stanza 3: Line 9 contains “serpent,” Line 10 starts with “[s]leeps,” and Line 11 begins with “[s]miling.” The repetition of “s” sounds and brief words create a staccato tone.