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Confessional Poetry of Sylvia Plath
Confessional Poetry of Sylvia Plath
UNIT 50 SYLVIAPLATHANDCONFE%
POETRY
Structure
50.0 Objectives
50.1 Introduction
50.2 Confessional Poetry
50,2.1 Tlie Be~iniung~ ,
50.2.2 The waste aid qralin
50.2.3 Tlie Origiiis df "Collfession"
50.2.4 Personal T11emes
50.2.5 Failed Relationships
50.2.6 Father Coiilples
50.2.7 Nervous Breakdowns
50.2.8 Suicide, Dentli. and Disease
50.2.9 The Desire to Shock , ,
50.0 OBJECTIVES
After reading this unit you will bc. avarc of the kind of poetry that was written
in the
'sixties of the twentieth century. You will understand the work of Sylvia Plath and
be
familiar with some of her represeiltative poems which will be critically analyzed.
50.1 INTRODUCTION
Sylvia Plath's work will be placed in the context of the Confessional Poetry of the
'sixties. As her work is heavily autobiographical, there will be an outline of the
major
events of her lift: and how they influenced her poetic sensibility. This will be
followed by a discussion of some of her representative poems.
The Unit on'Philip Larkin told you something about the poetry of the 'fifties in
Engla~ld
which came as a reaction to the dictates of Pound and Eliot and the "escesses'! of
Djllan
Thomas. This reaction against the established, intellectual, academic poetq- took
another form in the u.$. A, and from there travelled to England with Sylvia Plath,
The
poets involved in this reactionary mouenient came to be called the Confessiollal
Poets.
Heading the group were Robert Lowell and Theodore Roethkc. Youiiger poets lilcc
Sylvia Plath and Anne Seston, who 9tydied with Lowell. leanled to write in t11c
samc:
anti-intellectual, subjective style. SO did John Berryina~.Togctl~er.these poets
initiated a new trend in poetry, glorifying the personal and the private.
cspressing thcll.
iiv~ern~nst secrets aloud for all to hear. W i % y l v i a Plat11 mmicd the
Englisl~poet
'Ted J-Ii~ghcs
and cl~oseto nlakc her llome in the United Kii~gdom,tl~eCo~lfessional
~iiovcn~entno longer renlained confilled to t l ~ eAlllericall boundaries.
l'ltc sccond important event tltat took placc in 19.59 relates to Allen Ginsberg, a
poet
vcry different fro111 Lowell, who also undermined the esttzblisl~edpoetic norms of
tlle
timc. but in his o\vn inanncr. A poetry rending by him, Gregory Corso, and Pctcr
Orlotsky at C:olun~biaUilivcrsity becanle a co~~trovcrsial public affair,
"crnblc~~~atic
of
;L whole cra," as Morris Dickstein put it. Wit11 l~isreading of Howl, Ginsberg
cliangcd
tllc vcry concept of poetry. Hitllcrto, if poetry was trcated as a literary
constn~ct,with
Cjinsbcrg, it callle to be regarded as a pcrfor~~lal~cc, a ritualistic gcsturc
acco~llpmicdby
music and dance. Discarding co~lventioilalfornls and the~nesGinsberg imparted to
11oett-ya ncw sense of frcedplll and spirit~~lal illtensity, taking it out of
stuffy classroo~ns
on to the open staye. T11e work of Eliot and Po~uldrequired a vast body of critical
annotations and i~~terpretations to be colllprcl~endedf~llly.Besides, it had
emerged as
an answer to cl~eneeds of a particular hour in histoqf:tllc second decade of the
t\\c~lticthce~itur)~ when, as a result of global wars, civilizations secnlcd to be
breaking
apart. B), tl~clatc 'fifties the situation had changed.
It was Robert Lowell who first saw the horror, the boredonl, and the glory of
Eliot's
waste land paralleled within the mind. Lifi? Stuclie.~comlects the
nleatli~lglessi~ess
a ~ d
hollowvness ofthe outer world to the existing despair within. Unable to find order
and
security in thc post-war world, Lowell looks for stability and reassurance in his
family, .
his background, and the New England tradition represented by his ancestors. His
poetry: tl~usis a regressive movement, w a y frOm the broad canvas of the world to
a
narrower, fmlilial canvas, But at all times Lowell retains his co~~y~~ondense
attitude
wd kee~shis feet firmly rooted in the reality of everyday life, '
With Theodore Roethkc them is more of an escapist movement. The Lost So,?crnd
Other Poems was published in 1948 but its fill1 iiupact was felt only after thc
publicntipn of Lowell's Lijk Stullies. T l ~ cdiffereilrc between Lowcll and
Roctl~kclics
111 that \vherens Lowell regresses into history -- family llistory and also
autobiography
-- Roetlhe's es'cape is into the world of nature. It may be said that Roethkc's is
a relil1.n
to Wordsworthiail ideals. But so, in a different m y . is Lowell's. If The Prelude
is
Wordsworth's spiritual autobiography, Life Studies is a record of Lowell's
cnlotioilal
history. As in Wordsworth, in Lowell's work. too, one inay easily detect the
presence
of an "egotistical sublime." But not so in the case of Roetlk where the poet's
personality, more Keatsean, remains in the background while the pla~ts.roots. ind
creatures of tl1e greenhouse speak on his bel~alf,The personal voice. unlike that
of
Lowell, speaks occasiollally but without asserting itself in too obtrusive a
manncl..
The themes, thus, are invariably related to the poet's growth and childl~ood.A
comparison may be drawh with the autobiographical mode of Wordsworth. I11 The
Prelude, Wordsworth presents a long, chronological account of his cvolutioil froill
a1
ordinary boy to a sensitive poet, He takes up sclected "spots of time," kcy
il~oi~~cnts
that stand out in his meniory, analyses their importance and coiltrib~~tio~ltowards
the
making of the poet he grew up to be. The work of the confessional poets is
siillilar in
the sense that they, too, look back at the past, picking out significant ~no~llents
in
their
experience. But, unlike Wordsworth, their main concern is not with the road taken
to
fame and glory. Rather, it is the paths taken to neuroses and emotio~lalbreakdowns
that fslscinate them, They all seem to look back totally mesmerized. emmining c v c
n
hurdle encountered, every landmark on the way. There is total self-absorption. not
just
a commemoration of the flattering moments of personal history but also the ignoblc.
humiliating and demeaning experiences.
Sylvia Plath
Lowell speaks of failure not only in marriage and sexual relationships but also in
filial
duties. In "Home After Three Months Away" he mentions his daughter. Again, there
is
a Eailure in communication: Lowell is aware that he has failed somewhere as a
father.
And once again, the reasons lie within: the mental collapse that he suffered is
the
invisible divider, keeping him away from the child. There is 'desire, there is
love, but
there is at the same time a crippling force that nullifies all positive efforts
towards
establishing a rapport with others. Lowell's technique is the reverse of Eliot's:
he does
not objectify experience. On the contrary, he portrays it as it is, naked, raw,
and
elemental. This is style that Eliot would have criticized the way he..cfdcized
Humlet
and its problems for lacking an "objective correlative", motion, as Eliot sees it,
illust
be expressed through a suitable objective correlative, an external object that
becon~es 41
~~lu~icrrtists/ symbolic of tlie emotion to be conveyed. But
Robert Lowell would rather speak of h i s
Post-n~otlernists experience directly.
Ted
Hughes
Thc theme of mental collapse, which is partly the result of parental loss, is
dcalt \\ it11 by
Anne Sexton who remembers her fatller wit11 pangs of a guilty conscicncc. She
considers herself a failure not sinlply as a daughter, but also as a mother.
The motl~er
of two daughters, Seston could never forgive herself for being a failed parcnt.
as shc
thought. At the same time, she i~ratiollallyblamed 11el-selffor the death of
llcr parents.
Such feelings of guilt are recounted in the poenls of Ilb Bedlam and Purt Wa.y
Uaclr.
Lo\\ ell speaks of his mental breakdown in "Home After l r e e Months Awaj "
and
"Waking in the Blue." Roetlke and Rerrynlan, too, frequently refer to thcir
ilervous
brcakdowns ~unabashedly.In fact, Rocthkc even seems to glorify nmdness: "What's
~nadnessbut nobility of soul 1 At odds with circumstance."
It is not simply death that their poctry speaks of. It also dcals tvith
physical sickness.
disease and decay. Consequently, a lot of unromantic clclnclll crccps illto
poetry. As
Robert Phillips puts it, there is no longer any "poetic" or unpoetic" material,
nothiil~is
taboo 111confessional poetry. Lo\vcll speaks of myopia, Rocthkc of
hydrotherapy.
Seston of thc personal, private espcricnccs of being a woman, of topics as
controversial
as ~nast~~rbation or i~~enstniation. The ugly and thc grotesque inspirc poetry
in tllc samc
nlanner as the beautifill and the good.
The desire behind such poetry is the urge lo sl~ock.This desire to s11ock is
manifested in
thc use of ullconventional themes, o~ltspolienlanguage, aid expressions of
ul~co~~taincd
fury. All this requires courase atld it is courage that the confessional poets
lay claim to:
the courage to come face to hce with reality, no matter what the consequences,
no
nlatter how painful the experience. I11 this coimection a refcrcnce may bc
n~adcto
Sexton's epigraph to To Bedlam and Part Wcy B c ~ \vl~icl~
k is a quotation
froill a lcttcr
to Goethe from Schopenhauer:
The poet is forever seeking answers to questions that plague him on inalters
peltailling
to his identity and situation in a larger scheme of things.
Dealing with the innennost recesses of the mind, it is but natural that these
poets show
the ii~fluenceof psychoanalytical theories tliat have come to stay in the
twentieth
century. Aulc Sexton's work is a good illustration of this point. As the
critic Robert
Phillips points out, there is a strong Jungim influence in her work. In her
T~~nsforrn~tion~ of the illnoc~lousfairy tales of the Grinml Brothers, Sexton
resorts to
psychoanalysis to interpret, in a1adult way, stories that were originally
meant for
children. Psychoanalysis inay also be applied to the strong sexual imagery
that is found
in the work of Plath, Benynan, Lowell and Roethke.
111 order to ~tnderstandthe poetry of Sylvia Plath (1933 - 63), the'we nced to
be awarc
of at least three cnicial biographical facts which cast their shadow on her
work: one, t11c
44 premature death of her father when she was barely eight; two, the separation
fro111her
husband, Ted Hughes, who took on tl~erole of a htl~ersurrogate; and, three.
her
sLl~cjde attempts, the first unsuccessfi~lone at the agc of twenty-
onc. and the final
s ~ ~ ~ c c s atteillpt
s f i ~ l in her thirtieth year. 011these three
events is based the mqor poetr!
of S\ lvla Plath, its cries of hclpless rage
altentat~itgw~tllgloo~llydespalr, its nnrc~ss~stic
coll&nl n ~ t lthe i individual self colouring all tliemes and
subjects she cllooses to ~ r i t c
of
ous
111the first place, because it is modelled 011 her fatl~er,there is
a filial amclu1ient ancl
I love. But. at the sarllc time, because the father, by dying. lias
deserted his child, therc IS
I a resentment against him, Such are the dichot0111ousfeelings that
Plath exprcsscs in
relation to her father through the colossus image.
I
of her inferior role. Engaged in a thankless job, with no hoyc of ever being ficc
of it.
she resigns herself to fate:
It may be noted that Plat11 is here dealing with the lost father theme. Loss of the
fitl~cr
is one of the many autobiographical subjects tllat Plat11 writes her poetry on. But
shc
tries to impart a universal applicability to thc experience through the usc of
myth. For
this reason, the fhther is visualized as a Greek God as in "Full Fathom Five."
Elsewl~ere,for tlte same effect, she evokes the Electm myth to describe the
relationship
between herself and her fither.
"Daddy"
"Daddy," a late poem, is one such example. In a note to the poem, Platll herself
draws
our attention to the co~iilectionw~ththe story of Electra:
This statement is important for several reasoils that may apply to the other
poeins of
PIatl~as well. In tlle first place, we may note the deliberate effort to go beyond
thc sslf
by employiilg on the one hand Greek nlyth and, on the other, events from world
histon
(the Nazi-Jew animosity). Secondly, it is easy to disc en^ thc aularencss of
psychoanalytical theories and their application to personal relationships. This
poem
speaks of the father-daughter relationship but in another p o a l ~("Medusa" for
instculce)
it is the relationship with the motller that the poet is concerned with. In yct
anotl.rer
poem, it may be the runbig~~o~ls mother-child bond that she focuscs 011(as in
"Lesbos").
Tllird, tlle poem takes a close look at not just the relationsl~ips,but thc
clllotional
complexities of a person, the existence of opposing forces within onc's psychc. the
good and the bad, the gentle and the harsh, the Jew and the Nazi. And finally,
Plath's
note puts forward a subtle suggestion that poetry, in its most powverful forn~,is a
ritualistic gesture. It is an exorcism of the domoils that haunt the poet. It is
the~apeutic*
it has a cathartic effect. In such poems there is generally an inner, psychological
co~~flict the persona is engaged in.
"Daddy," speaking of the two conflicting strains within the girl which mam. and
paralysc each otlxr, deals with such a conflict. Plath is here dealing with the
i~~flue~icc
of heredity on an individual as these psychological tensions are hereditan.. a
legacy
from the Electra-like girl's mixed parental backc. ~und,part Nazi. part Jewish.
Give11
such a parentage, the girl cannot help being a .c . in1 of clashing
cllaracteristics, But.
often, the opposing forces within the self do no1 owe their origin to fanlily
history: they
are ingrained in human nature, It may be noted, however, that, the lines of
"Dadd).,'
though they stom1 and curse against one who has betrayed the persona could only be
uttered by one who cares, one who hah loved deeply and tn~ly,a ~ \v)~q d llm,becn
l~urt
because her love has come to nothing. Such are tl~eanlbivalent feeliilgs that
"Daddy"
expresses against the dead hther,
"Lady Lazarus":
In "Lady Lc?zarus" Plath speaks of her previous suicide attempts. Biograpli~~~l
accounts of Sylvia ~lat11tell us how the poet was foscii~atedwith the idcn of
d!.ing and
r\ttemptdsuicide more than once. This is a passion she shared with her friend, the
poet
Anne Sexton who admits that they often talked about dying: "We talked death with
burnt-up intensity, both of us drawn to it like illoths to an electric light bulb.
Sucking
on it!" Sex?on has immortalized their camaraderie in her famous poem, "Wanting to
Die" wllich explains the inorbid attraction of death:
It is easy to scc that Plszth is inspired by her own csperience: striving for dcath
time and
again, and tl1c11 being syn~bolicallyreborn. But the Pl~oenismyth places it at an
aesthetic distance. And again, private suffering is equated with events of public
importance: the suffering of the Jews, for instance: "my skin / Bright as a Nazi
lampshade," .... "My fhce a featureless, fine / Jew linen." When parallels are
tl~us
drawn with the sufferings of a sect1011of humanity discriminated against, tl~ercis
some
attcnlpt at universality. However, tlie autobiographical clcnzeilt in the pocni is
s t r o n ~
and Sylvia Platll's poeins remain, despitc her attempts to camouflage them, a
record of
scars gathered over the years in her short life span. "Lady Lazan~s,"like "Daddy,"
speaks of an autobiographical experience even though .there is an attempt to go
bqrond
autobiography.
"Purdah":
111e tmnsfilation of woman from n~e~akling to superwoman is best charted in
Platll's
12oern entiiled T ~ r d a h "where the female protagonist, throwing off all
shackles, trics to
shakc off the hegemonic centre of inale dominaiice:
Thc doll-lilcc bride is n~etainorphosedinto a lioness that brings about the death
of her
oppressor. It) the Bee poems of:Plat@the militant wuman is represelited b! the
tlying
, 'i
queen bee. and in "Ariel" by the shooting arrow and the "dew that flies."
Fl!,ing is
woman's gesture of defiance, her bid for total emancipation.
Sylvia Plath. no inatter what her subject, a cut thu~llb(in "Cuf"), defermed
babies (ill
"T~didomide"),a fever (in "Fever 103OS'), an adventure on a nrnaway horse (in
"Ariel"), or sr Inorbid facination with death (in "Edge"). always writes as a
cvoman.
She writes of personal experiences but she llas a placc in poetic
tradit~on.She maltcs
use of myth but she brazks with the nlythic tradition of Eliot.. She does tr!
to nlovc
from the personal to the impersonal/p~blicstance. but the autobiographical
ele~nciitIn
her work is so strong tlnt she is unable to rise much abovc the self. Emotion
is
presented directly most of the time in her work, or sometimes tliroush the
fliins? veil of
a persona. There is no objective correlative in Eliot's sense. True, we may
takc the
flying bee or the horse as symbolic figures, but they are not objective
correlatives as
Eliot would have them. "I ~ i u sfly
t around,-' "I nust shriek," says the poet.
This is
closer to the passionate intensity of romantic poetry that goes "I fall
up011 ,the thorns of
life, I bleed"....The work of Sylvia Plath, thus, picks up stray strands of
earlier
traditions and weaves out of them a distinctive fabric.
"ARIEL":
Ariel was the name of the horse on which Plath went riding. Ted Hughes, in
his "Notcs
on the Chronological Order of Sylvia Plath's Poems," tells us that on onc
occasion tllc
'horse bolted and the poet was almost throun off the saddle. It is such an
experience of
being astride a ninaway horse tlmt the poem "Ariel" describes.
--
50.4 EXERCISES IN COMPREHENSION
I
1. How did Confessional Poetry differ from the kind of poetry that I V ~
Swritten in
the early decades or the twentieth century?
[In order to answer this question you should refer to that section of the
unit that .
speaks of how the Confessional poZts focus on personal themes rather than
public
ones. This was against the theory of impersonality advocated b!, T. S.
Eliot. I
2. Analyze critically the role played by Sylvia Plath's father in hcr poems.
( Bcgiiining with "The Colossus." you will discuss "Daddy," "Ariel," and
--Purdah." You may also wish to read up 'T11e Applicant," tlie Bee Poems
and
"Pursuit." (
4. Show how death and suicide are iinportant themes in Sylvia Plath's poems.
Now that jlou have read this unit, you slzould be able to
1
Understand what is meant bjr Confessional Poetry.
1 Write about the main themes that inspired the Confessional Poets.
I
I
1
Assess the importunce of Sylvia Plat11 in the huentieth-centu~vpoetic
traclition.
Be ji~nzilicrrwith some of her important poems.
Plath. Sylvia. Collected Poenis, ed. Ted Huglies. London: Faber. 1981.
---. Johnny Panic nmi the Bible of Dreams: Short Storie,~,Prose and Diary
fi~ccrpt~v.
Ncw York: Harper, 1979.
Aird, Eileen M. J'yIvi4 P/oth. New York: Barncs and Noble, 1973.
Butscher, Edward. S')lvin Plc~th:777e Wornon nnd the Work. New York: Dodd. 1077.
Juhasz. Sumlnc. Naked cind Fiery firms: Modern Amerimn Poetry hjl Wol71cn.New
York: Octagoi~,1978.
Lane, Gary, ed. $11vio Ploth: Nca Vlcws on the Poetry., Baltiillorc: Jolu~s~ o i k
i n s
University Press, 1979.
Uroff, Margarct Dickie. Sylvia Plat17 and TedHzlghcs. London, etc.: Uuiversity of
Illiilois Press, 1979.