...to conflicting perspectives. A relationship between two successful people that finds its way into the public eye will always reveal conflicting perspectives. Think about TomKat or Branjelina, the media jumped on speculations and rumours about their relationships immediately. The same thing can be said about Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. Hughes remained silent about their relationship until he published Birthday Letters (hereafter BL) in 1998, thirty five years after Plath’s death. BL is a suite of poetry which commemorates Plath, their life together and gives Hughes’ perspective. This can be contrasted with the views of Erica Wagner’s Ariel’s Gift (AG) and Sylvia Plath: The Poetics of Beekeeping by Frederike Haberkamp. AG attempts to make all sides of the story clear, allowing readers to make their own perspective of Hughes’ and Plath’s relationship. Wagner approaches the topic with an objective view to establish ideas and reveal the complex nature of their relationship by exposing the conflicting perspectives. Sylvia Plath: The Poetics of Beekeeping is a critical analysis of Plath’s life and literary works in reference to her relationship with her father and Ted Hughes. This analysis focuses on Plath’s poetry and her silence. By electing the form of an analysis and biography both Haberkamp and Wagner provide reliability and validity for their opinions, persuading readers to believe that their perspective is the...
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...‘From the Life and Songs of the Crow’ by Ted Hughes God tries to teach Crow to say LOVE: ‘Crow gaped, and the white shark crashed into the sea’. (Crow’s First Lesson) Background – where did the idea for ‘Crow’ come from? In 1957 Ted Hughes met the American sculptor, engraver and publisher Leonard Baskin. Baskin was obsessed by corpses, and a variety of other things attended this obsession, including crows which he engraved with disturbingly anthropoid (human-like) characteristics. An invitation from Baskin to Hughes to write a few little poems to accompany his engravings was the cause of the first Crow poems. Crow: From the Life and Songs of the Crow was first published by Faber in 1972. The poems included in Crow are part of a large number of poems which make up a ‘vast folk epic’ which tells the story of Crow. Hughes’s account of the creation of the figure of Crow is thus: God, having created the world, has a recurring nightmare. A huge hand/ voice comes from deep space, takes him by the throat, half-throttles him, drags him through space, ploughs the earth with him then throws him back into heaven in a cold sweat. Meanwhile man sits at the gates of heaven waiting for God to grant him audience. He has come to ask God to take life back. God is furious and sends him packing. The nightmare seems to be independent of the creation, and God cannot understand it. The nightmare is full of mockery of the creation, especially of man. God challenges the nightmare to...
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...standards” and often felt her work was not of the quality it needed to be (O’Connor 1). The majority of her work was composed from the early fifties up till her death from suicide in 1963. There were not a lot of female poets at this time in the 1950’s and “women were encouraged to believe their main roles in life were those of wives and mothers” (Carmean 1). She was determined to forge ahead and make a name for herself. She was focused solely on her writings and didn’t want to involve herself in anything that would prevent her from the creative process. She wanted to be famous and have her work published in the best magazines. When she was in England “she studied as a Fulbright Fellow at Cambridge University….she met and married poet Ted Hughes” (O’Connor 1). She “[dedicated] much effort to her husband’s poetic career” and as a result she put her aspirations on hold (O’Connor 1). Before her death “[she] had established herself as one of the most promising writers of her generation and as one of the foremost modern interpreters of the female experience” (O’Connor 1). She suffered from depression most of her life and dealt with self-doubt as a result and expressed this in many of her poems. She was not afraid to ‘tell it like it is’ in her poems and was able to display “considerable objectivity, even when the material is her childhood, her Muses, her pregnancy” (Wagner-Martin 31). “She has been linked with the confessional school of poetry of the late fifties…..[who] wrote largely...
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...My interpretation of "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath Marlene Williams Eng/125 December 15, 2012 Michele Watson My interpretation of "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath is a dark and solemn journey through the thoughts of a young girl scorned. This young girl becomes the woman who continues to carry the burden of her childhood in her adult life. The setting and feeling of the poem is dismal and full of rage, a rage Sylvia Plath claims to put behind her in the last line “ / Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through. / “(Plath, 1963) but in reality she was never capable of escaping the pain. The poem “Daddy” if the wording is taken literally as opposed to figuratively and or symbolically, the leads the reader to believe that Sylvia Plath was raised in a military family by an oppressive father who brought his work home with him. The poem entails so much more than what is on the surface, there is a darkness buried deep within the words left for the reader to unearth by searching beyond the words and into the soul of the poet. “Daddy” is engorged with metaphoric references to a dark and oppressive past where Plath equates her father’s hand to that of a Nazi. The reader can be eluded to believe in the third stanza that Plath is describing the uniform of a soldier. ” / And a head in the freakish Atlantic. / Where it pours bean green over blue. / “(Plath, 1963). In reality Sylvia Plath’s father was not in the military, Otto Plath was actually “a professor of biology...
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...Ted Hughes - ‘Bayonet Charge’ Ted Hughes (1930-1998) was born near Halifax, West Yorkshire in 1930. His father was a carpenter and a veteran of World War I. Although his family moved when he was eight years old, the landscape of his birthplace had a huge impact on his writing. He went to Cambridge in the 1950s where he read English Literature, Archaeology and Anthropology. While at Cambridge, he met his first wife, Sylvia Plath, whom he married in 1956. After university he had various jobs, including working in a zoo, teaching and reading scripts at Pinewood Studios. Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes had two children but later separated. In the year after their separation she committed suicide. Hughes followed his relationship with Plath by one with Assia Wevill. They lived together and she looked after his children from his first marriage. However, she also committed suicide, gassing herself and her daughter in a manner similar to that of Plath. In 1970, Hughes married Carol Orchard and they remained together until his death. In 1984 Hughes became Poet Laureate and held the post until his death. He died in 1998, shortly after the publication of Birthday Letters, a collection of poems about his relationship with Sylvia Plath. His ashes were scattered on Dartmoor. Hughes writes about the elements and aspects of the natural world in much of his poetry. The poet Simon Armitage said that for Hughes, poetry was ‘a connecting rod between nature and humanity’. Hughes was a very...
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...Phillip Hughes, a young cricketer previously hyped as a promising star within the Australian and South Australian batting line up, was induced into a coma following an incident that occurred on Tuesday the 25th of November 2014. The incident occurred when Sean Abbott delivered a short ball that struck Hughes on the neck, subsequently causing internal bleeding and pressure on Hughes’s brain. Phillip Hughes was unable to be rescued and died on the 27th of December surrounded by his loved ones. His death evoked immense shock and grief within the national and international cricket community. Sean Abbott, Hughes former teammate, endured an extremely traumatic experience, consequent to his delivery of a short ball. This incident has resulted in the questioning of bouncers, and if action should be taken in regards to this form of bowling. Others are questioning the batters headgear, claiming that it didn’t provide enough coverage....
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...Ian Gilbert Words by Sylvia Plath is a powerful poem that strikes at the very meaning of words and their potential. At first glance, feelings of strength and energy wash over the reader. When reading it out loud its almost impossible not to picture an overdramatic actor clenching their right hand and looking up to the sky. The use of the word indefatigable makes this poem quite self evident in the power and emotion spewing from that word. The emotion throughout the poem is almost direct pain. This is shown immediately with the first word “Axes.” After reading it a few times this word is still the most striking because words are like axes. They can be very painful. This pain can also be seen in the lines “Wells like tears” meaning more pain caused from words. From this the reader can infer that Plath was probably recently struck down by words. The next striking visual comes from the use of sound and the way sound acts. “Echoes traveling off the center like horses” giving the reader a great sense of indirect onomatopoeia and a stunning visual. A rock dropping into water gives a similar visual with the use of circles, making another reference to the way sound can have an impact. The final three words of the poem sum up at least some of the meaning within the poem. “Govern a life.” This is very accurate for the majority of us. We try not to, but we live the majority of our lives according to what we hear people say about us and what we should do. All these things that she described...
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...Mad Girl’s Love Song Mad Girl’s Love Song is written in 1951, by Sylvia Plath. Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. She was born on October 27, 1932 in Boston, Massachusetts and she died on February 11, 1963 in London, England. Mad Girl’s Love Song is a poem, Sylvia Plath wrote while she was a student at Smith College. The poem has a theme of suicide as an escape. There are many places where the theme of suicide appears in the poem. The poem is about a girl who spent her whole life waiting for a man she gave herself to, against her beliefs, who was never to return. There is one phrase in the poem that which has a big importance. I think I made you up inside my head This phrase is repeated a few times and that makes us thinks that the girl is wishing that this man is made up, and she is trying to convince herself of it. The phrase is kind of a quote which signifies that these are thoughts to her, and not out loud, which can means that she is trying to convince herself it is true. Sylvia wished that she would overcome her depression and grow out of the despair she was living in. I fancied you’d return the way you said, but I grow old and I forget your name But in fact, her wishes and search for her happiness had driven her insane. She had been lost for so long that she didn't remember what it was like to truly be happy so therefore she would never be able to identify it if she were to regain control of her life. I think I made you...
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...speaker’s inability to reconcile two personalities in this poem leads to her demise. This is illustrated though textual and literary devices, as well as mythological allusions. Plath’s background along with Greek myths allows the reader feel a part of Plath’s dilemma and relate her problem to many women. Sylvia Plath was born in 1932. The death of Plath's father in 1940 led to her extreme depression, which never subsided. She had two unsuccessful suicide attempts at ages 10 and 20. However, in 1954, things began to seem optimistic, with Plath receiving scholarship to Harvard summer school and then in 1955 with her graduation from Smith and attending Cambridge University on Fulbright fellowship. On June 16, 1956, Sylvia Plath married Ted Hughes. Plath was known to be a feminist, which is evident in this poem, “Two Sisters of Persephone.” When her hard-working self was presented with marriage, Plath was confronted with a crisis that is represented in the poem. With her new marriage, she questioned whether or not she should remain herself and work, or become the stereotypical wife, stay home, and merely bear children. The emotional effects on Plath from the death of her father ultimately led to her suicide at the age of 30. The poem is based around a mythological allusion to Persephone, the goddess of the underworld and fertility in Greek mythology, and Hades, Persephone’s duality. Persephone, a beautiful, young, well-loved woman, was abducted by Hades. Broken-hearted...
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...Sylvia Plath had a life full of ups and downs. Her lifelong battle with multiple different illnesses is what made her career but also ended it at the same time. Using her research along with the research of other Dr. Jamison was able to make a “literary, biographical, and scientific argument for a compelling association, not to say actual overlap, between two temperaments--the artistic and the manic-depressive—and their relationship to the rhythms and cycles, or temperament, of the natural world.” Plath is just one poet among an extensive list of poets that have suffered from this illness (Butscher 385). Sylvia Plath was born to Otto and Aurelia Plath on October 27, 1932 in Boston Massachusetts. Plath’s father who was a professor at Boston University, the school Plath’s mom was attending, took a bus, boat, and trolley to get to work every morning (Steinberg, “A Celebration”). This dedication proves that Otto loved his job teaching and explains why Sylvia was so knowledgeable. Sylvia’s time with her father was short lived unfortunately, for he died just a week and a half after her eighth birthday due to complications with diabetes. With the proper treatment his disease could have been easily cured. At his funeral a friend was recorded asking, “How could such a brilliant man have been so stupid?” (Steinberg). When Sylvia first heard of her father’s passing she proclaimed, “I’ll never speak to God again” (Neurotic Poets). His death had a direct impact on her young life affecting...
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...Mirror Rosalind Sledge ENG 125: Introduction to Literature Instructor Michelle Pinkard November 5, 2012 Mirror by Sylvia Plath is a poem that focuses on the purpose and existence of a mirror. The mirror is showed to be the speaker of the poem by in the beginning, describing itself and explaining its character as though it is human. One is able to feel emotion by understanding the important qualities it possesses. The mirror also metaphors itself as a lake and tells the important relationship it has with a woman. Women are drawn to mirrors searching for beauty but are often disappointed and turn their backs looking elsewhere. The mirror represents truth and is not intended to hurt or be cruel. This poem is very engaging by way of point of view, language, and imagery which helped to address a common human experience in how a woman sees herself. The point of view in a piece of literature work is very important in that it helps a reader to understand the narrator’s purpose of the story. The poem Mirror is told from a first person’s point of view in which the speaker is a mirror explaining what it reflects. In the first stanza, it states, “I have no preconceptions / Whatever I see, I swallow immediately / Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike” (cited in Clugston, 2010, Poems for Reflection, para. 13). By knowing the thoughts of the narrator, it allows a person to not only understand but to also feel the emotions portrayed within the story. While reading the poem, one...
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...Jessica Sutherland English 1102 What Does Internal Mean to Eternal Man? The poem “Fever 103°”, written by Sylvia Plath, reveals competing satire and radical takes on the poem. A formal analysis and reader-response will explore the poems two meanings and how they are shaped and built within the work. The work in short is an expression of sex and sensuality versus safe guarding ones purity and oneself. As it opens with Cerberus at the gates of hell, unable to lick clean the feverish tendon, then to love as in the smell of a snuffed candle, next to the smoke breaking the speaker’s neck. The poem continues to compare adulterers to devilish leopards, but in the next stanza she pleads and her sheets grow heavy. The elements of allusion, diction and, imagery come together to highlight the poem’s ambiguity. Its ambiguity, the two views of taking the poem as the speaker being straight forward in presenting the celibate as more godly, and as a result the impure unworthy of them, and the perspective that the speakers god-complex and displayed self-importance is satire to mock the pure who find themselves so mighty. The two takes on the work are hidden from another once it is read within the internal perspective view of the reader. “Fever 103°” is a poem of two foils chosen to created make a mockery of the reader, the views are pinned together to show the human self-servient manner to choose what gives them self-justification...
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...In this poem, Sylvia Plath expresses a desire to be in control. She feels she has to deal with a dangerous situation. At first she is not in control. She panics. She has a debate with herself and then she makes a calm decision. Silvia Plath wrote this poem in seven five-line stanzas followed by a single line. On one level Plath is simply recalling a personal incident. The story of the poem concerns a task with a bee box. In the first stanza she states that it looks like ‘square’, like a midget’s coffin, heavy and noisy: ‘such a din in it’. The word ‘coffin’ suggests death. The overall description of the bee-box is strange and disturbing. In the second stanza, the bee box both frightens and attracts Plath. She stares in at the bees through a little wire grid. The box is ‘locked’ because its contents are ‘dangerous’. Yet Plath ‘can’t keep away from it’. She examines the box and considers opening it. But she is faced with the threat that what is inside may injure her. Yet, she feels she has to 'to live with it overnight'. In the third stanza, she regards the bees as angry slaves that seek release and revenge: ‘Black on black, angrily clambering’. Through the wire grid she sees darkness. She imagines the bees are like army divisions of blackness that she associates with ‘the swarmy feeling of African hands’. She is in a state of alarm. In the fourth stanza, the buzzing noise puts her off releasing the bees. She fears their bee language and now regards them as an aggressive...
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...a feminist-martyr to patriarchal society, sex-based roles, and psychiatric care. Noted for the blend of intense imagery and humorous use of alliteration and rhyme, Plath associating her works with her personal battles of anguish and depression, further solidified her mark on American history. Sylvia Plath was born in 1932 in Winthrop, Massachusetts, to an academically well-established family. Her father died when she was eight, marking the beginning of her lifelong internal battles of depression, hence her poem Daddy. Ambitiously driven and exceptional student, from a young age she kept journals, published poems in reginal magazines and newspapers. She later attended Smith and Cambridge University, where she met and married the poet, Ted Hughes, birthing two children. Throughout her life, Plath suffered deep depression and...
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...We can do this by analysing the viewpoints presented by Ted Hughes’ confessional poems, The Minotaur and Red from his anthology The Birthday Letters (published 1998) and the feature article, Face of a People Smuggler by Fenella Souter, featured in Good Weekend (April 21, 2012). Through our analysis, we are able to separate fact from fallacy. The ‘truths’ presented by Ted Hughes’ The Minotaur are questionable because of the context in which Hughes released this poem. The Minotaur was published in 1998, after the controversial suicide of Sylvia Plath in 1963, and much of the blame for her death was placed upon Hughes. Feminist supporters of Plath especially vilified Hughes and upheld Plath as a ‘martyr to a misogynistic husband’. Through The Minotaur, Hughes aims to shift the general public’s perspective of Plath from the ‘martyr’ to ‘monster’. Hughes does this by introducing Plath in the first stanza as a paranoid, irrational and violent woman, incapable of considering anyone except herself, as she smashes his “mahogany table-top” which undoubtedly held sentimental value as it was his “mother’s heirloom sideboard … mapped with the scars of [his] whole life”. The strong imagery presented within this stanza is amplified by utilising the onomatopoeic word “smashed”, which has the effect of enhancing the reader’s imagination, allowing Hughes to shape and distort the manner in which he depicts Plath’s character. Hughes continues to heighten the...
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