Ted Hughes tells us in his foreword to this book that his “interest in the mythologies and folklores of the world” not only “long preceded” his interest in poetry, but “in a way” led him to poetry. The sequence must be unusual, not only in poets but in anyone for whom poetry has any real importance. To be alerted by words and rhythms in hopeless conjunction, before there is anything of the analytical apprehension which passes for understanding, must be the normal condition of a child still in the world of lullabies and nursery rhymes. An “interest in the mythologies and folklores of the world” suggests an epoch considerably beyond not only that, but beyond the time when he first feels the fascination of particular folktales which may have been read to him. It suggests a young scientist at work, not among the test-tubes making a stink but with his nose inside more or less grown-up books, enquiring what thrills can be got from a chilling of the spine or a quickening of the pulse. Whether or not this portrait bears any resemblance to Hughes as a boy, here he is at the age of sixty-two, having achieved several kinds of success as a poet, including public honors, and he is offering us five hundred pages explaining Shakespeare’s plays in terms which bear the clearest marks of his early studies. The very title, Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being, shows them. This is no mere literary-critical work: