Poetry

Sylvia Plath

Poetry: Sylvia Plath

• Born October 27, 1932 in Boston, Mass.• Moved to Winthrop, Mass. In 1936 – close

to ocean which fascinated Sylvia.• During this time Sylvia’s father was stricken

with lung cancer, but refused treatment.• Sylvia’s father passed away in 1940.• Sylvia’s first poem was published in 1940 in

Boston’s newspapers

Plath – Early Life

• Plath’s family moved away from the ocean to Wellesley, Mass. When Sylvia was ten.

• Sylvia excelled in school, winning many awards and scholarships while in middle school.• Won Honorable Mention in National

Scholastic’s Literary Contest• Won Achievement Certificate from Carnegie

Institute.

Plath – High School Years

• Entered Bradford High School in 1947.• Graduated in 1950 with a full scholarship to

Smith College.• In August 1950, Seventeen magazine

published her short story, “And Summer Will Not Come Again.”

• The Christian Science Monitor published her poem, “Bitter Strawberries.”

Plath

• In 1953, Sylvia won the chance to be a guest editor at Mademoiselle magazine in NY.

• She spent the summer there and upon her return home in late July, she learned that she had been rejected from a writing class at Harvard summer school.• Exhausted and depressed from her stint in NY,

the rejection amplified her depression.

Plath

• Her mother sought psychiatric help resulting in a series of unprofessional shock treatments.

• On August 24, 1953, Sylvia tried to commit suicide.• She left a note saying she had gone for a walk, then proceeded

to swallow a large number of sleeping pills, then crawled into a small space under her house.

• She was discovered three days later and rushed to a hospital.• She spent five months at a private hospital which was paid for

by Mrs. Olive Higgins Prouty, a generous benefactor of Plath.• In 1950, Plath had won a scholarship from the Olive Higgins

Prouty fund.• This time of her life is chronicled in her book, The Bell Jar.

Plath

• In 1954, Sylvia won several poetry contests at Smith College.

• She graduated summa cum laude and won another scholarship – this time to Cambridge University, England

• Sylvia had great academic success at Cambridge.

• Met Ted Hughes, the British poet in 1956.

Plath

• Sylvia married Hughes just four months later on June 16, 1956.

• In 1957, the couple moved to Massachusetts• Sylvia began teaching English at her former

college – Smith.• The next year, they moved again to Boston.

• Here Plath wrote and attended poetry classes at Boston University ( taught by Robert Lowell).

Plath/Hughes

• They remained in the US until 1959, when they returned to London, England.

• The very next year, their first child, Frieda, was born.• That same year Plath published her first major

work – a collection of poems called The Colossus and Other Poems.

Plath/Hughes

• In 1961, Plath became pregnant again, but had a miscarriage.• After this, they moved to Devon, England.

• In 1962, Plath’s son was born, Nicholas.• This same year the couple’s marital troubles

began.• That summer, Sylvia learned of Ted’s infidelity

and they separated.

Plath/Hughes

• Platt moved with her children to a flat in London.• Here she started writing poems quickly and

voluminously.• In 1963, The Bell Jar was published under a

pseudonym, Victoria Lucas.• Plath lived just long enough to see her book

published – tragically committing suicide on February 11, 1963.

Plath’s Poems “Metaphor”

• Written in first person• Rhyme scheme aaaabcdad• Use of simple sentences• Very few adjectives due to use of metaphors• Consists of nine lines of poetry• Each line has nine syllables

• Represents nine months of pregnancy

“Metaphor”

• Each line has metaphorical meanings and symbols.• Elephant, ponderous house, ivory – refers to

her size, slow movement with a huge stomach.• Red fruit, melon, two tendrils – refers to fetus

that is strolling on two tendrils (ovaries)• Fine timbers (house), this loaf –refers stomach

growing the way loaf of bread rises before being baked.

“Metaphor”

• Symbols• Money, fat purse – represents weight she has

acquired due to pregnancy; also refers to fetus which makes her appear fatter.

• Bag of green apples – causes one to bloat; also green apples can cause nausea.

• Cow in calf – reference to state of pregnancy.

“Metaphor”

• The Train – shows possible regret of being pregnant – but there is no concrete sign that this sentence shows the regret so it cannot be proved that this poem has a negative, gloomy atmosphere.

“Mirrors” by Sylvia Plath

• Use of Personification• Stanza I: Addressed by an inanimate object

• Sets out to define itself and its function• Has no preconceptions because it is without

memory or ability to reason.• It is omnivorous – swallows everything it

confronts without making judgments that might blur, mist, or distort.

“Mirror”

• It is god-like in its objectivity and incapability of emotional response.

• Most of the time it meditates on the opposite wall, faithfully reproducing its colors and design until darkness intrudes or intervenes.

• These happenstances occur regularly.

“Mirror”

• Stanza II: The mirror becomes a perfectly reflecting lake, unruffled by any disturbance

• Woman bends over the lake like the mythical Narcissus.• No matter how deeply she searches, she sees

only her actuality or surface truth.• Unlike Narcissus, the speaker cannot fall in love

with what she sees.

“Mirror” Stanza II

• The candles and moon to which the woman turns are liars capable of lending untruthful shadows and romantic highlights – unlike the lake surface/mirror, which renders only faithful images.

• Unhappy by what she sees, she weeps and wrings her hands.

• The youth and beauty once reflected during her morning visits are drowned in the metaphorical depths of the lake.

• What slowly emerges from those depths is the terrifying fact that she is aging.

“Mad Girl’s Love Song”

• Type of poem called a Villanelle• Consists of nineteen lines• Six stanzas• Each stanza has three lines except the last

which has four lines.• The most important rhyme is between the first

and third lines.

“Mad Girl’s Love Song”

• Written in 1954 while Plath was a student at Smith College.

• Tackles feelings of alienation.• Plath often composed Villanelles while

sitting in Chemistry class.• Contains many germinations of later Plath

writings.

“Mad Girl’s Love Song”

• Religious reference is brought to bear on her personal life.

• Creates a deft dance between the real world and internal (imaginary) one.

• The poem’s extreme narcissism, “I shut my eyes, and all the world drops dead,” makes it closely resemble her later poems, especially those in her most famous work, “Ariel.”

“Mad Girl’s Love Song”

• Introduces readers to a unique protagonist who is an unconscious practitioner of solipsism.• Belief that world exists in her mind and nobody

else exists except as highly defined figments of imagination.

“Mad Girl’s Love Song”

• First Stanza: reveals solipsism with opening lines.• Narrator believes world to be born and razed with the

opening of her eyes.• The world exists only when she is aware of it through

sensation.• Final line: Has the protagonist invented an imaginary

friend.• Is she simply dreaming up the world around her?• Unaware of her own actions, the speaker continues her

introspection unhindered by the consequences of her findings.

“Mad Girl’s Love Song”

• Second Stanza: Imagery leads protagonist to confusion

• Why is she experiencing such vivid color and movement?

• She is experiencing a false memory of the worst kind – an event that has never occurred

• Conditioned to respond – our unknowing solipsist closes her eyes to reset the world.

• Instantly her universe contains a gentle lover who woos her beyond her wildest expectations.

“Mad Girl’s Love Song”

• Her lover says everything she wishes to hear and everything she wishes to do.

• Closing line: written whimsically as if her lover is too good to be true.

• The false memory of the first half of stanza is already forgotten in a shroud of self-deception.

“Mad Girl’s Love Song”

• Protagonist undergoes a awakening in the third stanza

• One in which her universe crumbles• Good and evil myth created (by her) for a need of

feeling constrained and righteous.• Good and evil, outside of the reference frame of her

mind, do not exist.• God and Satan become tired metaphors as she comes to

the realization that she is the creator of her world.

“Mad Girl’s Love Song”

• Everything (table she dines at, pillow she cries in, boy she first kissed, men who break her heart) has been created by herself in an elaborate web of self-deception to perhaps obtain happiness while being unwise to the truth of her creations.

• But now she has learned the truth.• When the foiled pair of God and Satan disappear,

the protagonist herself is left as the only moral compass.

“Mad Girl’s Love Song”

• Final Stanza: appears to come after a period of contemplation on the part of the protagonist.

• After her awakening in the previous stanza, she has thought about the implications of herself being in charge of her own world.

• She has created a world which is fickle and ever-changing.• She has created a love that is distant and unattainable.• She is wishing now that she knew of her creation from the

first so that she could have done a better job.• She wishes she could have created a world more to her

needs instead of ephemeral wants.