Adrienne Rich (1929-2012) is discussed at this link:
 |
| Adrienne Rich, 1970s |
Thursday, March 21, 2019
Sylvia Plath, Poster Child of Confessional Poetry
SYLVIA PLATH, POSTER
CHILD OF CONFESSIONAL POETRY
Whoever encounters Sylvia Plath, most likely in the classroom, will at first be struck by
the power and intensity of her poetry. Plath devours the
reader’s attention with the same frenzied energy with which she throws out her
despairing, violent words.
Robert
Pinsky’s description encapsulates the luridly visceral
quality of her poetry.
“Thrashing,
hyperactive, perpetually accelerated, the poems of Sylvia Plath catch the
feeling of a profligate, hurt imagination, throwing off images and phrases with
the energy of a runaway horse or a machine with its throttle stuck wide open.”
—“Sylvia
Plath,” Poetry Magazine
Plath’s
capacity to draw you into her interior bubble is one reason why she is very
influential as a poet.
It
wouldn’t be reason enough, however, to include her among the ten greatest women
poets.
Once
we recover from the shock of watching her furious poetry machine at work and
survey her littered universe, we are able to step back and examine her poetry
in context. By “context” we mean circumstances that are not only psychological and biographical but also sociological and historical. In this context
her broad significance and unmistakable influence is apparent.
Plath is an American poet in the same sense that Whitman or Dickinson is American. Emergent literary figures of their time and place, Whitman’s and Dickinson’s appearance coincided with a major turning point in history, when America was coming into its own as a colonial and world power.
Whitman sought to mythologize himself, that is, his poetic persona, as an embodiment of the American democratic ideal.
Dickinson emerged as the highly original, enduringly popular American woman of letters who defined U.S. national identity at a time when the country was still very much a cultural colony of Western Europe. She created poetry that was distinctively American.
Plath is an American poet in the same sense that Whitman or Dickinson is American. Emergent literary figures of their time and place, Whitman’s and Dickinson’s appearance coincided with a major turning point in history, when America was coming into its own as a colonial and world power.
Whitman sought to mythologize himself, that is, his poetic persona, as an embodiment of the American democratic ideal.
Dickinson emerged as the highly original, enduringly popular American woman of letters who defined U.S. national identity at a time when the country was still very much a cultural colony of Western Europe. She created poetry that was distinctively American.
Although Plath did not originate Confessional Poetry—this honor goes to Robert Lowell—she
is one of its most notable representatives. All lyric poetry is to some
degree confessional, that is, it expresses private sentiments and experiences,
including self-revelations. However, Lowell and company took the confessional mode
one step further. Often in frank, uninhibited fashion they laid bare material that
would discomfit and embarrass the reader, including content that probably should have
remained inside the closet.
Plath was a product of her time and place. She matured as a poet in the conservative—we might even say repressed—white middle-class postwar New England of the 1950s. Her confessional poetry can be understood as a reaction against straitlaced social constraints.
Plath was a product of her time and place. She matured as a poet in the conservative—we might even say repressed—white middle-class postwar New England of the 1950s. Her confessional poetry can be understood as a reaction against straitlaced social constraints.
In this respect Plath is a twentieth-century Dickinson who defined American cultural identity. At one point Hollywood even saw fit to make a movie about her, Sylvia (2003).
However,
her contribution to cultural history is not only local. Plath is the product of a long cultural trajectory in the West that witnessed the
disintegration of the unifying worldview of Christian civilization and the rise of ideological liberalism, which practically replaced it.
Marked individualism, so manifest in American poetry, traces back to Renaissance Humanism.
Subsequently, the French Revolution was the political expression of growing individualism.
Modernism beginning in the nineteenth century coincided with the disintegration of the Western worldview, resulting in alienation.
Marked individualism, so manifest in American poetry, traces back to Renaissance Humanism.
Subsequently, the French Revolution was the political expression of growing individualism.
Modernism beginning in the nineteenth century coincided with the disintegration of the Western worldview, resulting in alienation.
Individualism and alienation are very much defining attributes of
Plath’s poetry. Her work thus evinces the sociological and historical heritage of the West.
An important aspect of Plath’s
poetry is that it is readily interpreted according to a feminist framework. Poetry Magazine, for example, relates:
“Feminists
portrayed Plath as a woman driven to madness by a domineering father, an
unfaithful husband, and the demands that motherhood made on her genius.”
As a feminist opus, Plath’s poetry exerts significant influence on American society and the
larger world. Because feminism is here to stay, so is Plath.
Why did we choose Sylvia Plath and not Ann Sexton? They are very similar.
Plath
edges out Sexton for trivial reasons. To begin with, we are more familiar with the work of
Plath.
Morbidly,
we would say that the drama of Plath’s life makes her a somewhat more
compelling subject. Plath suffered from bipolar disorder, tragically
committing suicide at 30 years old. Sexton committed suicide at 45.
One of Plath’s most famous poems is Ariel. We will comment on this poem to examine how Plath’s poetry achieves its peculiar effects and why the poem is described as Confessional.
One of Plath’s most famous poems is Ariel. We will comment on this poem to examine how Plath’s poetry achieves its peculiar effects and why the poem is described as Confessional.
ARIEL by
Sylvia Plath
Stasis
in darkness.
Then
the substanceless blue
Pour
of tor and distances.
God’s
lioness,
How
one we grow,
Pivot
of heels and knees!—The furrow
Splits
and passes, sister to
The
brown arc
Of
the neck I cannot catch,
Nigger-eye
Berries
cast dark
Hooks—
Black
sweet blood mouthfuls,
Shadows.
Something
else
Hauls
me through air—
Thighs,
hair;
Flakes
from my heels.
White
Godiva,
I unpeel—
Dead
hands, dead stringencies.
And
now I
Foam
to wheat, a glitter of seas.
The
child’s cry
Melts
in the wall.
And
I
Am
the arrow,
The
dew that flies
Suicidal,
at one with the drive
Into
the red
Eye,
the cauldron of morning.
At first pass, without any information about the background of the poem, we are
caught up by the power of the words. “God’s lioness”—an image of power, ferocity,
voraciousness, and death—curiously, it is female. When the juice of berries is likened
to blood—“Black sweet blood mouthfuls”—the poem turns macabre. Immediately
following is this startling exclamation—“Something else / Hauls
me through air— / Thighs, hair; / Flakes from my heels.”
Once
we access the biographical details of this poem, it yields itself to plausible
and more meaningful interpretation. “Ariel” is the name of the horse Plath
liked riding at Devonshire, England, during the period when she was not yet
separated from her husband. She wrote this poem on October 27, her birthday, about
three months before her suicide, when she was living separately in London with their
two children.
Plath
reveals her suicidal intent in the poem. Curiously, her anticipation of self-inflicted
death is both liberating and sinister. As the “arrow” that “flies” into the
dawn, she aims at a “red eye,” a “cauldron.” Both images of death are threatening.
Riding into the sun, Plath is “Godiva”—the Anglo-Saxon aristocrat who, naked astride
a horse trotting through the streets of Coventry, liberated her tenants from
the onerous taxes imposed by her husband. Death and freedom thus converge according
to some dark contradiction.
Revelatory
biographical connections between Plath’s life and the text of “Ariel”
distinguish the poem as Confessional.
Another
Plath masterpiece, Tulips, is similar
to Ariel. Both poems call upon the
power of vivid language. Their interpretation yields a harvest when the
poem has been sown with biographical information.
TULIPS by
Sylvia Plath
The
tulips are too excitable, it is winter here.
Look
how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in.
I
am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly
As
the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands.
I
am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions.
I
have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses
And
my history to the anesthetist and my body to surgeons.
They
have propped my head between the pillow and the sheet-cuff
Like
an eye between two white lids that will not shut.
Stupid
pupil, it has to take everything in.
The
nurses pass and pass, they are no trouble,
They
pass the way gulls pass inland in their white caps,
Doing
things with their hands, one just the same as another,
So
it is impossible to tell how many there are.
My
body is a pebble to them, they tend it as water
Tends
to the pebbles it must run over, smoothing them gently.
They
bring me numbness in their bright needles, they bring me sleep.
Now
I have lost myself I am sick of baggage——
My
patent leather overnight case like a black pillbox,
My
husband and child smiling out of the family photo;
Their
smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks.
I
have let things slip, a thirty-year-old cargo boat
stubbornly
hanging on to my name and address.
They
have swabbed me clear of my loving associations.
Scared
and bare on the green plastic-pillowed trolley
I
watched my teaset, my bureaus of linen, my books
Sink
out of sight, and the water went over my head.
I
am a nun now, I have never been so pure.
I
didn’t want any flowers, I only wanted
To
lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty.
How
free it is, you have no idea how free——
The
peacefulness is so big it dazes you,
And
it asks nothing, a name tag, a few trinkets.
It
is what the dead close on, finally; I imagine them
Shutting
their mouths on it, like a Communion tablet.
The
tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me.
Even
through the gift paper I could hear them breathe
Lightly,
through their white swaddlings, like an awful baby.
Their
redness talks to my wound, it corresponds.
They
are subtle : they seem to float, though they weigh me down,
Upsetting
me with their sudden tongues and their color,
A
dozen red lead sinkers round my neck.
Nobody
watched me before, now I am watched.
The
tulips turn to me, and the window behind me
Where
once a day the light slowly widens and slowly thins,
And
I see myself, flat, ridiculous, a cut-paper shadow
Between
the eye of the sun and the eyes of the tulips,
And
I have no face, I have wanted to efface myself.
The
vivid tulips eat my oxygen.
Before
they came the air was calm enough,
Coming
and going, breath by breath, without any fuss.
Then
the tulips filled it up like a loud noise.
Now
the air snags and eddies round them the way a river
Snags
and eddies round a sunken rust-red engine.
They
concentrate my attention, that was happy
Playing
and resting without committing itself.
The
walls, also, seem to be warming themselves.
The
tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals;
They
are opening like the mouth of some great African cat,
And
I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes
Its
bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me.
The
water I taste is warm and salt, like the sea,
And
comes from a country far away as health.
“The
tulips are too excitable”—the very first line pulls us into the fraught world
of the poet.
By
the end of the first stanza, because of references to nurses and surgeons, we
know where we are—in a hospital bed.
As
we step through the poem, we readily pick off images of personal torment—her
head is an unblinking eye, her body a smooth, hard pebble, the smiles of her
husband and child in the photo are sharp hooks snagging her skin.
Sixth
stanza, tulips again, blood red like her wounds. The flowers suffocate her, she complains,
because they compete for her oxygen. Devouring African cats, they stretch their
mouths wide open.
To
say that the entire poem is emotionally distraught is an understatement. We
might title this work, “Hieronymus Bosch at the Hospital” or “Edvard Munch Wakes Up in
Hell.”
Ted
Hughes, Plath’s husband, tells us that Plath wrote this poem in March 1961 after
she had suffered a miscarriage and had to be hospitalized for an appendectomy.
—Rukhaya
MK, “Poetry Analysis: Sylvia Plath’s ‘Tulips,’” October 2, 2014
Tulips by Sylvia
Plath—twentieth-century angst on steroids.
 |
| Sylvia Plath, undated photo |
Marina Tsvetaeva, Poet of Extremes
“Tsvetaeva is a poet of extremes.”—Joseph Brodsky, Footnote to a Poem
 |
| Marina Tsvetaeva, 1913 photo |
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Greatest Woman Poet of English Romanticism
 |
| Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1916 drawing |
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Pioneer Feminist of the New World
SOR JUANA INÉS DE LA
CRUZ, PIONEER FEMINIST OF THE NEW WORLD
Sor
Juana Inés de la Cruz, whose original name is Juana Ramírez de Asbaje, was an
outstanding seventeenth-century writer in what at the time was the Spanish
colonial empire and is today the United Mexican States (popularly, Mexico).
Sor
Juana is a notable figure of the Spanish Golden Age, which witnessed an
efflorescence of the arts—literature, the visual arts, architecture, and music.
She
has been described by Encyclopedia Britannica as “the last great writer of the
Hispanic Baroque and the first great exemplar of colonial Mexican culture.”
—Stephanie
Merrim, “Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Mexican Poet and Scholar,” Encyclopedia Britannica, August 1, 2017
Sor
Juana has been chosen as one of the top ten greatest women poets because of her
influence on the approximately 850 million people today who are the cultural
offspring of Spain and the Spanish colonial empire.
She
represents the rich, expansive culture and heritage of Spain and the colonies
of the former Spanish Empire in Central and South America, and if we add up the
various populations of this grouping of countries, excluding the 18 present-day
U.S. states that were formerly Spanish, the total equals approximately 850
million.
Although
Sor Juana was a highly accomplished poet in the Baroque style, it is not for
this reason that she has been selected as one of the top ten greatest women
poets. There are notables of the Baroque style, such as Miguel de
Cervantes or Lope de Vega, who outshine Sor Juana.
Sor
Juana has been selected because her influence extends beyond Hispanic culture and with
newfound relevance. This postmodern period in the West, she is celebrated as an
exemplar of nascent feminism. She is recognized as a pioneer feminist of the
New World.
Feminism
is a postmodern ideology of major and substantial influence today. It affects
not only women but also men and, to speak broadly, all possible categories of
gender. There are variants of this ideology so that it would be more accurate
to cite feminisms (plural) rather than feminism (singular).
Feminism
is defined by Lexico as “the advocacy
of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes.”
More
nuanced and especially revealing of the charged, conflictive meanings residing
in the term is this discussion by Kathy Caprino in Forbes:
—Kathy
Caprino, “What Is Feminism, and Why Do So Many Women and Men Hate It?” Forbes, March 8, 2017
“There
are thousands who believe in equal rights but find ‘feminism’ a word and a
movement that doesn’t align with their personal beliefs or values,” the author underscores.
We will examine Sor Juana’s “You Foolish Men,” illustrating the underlying feminism.
We will examine Sor Juana’s “You Foolish Men,” illustrating the underlying feminism.
YOU
FOOLISH MEN by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
You
foolish men who lay
the
guilt on women,
not
seeing you’re the cause
of
the very thing you blame;
if
you invite their disdain
with
measureless desire
why
wish they well behave
if
you incite to ill.
You
fight their stubbornness,
then,
weightily,
you
say it was their lightness
when
it was your guile.
In
all your crazy shows
you
act just like a child
who
plays the bogeyman
of
which he’s then afraid.
With
foolish arrogance
you
hope to find a Thais
in
her you court, but a Lucretia
when
you’ve possessed her.
What
kind of mind is odder
than
his who mists
a
mirror and then complains
that
it’s not clear.
Their
favour and disdain
you
hold in equal state,
if
they mistreat, you complain,
you
mock if they treat you well.
No
woman wins esteem of you:
the
most modest is ungrateful
if
she refuses to admit you;
yet
if she does, she’s loose.
You
always are so foolish
your
censure is unfair;
one
you blame for cruelty
the
other for being easy.
What
must be her temper
who
offends when she’s
ungrateful
and wearies
when
compliant?
But
with the anger and the grief
that
your pleasure tells
good
luck to her who doesn’t love you
and
you go on and complain.
Your
lover’s moans give wings
to
women’s liberty:
and
having made them bad,
you
want to find them good.
Who
has embraced
the
greater blame in passion?
She
who, solicited, falls,
or
he who, fallen, pleads?
Who
is more to blame,
though
either should do wrong?
She
who sins for pay
or
he who pays to sin?
Why
be outraged at the guilt
that
is of your own doing?
Have
them as you make them
or
make them what you will.
Leave
off your wooing
and
then, with greater cause,
you
can blame the passion
of
her who comes to court?
Patent
is your arrogance
that
fights with many weapons
since
in promise and insistence
you
join world, flesh, and devil.
The
poem lists men’s faults, in synopsis, “You have contradictory expectations of
us. You are the cause of the lapses you lay upon us.”
Structured
as an argument, the opening salvo is the first stanza: “You foolish men who
lay / the guilt on women, / not seeing you’re the cause / of the very thing you
blame.”
The
succeeding seven stanzas cite instances of the opening charge—you seek to court
a Thais (Greek courtesan) but to marry a Lucretia (virtuous Roman noblewoman);
you complain if women treat you badly but mock them if they treat you well; you
say the modest woman is ungrateful, the one who entertains you, loose.
The
eighth stanza restates the charge—“You are always so foolish / your censure
is unfair,” after which the list resumes.
Throughout,
the poem composes memorable antitheses—“having made them bad, / you want
to find them good,” “Have them as you make them / or make them what you will.”
The
last three stanzas wrap up with stinging reproaches—“in promise and
insistence / you join world, flesh, and devil.”
Notably
Baroque qualities of the poem include moralizing and satire.
When
we consider that the poem was written in the context of Spanish patriarchal
society, it becomes readily apparent that the poem is feminist. The poem is not
simply an exposition about differences in the attitudes of the sexes. It is a
poem of protest against the bullying male attitudes the poet encountered that denigrate
and unfairly characterize women.
Sor
Juana had to struggle with the limited opportunities available to the women of
her time. Almost entirely self-educated, she entered a convent most likely because
she had been born out of wedlock to a family that was not wealthy so that the
nunnery presented the best option available for her to pursue her intellectual and literary
avocation.
As
explained by Encyclopedia Britannica:
“Convent
life afforded Sor Juana her own apartment, time to study and write, and the
opportunity to teach music and drama to the girls in Santa Paula’s school. She
also functioned as the convent’s archivist and accountant. In her convent cell,
Sor Juana amassed one of the largest private libraries in the New World,
together with a collection of musical and scientific instruments. She was able
to continue her contact with other scholars and powerful members of the court.
The patronage of the viceroy and vicereine of New Spain, notably that of the
marquis and marquise de la Laguna from 1680 to 1688, helped her maintain her
exceptional freedom. They visited her, favoured her, and had her works
published in Spain. For her part, Sor Juana, though cloistered, became the
unofficial court poet in the 1680s. Her plays in verse, occasional poetry,
commissioned religious services, and writings for state festivals all
contributed magnificently to the world outside the convent.”
A
great deal more can be said about this remarkable woman, but because this piece
is a blog post we will be economical in our treatment.
One
of Sor Juana’s most famous poems, “Love Opened a Mortal Wound,” wrestles with
the subject of romantic love. Hewing to the stylistic conventions of the Baroque,
its tightness, wit, vivid imagery, and lyrical flair speak to us from across
the centuries as a period masterpiece of a virtuoso, who, not incidentally, is
a woman.
LOVE
OPENED A MORTAL WOUND by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
Love
opened a mortal wound.
In
agony, I worked the blade
to
make it deeper. Please,
I
begged, let death come quick.
Wild,
distracted, sick,
I
counted, counted
all
the ways love hurt me.
One
life, I thought—a thousand deaths.
Blow
after blow, my heart
couldn't
survive this beating.
Then—how
can I explain it?
I
came to my senses. I said,
Why
do I suffer? What lover
ever
had so much pleasure?
The
poem ends cleverly and paradoxically—the mortal wound elicits matchless
pleasure.
In
our post-Freudian world, we suggest that the poem borders on the pornographic.
No
wonder that upon the departure from Mexico of her aristocratic patrons, clerical
authorities quickly moved to curtail her objectionably worldly pursuits. She
was effectively silenced by the bishop of Puebla.
Today
Sor Juana is celebrated as a Mexican hero and a Mexican cultural archetype.
She
continues to influence modern and contemporary culture. Examples of her recent
legacy include the following.
-
Margaret Atwood composed “Sor Juana Works in the Garden,” publishing it in The Door (2007), a book of poetry.
-
Helen Edmundson wrote a play based on Sor Juana’s life, “The Heresy of Love,” staged
by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2012.
-
Google Doodle commemorated Sor Juana’s 366th birthday on November 12, 2017.
Her
continuing influence bespeaks her singular literary stature.
 |
| Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1981) by Enrique Fernandez Criach |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)