Moran is a teacher of English and American literature. In this essay, Moran examines the ways in which Hughes's poem evokes a sense of "double time" in the viewer.

The literary and the visual arts are very similar. Each strives to capture a moment, tell a story or pin down something that would otherwise be lost in the flow of time. When a writer composes a piece of written work about a piece of visual art, neither of the original pieces remain unchanged: the written work affects how one views the visual and the visual work informs the way a reader approaches the written. Understanding this relationship is key to understanding Hughes's "Perfect Light" and its issues.

An historical example of this relationship between the visual and literary arts will suggest, by analogy, what happens to any reader of "Perfect Light" who knows the basic story of...