Sylvia Plath

[The Unnamable]

Now. Is that irony?

No - I genuinely liked it.

The comma, as all commas, implies a pause. With the pause present all people are included in the clause, "who are a mixed bunch." Without the pause the implication is that only the people that I have heard these things from constitute the "mixed bunch". I certainly intended the former.

Of which I approve. I was in no way trying to correct your grammar – which seems to be of a high level of correctness to me (and no, I am not being ironic). You write very well and I nearly always enjoy reading your posts. I don’t say ‘always’ because sometimes you are really mean to me and I have to discuss it with my shrink (now I am being ironic - my shrink committed suicide after three sessions ).

And if you're not being ironic, for heaven's sake explain why you have broken the habit of a lunchtime and caused me such confusion?

I don't want people thinking I'm incapable of recognising something good, funny or interesting. It was precisely your 'former' meaning that I enjoyed. In other words, I was praising you, albeit in my own curmudgeonly way. My advice is to take it wherever you can get it.

[michela]

actually i've experienced Plath once, but i 've grown up with Kurt Cobain.
I'm not agree with the one who compared Silvia Plath with Kurt Cobain.
Kurt said during an interview "i must be one of those narcisist who only appreciate things when they're gone". This sentence in my opinion fits very well with his personality and also explains the difference between them.
Suicide is not enough to compare them. I love Kurt ,but being honnest, i don't think he killed himself because of his pain. Drugs destroied him and not his pain. Anyway i don't know very much about Plath, so it's possible i'm wrong about it.
Can you please tell me wht's the similarity between them i'm curious.

[The Unnamable]

Can you please tell me wht's the similarity between them i'm curious.

I don’t think there is any similarity. In the past, I’ve taught her poetry to 18 year olds. Some hated her, some loved her and some idolised her, often because they considered suicide romantic and rebellious (I don’t). I was making a comment that backed up what Woody Allen had said - "Interesting poetess whose tragic suicide was misinterpreted as romantic by the college-girl mentality."

Here's what I said:

“To many teenage, predominantly female admirers, Plath is the literary equivalent of Kurt Cobain.”

The fact of her suicide seems to impress some readers more than her poetry.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

Unnamable,

My turn to apologise. I accept your praise. It was curmudgeonly of me to doubt your sincerity (well, on this occasion at least).

Michela,

Plath and Cobain had lot's of other things in common apart from suicide. Both were blond. And...erm...well that's about all I can think of at the moment (unless Cobain had a marriage to Ted Hughes that I missed hearing about).

[Astrid]

What do you make of the last four lines of ‘Edge’?

"The moon has nothing to be sad about,
Staring from her hood of bone.

She is used to this sort of thing.
Her blacks crackle and drag."

"Her blacks crackle and drag" is debateably Plath's worst line, but I think there's something in it. It all seems very final, accepting, which makes a relative amount of sense since this was written about a week or two before Plath committed suicide.

[The Unnamable]

"Her blacks crackle and drag" is debateably Plath's worst line, but I think there's something in it. It all seems very final, accepting, which makes a relative amount of sense since this was written about a week or two before Plath committed suicide.

I agree with you about the sense of finality but I like the lines even though I have always found them difficult to comprehend. Perhaps she is talking about some breakdown in communication – like the static from a radio. So communication is replaced by noise in the final line. There is no one to mourn the woman, except the moon, who simply accepts it all as a part of nature.
Another possibility is that the blacks are blacks in the sense of a theatrical backdrop – suggesting everything is a performance. No doubt there are many more possibilities.

The poem includes simple, blunt statements and the use of the third person – there is no longer any ‘I’ and the predominant mood seems to be one of indifference. There is some questioning of the unembellished factuality of the opening end-stopped line: the body ‘wears the smile of accomplishment’ (so it is something that is ‘put on’); there is only the ‘illusion of a Greek necessity’ and the “Feet seem to be saying”. However, it’s as if it doesn’t matter whether ‘wears’, ‘illusion’ and ‘seem’ introduce a note of uncertainty. Human questions are voiced in the presence of cold indifference.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

"Her blacks crackle and drag" has lovely assonance and a collection of hard consonants that draw the attention to it, thus hinting at some harsh significance. But I have been pouring over this for a few days and I really can't grasp the meaning of the last few lines. My only ideas are that Plath is drawing attention to the smallness of what has happened when viewed from the moon's (ie. cosmic) perspective. The last line completely foxed me though, I must say.

I am glad to hear that Unnamable's planet-sized mind struggles with these lines too, I guess that's why he asked for opinions. The rest of the poem is very straightforward (or is it? ) but the mood changes at the end to something hidden and obscure. I'm not sure if I'm describing it quite right but the last lines definitely have a different mood about them.

I really wonder what I would have made of this poem if I didn't know of the circumstances in which it was written. I guess that, like the meaning of the last lines, I'll never know for sure.

[rachel]

I’m surprised to see Plath discussed so little on this forum. In Annie Hall, Woody Allen describes her as an:

"Interesting poetess whose tragic suicide was misinterpreted as romantic by the college-girl mentality."

Perhaps that’s the problem. Plath’s poetry is as misrepresented by those who idolise her as it is by those who dismiss her. To many teenage, predominantly female admirers, Plath is the literary equivalent of Kurt Cobain. To many others, she is merely a death-obsessed neurotic. The most difficult task for anyone coming to her poetry for the first time is to try to ignore both camps and focus on the poems themselves. Yes, Plath writes about pain, suffering, her obsession with her father and death, but she does so with clarity and precision.

‘Ariel’ is a remarkable work full of pain, tenderness and darkness. Harsh and dark though her poems are, they precisely and unflinchingly record those moments when no one and nothing can reach us. She is a forensic witness to the inevitability of our own demise. In The Night Dances a mother watches her child asleep and moving around in its cot. These moments seem to be the beautiful gifts of innocence. They create in her a sense of fullness of being which, momentarily, lightens “the black amnesias of heaven.” But it is only momentarily. The contrast between the cold blankness of space and the baby’s movements (“their pink light/ Bleeding and peeling”) makes us aware of the fragility and vulnerability of such “blessings”. And that is why the ending is just right in its ambiguity. The ‘light’ of the night dances can never be destroyed and will nowhere be forgotten. But “Nowhere” can also imply that they touch and melt in the nothingness that is all there is. In other words, perhaps the blessings are nothing, that they are too insubstantial too wipe away the “black amnesias” for long.

The Night Dances

A smile fell in the grass.
Irretrievable!

And how will your night dances
Lose themselves. In mathematics?

Such pure leaps and spirals ----
Surely they travel

The world forever, I shall not entirely
Sit emptied of beauties, the gift

Of your small breath, the drenched grass
Smell of your sleeps, lilies, lilies.

Their flesh bears no relation.
Cold folds of ego, the calla,

And the tiger, embellishing itself ----
Spots, and a spread of hot petals.

The comets
Have such a space to cross,

Such coldness, forgetfulness.
So your gestures flake off ----

Warm and human, then their pink light
Bleeding and peeling

Through the black amnesias of heaven.
Why am I given

These lamps, these planets
Falling like blessings, like flakes

Six sided, white
On my eyes, my lips, my hair

Touching and melting.
Nowhere.


Great poem.

The more I am reading her work the more it takes me back to a terrible part of my life and I really identify with a lot of her anguish which in turn is a gift in a way as far as I am concerned. I don't think that happiness per se = quality of life at all. I feel if you have to walk a certain walk and noone else in the world comprehends or gives a care that in no way diminishes the satisfaction you get from walking that walk.
A lot of people I know of don't like the Silmarillion or the Unfinished Tales by JRR Tolkien because of the awfulness, the harshness and brutality of the lives of the heros and heroines. I don't agree. The stood for something, they pursued something that mattered to them and win or lose or draw was not the point. The point is they just went and did it. I feel like that when I read Plath. She observes things in a harsh painful way but it is truer and more beautiful than I can describe.

[Timberly.Gray]

Greetings all. I'm new at this, so forgive me if I appear all too ignorant. I've only recently been introduced to Plath's poetry, and a cursory glance of ''Letter in November'' led me to consider the possibility of a sexual reading. I was wondering if I am alone in my peversity, or if others can see the connections? Or if not, could someone give me pointers for this particular poem?

It is not as simple as some, and being unaware of the nuances of Plath's poetry, I have so far been unsuccessful in analysing it.

[OrphanPip]

Greetings all. I'm new at this, so forgive me if I appear all too ignorant. I've only recently been introduced to Plath's poetry, and a cursory glance of ''Letter in November'' led me to consider the possibility of a sexual reading. I was wondering if I am alone in my peversity, or if others can see the connections? Or if not, could someone give me pointers for this particular poem?

It is not as simple as some, and being unaware of the nuances of Plath's poetry, I have so far been unsuccessful in analysing it.

From a cursory glance at the poem, reading sexual imagery into the poem seems very much intended by Plath. The language is sensual, evocative of autumn, mud, rolling in grass, but those same sensual descriptions do function on a sexual level as well. Mud and spring also happens to be kind of a symbolic trope for sexuality in a lot of poetry.

[Ecurb]

Plath's autobiographical novel, "The Bell Jar", is probably almost as responsible for her fame as her poetry is. It's excellent (and it lauds electro-shock therapy as being very effective, if I remember correctly).

[OrphanPip]

Plath's autobiographical novel, "The Bell Jar", is probably almost as responsible for her fame as her poetry is. It's excellent (and it lauds electro-shock therapy as being very effective, if I remember correctly).

Clearly it treated Plath's depression effectively...

[Ecurb]

Clearly it treated Plath's depression effectively...

I haven't read the novel for a couple of decades, but in the book (which is fictional) she claims it snapped her out of her depressions. The autobiographical heroine of the novel is a college-age girl. I believe Plath did undergo electorshock therapy at that age, but I have no idea whether she received any in the last 10 years of her life (maybe it would have saved her).

Plath's friend A. Alverez wrote a good book on suicide ("the Savage God") in which he discusses Plath's suicide at length.

In ther poem "Edge" Plath wrore:

We have come so far, it is over.

Each dead child coiled, a white serpent,
One at each little

Pitcher of milk, now empty.


Before she killed herself, Plath put out two mugs of milk for her children, as if poetry was adumbrating her demise.

Dorothy Parker attemped suicide at least twice, and wrote a poem about it:

Résumé

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

[Timberly.Gray]

From a cursory glance at the poem, reading sexual imagery into the poem seems very much intended by Plath. The language is sensual, evocative of autumn, mud, rolling in grass, but those same sensual descriptions do function on a sexual level as well. Mud and spring also happens to be kind of a symbolic trope for sexuality in a lot of poetry.

I'm glad I'm not far off then -- thank you. As I said, I'm new to Plath, but this poem left me with an overpowering feeling of almost-orgasmic warmth. In comparison to other poems I've read of hers, there is a sense of brightness and clarity, but several of the metaphors contain something a little darker.

All just cursory observations. But thank you.

[Buh4Bee]

Sorry to break the flow, but I wanted to add that I am now inspired to read some of her poetry. It is so good to read some of her stuff here. She write poetry like a woman, not a man. Her subject matter is written from a woman's perspective.

I read the Bell Jar and if you are interested in understanding her as a person, read this book. An if you can identify with her, the read is a page turner.