Plath Mirror

The Unitive Urge in the Poetry of Sylvia Plath
Author(s): Pamela A. Smith and Sylvia Plath

Source: The New England Quarterly, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Sep., 1972), pp. 323-339
Published by: The New England Quarterly, Inc.
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THE
NEW ENGLAND
QAYRTERLY
SEPTEMBER 1972
THE UNITIVE URGE IN THE POETRY

OF SYLVIA PLATH
PAMELA A. SMITH
"I SHALL never get you put togetherentirely,"fretsthe

scrubgirlwho scramblesoverthegiganticruinsin thetitle
poem of SylviaPlath's firstvolume,The Colossus.Although
thepoemprimarily concernsthepoet'sobsessionwithherlong-
dead father,herlove thatis mostlyhate and her desirethatis
mostlydeathwish,"The Colossus"also assignsthechoreofher
poetry:cleaningup and piecingtogetherfragments, debris,to
make somethingimmaculate,superhuman,and whole. Read
as continuumand totality, thepoemsof The Colossusand her
secondvolume,Ariel,tellofPlath'sattempttoreconcileguilty,
mortalhistory(herown and humanity's)withsomepure,im-
mortal,perpetualmoment.The thingsof thislife-man's ig-
norant destructionof the earth even while he dependently
wallows in it, the mass murdersof Dachau, Auschwitz,and
Belsen,thesinisterthreatsoftheatomicbomband radioactive
fallout,and theunearthly devastationofHiroshimaand Naga-
saki-all troubledher sight.The look into her own mirror,a
gazemoreand morebrutallyhonestas sheaged,also disturbed
heras she discovereda wildlyirrationalhatredforher father,
OttoEmil Plath,a German-born entomologist,resentmentfor
her husband,Britishpoet Ted Hughes, and theirchildren,
323

324 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY
Frieda Rebecca and Nicholas Farrar,anger at her enforced
role as woman ("A livingdoll, everywhere you look. / It can
sew,it can cook,/ It can talk,talk,talk,"shejeersin "The Ap-
plicant" in Ariel),and her malingeringenjoymentof illness.
From her perspectiveof the outwardand inwarddistressin-
evitablein humanexperience,SylviaPlath turnedher vision
to a glad,disembodiedotherworld, one at leastpartiallybased
on a Unitarian-Universalist faithin a punishment-free union
withtheWhole in theafterlife, theotherworldofdeath.
Completingand clarifyingthe vision was a long, arduous
taskforSylviaPlath.She wasa prodigywho publishedherfirst
poem in the Boston SundayHerald when she was just eight
and a halfyearsold:
Hear thecricketschirping
In thedewygrass.
Brightlittlefireflies
Twinkleas theypass.'
Bythetimeshewasseventeen, shehad sold a storyto Seventeen

and had publisheda letterand a poemin theChristianScience
Monitor. During her yearsat Smith College, her work ap-
peared fairlyregularlyin both Seventeenand Mademoiselle,
and her careerof award-winning began. It is not surprising,
then, that theneed to getthings"put togetherentirely"which
possessed and impelled SylviaPlath expresseditselfinstinc-
tivelyas literaryart.
For the prodigy,poetryis an especiallyunifyingart. In
PoeticsXXII, Aristotleobservesof the fundamentof poetry,
metaphor,"That alone cannot be learnt; it is the token of
genius. For the rightuse of metaphormeans an eye forre-
semblances."The poet perceives"resemblances,"likenesses,
where otherssee differences and, throughmetaphor,makes
unityof seemingdiversity.In the poetryof SylviaPlath, the
metaphors(sometimesintentionally "yokedby violence") are
unexpected,startling, often upsetting,but alwaysdead right.
1Lois Ames, "Notes Toward a Biography," in The Art of Sylvia Plath: A
Symposium,Charles Newman, editor (Bloomington,Indiana, 1970), 158.

THE POETRY OF SYLVIA PLATH 325
Everything can becomealmostanythingelse: uglyaunts,fussy
cousins,and irritablepiano teachersturninto the terrifying
apparitional"travelingcompanions"of a lifetime,while bed-
timestorytelling Motherfloatsoff"On a greenballoon bright
with a million / Flowersand bluebirds that never were /
Never,never,foundanywhere,"now become a soap-bubble,
in "The Disquieting Muses" (The Colossus); a husband is
disclosedas "The vampirewho said he was you / And drank
myblood fora year,/ Sevenyears,ifyouwantto know"while
Father,the professorand beekeeper,turnsinto the "man in
black witha Meinkampflook," iibermensch, panzerman,the
SS man to end all SS men in "Daddy" (Ariel). Plath's meta-
phors,terribleas theycan be, formnew, agonizinglyexact
identities.
Becomingable to expressthoserelationships, to admit the
likenessesshe imagined,was unquestionablya difficultjob for
Plath. She did indeedalwayshave thatgenius,the "eye forre-
semblances,"but in her earlypoems,throughmost of The
Colossus,shesparesherselfthepain ofsome"resemblances." A
compulsive zealotfor she
craft, concentratesherenergy on the
mannerand cautiouslyunderstates thematterofherspeaking.
The quick,brilliantmetaphors, thesmallweldingsofthechild
prodigy, insufficient
by young adulthood, push her effortinto
the
largerfusions, forging of manner and matter into perfect
whole poems. But despite theirsuccess,the fusionsin The
Colossusare evasivein thattheyattracta rathersuperficialat-
tentionto themselves. They are showyacrobatics,tensetight-
rope walking,tiptoeingbravadowhichreallywantsto stum-
ble, missthe toehold,and dare to plummet-butis too scared
to.
StanleyBurnshaw,theorizingon genius and creativity, re-
marksthatexcellentpoetsexperiencethe sense thattheyare
"beingused":
Whatthewriter in theactofcreatingknowsaboveall elseis that
he is bornealongin a steadyunfolding,
a voyageofdiscovery. At
somepoint,beforeor afterthelinesare written
down,he begins

3,6 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY
to learn whatit is that"he" has been "wanting"or "trying"to say
and actuallysaying.... In theprocessof completion,shortor long
as the case maybe, the wordsmay lead the poem into sayingwhat
its author would not wish it to say: he will follow along, tryto
bend its course,or abandon it.2
In The Colossus, Sylvia Plath, the restrained acrobat, re-

sistsgiving herselfover thatwholly to her art. By being a care-
ful, painstaking craftsman,she has her unifying moments,
forcing,fusing her poems and their forms,but, in a way, she
settlesfor half, stops short. She never lets "the words .., lead
the poem into sayingwhat its author would not wish it to say,"
never quite lets the words voice the impassioned, vicious re-
nunciations which later explode. In The Colossus, Plath
would never allow herself to say to the newborn child of
"Morning Song" in Ariel:
I'm no moreyourmother
Than thecloud thatdistilsa mirrorto reflectitsown slow
Effacementat thewind'shand.
She would not permit herself to complain to her husband

(despite Ted Hughes's claim that this is addressed to her "dis-
quieting muse"3) as she does in "The Rival" in Ariel:
I wake to a mausoleum;you are here,
Ticking yourfingers on themarble table,lookingforcigarettes,
Spitefulas a woman, but not so nervous,
And dyingto saysomethingunanswerable.
And she most certainlywould not boast, as she does in "Lady

Lazarus" in Ariel:
Dying
Is an art,like everythingelse.
I do it exceptionallywell.
2 The Seamless Web: Language-Thinking, Creature-Knowledge,
Art-Experi-
ence (New York, 197o), 269.
3 Ted Hughes, "Notes on the Chronological Order of Sylvia Plath's Poems,"
in Newman, 194.

I do itso itfeelslikehell.
I do it so it feelsreal.
I guessyoucouldsayI've a call.
We are hard put to explain just what happened to Sylvia
Plath's poetrybetween196o, whenshe publishedThe Colos-
sus,and 1963,whensheundertookthelastcreativerushbefore
hersuicide.The Colossusis surelygroundwork forthesecond
book: its suppressionsbecome the fieryrevelationsof Ariel.
But thereis undeniablyan enigmaticnew spirit,a movement
to horrorand hysteriain Ariel.What seemsto happen is that
she movestowardenactingher own poeticdramas.
In The Colossus,in a poem occasionedby her gettinga
splinterin her eye,she megalomaniacallyblows up the inci-
dentto mythic,heroicevent:
WhatI wantbackis whatI was
Beforethebed,beforetheknife,
Beforethebrooch-pin and thesalve
Fixedmein thisparenthesis;
Horsesfluentin thewind,
A place,a timegoneoutofmind.
"The Eye-mote,"however,keeps an "aesthetic distance."
Though it expresseslonging("What I wantback") and turns
herownElectraintohermale counterpart and dallieswiththe
blind-poet, blind-seertradition,the characterof the
fanciful
poem remainsclear: "I dreamthatI am Oedipus," she says,
keepingherdreamin mind.In Ariel,on theotherhand,there
is no "aestheticdistance,"no distinctionbetweendramaand
life.The poet not onlyimaginesherselfbut becomes(living
herrolesmorefullythananyStanislavsky-method actor)"Lady
Lazarus," "Gulliver," "Medusa," and the Virginof "Mary's
Song" bearingher Christinto this "heart/ This holocaustI
walk in.. ." No longerlanguishingin theever-unfulfilled de-
sire("What I wantback"), she setsout to get it, pesteringfor
"A BirthdayPresent,"her deathday,until she decidesto buy
it forherself:

There is thisone thingI wanttoday,and onlyyou can giveit to me.
It standsat mywindow,big as thesky.
It breathesfrommysheets,thecold dead centre
Where spiltlives congeal and stiffen
to history.
Let it not come by themail, fingerby finger.
Let it not come bywordof mouth,I should be sixty
By the timethe whole of it was delivered,and too numb to use it.
Only let down theveil, theveil,theveil.
If it weredeath
I would admirethedeep gravityof it,its timelesseyes.
I would knowyou wereserious.
There would be a nobilitythen,therewould be a birthday.
And theknifenot carve,but enter
Pure and clean as thecryofa baby,
And the universeslide frommyside.
When Ariel was finished,Sylvia Plath trundled her babies

offto a neighbor's house, returned home alone, and, "Where
spilt lives congeal and stiffento history,"gassed herselfin the
oven-chamber of her own kitchen. It was February 11, 1963,
and she performed exactly as "A Birthday Present" said she
would:
I will onlytakeit and go aside quietly.
You will not even hear me opening it, no paper crackle,
No fallingribbons,no screamat the end.
I do not thinkyou creditme withthisdiscretion.
It would seem that her early work served as an escape, a

healthy spa in which she could rest fromthe perplexityof her
own contrarytendencies (to endure and to die, to hope and to
despair, to love and to hate), divert herselfwith a crossword
puzzle challenge of sound and poetic structure.In The Colos-
sus, the intellect, that puzzle-solvinglogic, overrules emotion.
In Ariel, however, Plath moves fromthe luxurious spa (remi-

niscentof Stevens'"Complacenciesof the peignoir"of "Sun-
day Morning")to a frightful involvementin psychodrama, in
the mercilessconfrontations of group therapy-inwhich she
playseveryaccusingmemberof the group.The polar tug-of-
warbetweenintellectand emotiongenerates, as thetwotravel
together, intoa dynamicstandingwave.
In tryingto accountfortheviolencethatresults,we can at
leastobservethatSylviaPlathwas a womanwhosementalde-
velopmentfaroutranher emotionalmaturity.As the young
winnerof a $500 prizein a Mademoisellefictioncontest,as a
collegiateguesteditorforthe same magazine,as a poet pub-
lishedin Harper's,as a Smithgraduatesummacum laude,and
as a Fulbrightfellowat NewnhamCollege,Cambridge,all by
thetimeshewas twenty-two yearsold, she was a wunderkind.4
But, for all her academic and literarygifts,her health was
mediocre(sheapparentlysuffered froman unpleasantarrayof
chronicailments)and, more significantly, her psychological
conditionwas deeplytroubledand sometimesdespondent.At
nineteen,in themidstofawardwinningand honors,"she ran
home to Wellesley,Mass.,crawledunderthe frontporch,hid
behind a stackof kindling,and swallowed50 sleepingpills.
Three dayslatershewas found,alive but in ghastlycondition.
'They had tocall and call,'shewrotelater,'and picktheworms
offme like stickypearls."'5 For the young Sylvia Plath, a
burdened,suicidal,possiblytoo giftedwoman-child,writing
wasa wayto oblivion,a wayofanesthetizing herselfbymaking
herexperiencesvicarious.
Her poetry,aimed at oblivionand anesthesia,insteadeven-
tuallybecamewhatRichardHoward calls "the confrontation
between... thelithicimpulse-thedesire,theneed to reduce
thedemandsoflifeto theunquestioningacceptanceofa stone
... and the impulse to live on, accommodating the rewards as
well as thewrecksofexistence.. ."6 The attemptat becoming
4 Ames, 162-164.
5 "The Blood Jet Is Poetry,"Time, June io, 1966, 118-119.
6
"Sylvia Plath: 'And I Have No Face, I Have Wanted to EffaceMyself...'"
in Newman, 79.

whollysomething otherinevitably became,throughthe es-

senceofherartitself, a processofself-discovery,a processof
becomingwhollyherself. At leastpartof theself-discovery
through poetrywas for SylviaPlaththegradualrealization of
theunconscious intrusionsandmanifestations in thecomposi-
tionshewantedto be so terribly conscious.Even in thefor-
midably plottedpoems of The Colossus shedredges up Electra
complex, deathwish, a of
menagerie irrationally terrifying
animals-sow, goats,moles,snakes-andtheuniversally awful,
all-absorbing,morbidcolor,black.Withoutherwillingit,her
composition followedthepattern whichArthurKoestlerhas
describedas the habitof poeticartistry: "The creationof
poetryis a processofrepeated'originaladaptations' achieved
through continuousregressionsto earlier
mental levels.While
it lasts,thepoetlivesin a stateofregenerative equilibrium.
Hence the frequentoccurrenceof infantileand schizoidfea-
turesin themake-upofpoets."' In theeffort to transcendher-
selfby committing herselfwithintensitybut withpsychicde-
tachmentto art,Plathironicallyfoundherselfdescendinginto
her own maelstrom.
It is no mereaccidentthatthisdescentintoherselfcoincided
with the alterationof her personallife. Formerlya retiring
conformist and probablya prude (like EstherGreenwoodin
herautobiographicalnovel The Bell Jar),Plath surprisedher
friendsby marryingTed Hughes in June of 1956,not long
aftershehad methim.Justhavingrenewedher Fulbrightfel-
lowship,she defiedthe conventionsof NewnhamCollege. A
Cambridgeacquaintancenotesthat,threatenedwithpossible
expulsion,"She thoughttheattitudeofthecollegeto hermar-
riage was hystericaland absurd,as thoughthe factof being
marriedhad made heran initiateintosomethingtoo darkand
dangerousfortheothersto be near."8Althoughtheimpulsive-
nessof themarriageis interesting,moreimportantis the fact
thathermarriagetoanotherpoet,particularly one ofHughes's
7 Insightand Outlook(Lincoln,Nebraska,1949),343.
8 WendyCampbell,
"Remembering Sylvia,"in Newman,183.

kind and caliber,forcibly joined herlifeto herwork.The re-
sults did not tell immediately,of course,but Sylvia Plath's
marriageto Ted Hughes appears to have been the crucial
point at whichthe privacyof her emotionallife began to be
pushedpubliclyintoherpoetry.
One mightthinkthat matrimonywould have settledthe
franticunitive urge which is the stimulusfor Plath's art.
Strangelyenough,her need to lose and subsumeherself,her
need to break throughthe barriersbetween things,grew.
CharlesNewmansays,"For SylviaPlath,thatsenseof 'Other-
ness'-the larger,wearybreathwhichaccompaniedher from
the veryfirst-takesvaryingformand voice as she matures.
Her entirebody of work can be seen as dialogue with an
'Other,'but it is not a dialecticin anyacademicsense,forher
voiceand herinterlocutor metamorphize as thecontextofher
is
privatequarrel enlarged."9 The wedding to Ted Hughes
seems to have reassuredher that a union, the oneness she
glimpsedas metaphorsflashedto her awarenessand the self-
transcendenceshe experiencedtemporarily in the processof
creation, could indeed be achieved. Plath dreamed a union as
all-encompassing as Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
And, fora while at least,she tookher own marriageas a sign
thatthevisioncould be realized.
The Hughes-Plathunion certainlyinvolved both poets
more intensivelythan ever in theirpoetry.They followeda
regimenof early-morning writing,and, as a consequenceof
theircreativeflurry, decided to removeto Americato study,
teach,and write.Then, dissatisfied with the demandsof col-
lege teaching,theycommittedthemselves fora while to poetry
alone. Lois Ameswrites,quotinga partofa letterfromSylvia:
In 1958-59, theHugheseslivedin a smallcrampedapartment on
BeaconHill 'on a shoestring fora yearin Bostonwritingto see
whatwecoulddo.' Theirsavings weresupplemented byoccasional
incomefromreadingsand smalljobs.SylviabegantovisitRobert
Lowell'spoetryclassesat BostonUniversity whereshemetGeorge
a "Candor Is the Only Wile: The Art of Sylvia Plath," in Newman, 24-25-

THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY
332
Starbuckand AnneSexton.SherenewedacquaintancewithPeter
Davison.Sometimes
sheaccompaniedHugheson visitsto Stanley
Kunitzwheresheremained silentwhilethementalked.x0
generally
Then, as Hughes graduallygained attentionand acclaim for
The Hawk in theRain (1956) and as Plath appearedwithin-
creasingfrequencyin Poetry,Nation,Atlantic,Spectator,and
the TimesLiterarySupplement,theywereinvitedto resideat
Yaddo for two months in the autumn of
1959.
I havesuggestedalreadythatPlath'sdemandforsomename-
less transcendent union, some permanentmysticalstate,ul-
timatelydirectedher inwardto an entranceinto the cloisters
of her individualand human being. Ted Hughes comments
on therigorouspersistence ofherjourneyinwardin his depic-
tion of her work at Yaddo: "At this time she was concen-
tratedlytryingto breakdown thetyranny, thefixedfocusand
public persona which descriptiveor discoursive
poemstakeas
a norm.We devisedexercisesofmeditationand invocation.""
From theseZen-likeexercisesemanatedsuch poemsas "Blue
Moles," "Flute Notesfroma ReedyPond," and "Mushrooms,"
thesympathetic identifications
withsimplevegetableand ani-
mal lifewhichare surprisingly out of keepingwiththe mode
of the restof The Colossus.With and throughTed Hughes
(whoseinclinationto be a celebrantwitch-doctoris givenaway
byhisprogression fromThe Hawk in theRain, Lupercal,and
Wodwoto Crow),SylviaPlathwasfindingthatone mustlearn
theid orrecognizehisown Caliban beforehe can catchsightof
Ariel.
The id or Caliban is the onlyname we can reasonablygive
to thecollectivetroublethatSylviaPlathneededto exposeand
to exorcisefromthestartofherwriting.Late in 1959whenshe
was finishingThe Colossus,expectinga child,and preparing
to moveback to England,she finallycame faceto face (or gut
to gut) withthe dark demonsshe had long struggledto keep
down.The unleashingof thosedemonsand theconjuringup
10oAmes, 167-168.
11 Hughes, in Newman, 191.

of her own animal being by those "exercises of meditation and
invocation" was an apocalypse for Plath. Hughes tells of how
the revelations, tryingto utter themselvesfor years,began to
speak and transfixher, how they became an artistic,intellec-
tual, and emotional happening:
She was reading Paul Radin's collection of African folktales
withgreatexcitement.In these,she found the underworldof her
worst nightmaresthrowingup intenselybeautiful adventures,
wherethemostunsuspectedvoicesthrivedunder thepressuresof a
realitythatmade mostacceptedfictionseemartificialand spurious.
At thesame timeshe was reading-closelyand sympathetically for
the firsttime-Roethke'spoems. The resultwas a seriesof pieces,
each a monologueof somecharacterin an underground,primitive
drama.12
Of "Stones," the last of thisseries,Hughes comments,"It is full

of specificdetails of her experience in a mental hospital, and is
clearly enough the firsteruption of the voice that produced
Ariel. It is the poem where the self,shatteredin 1953, suddenly
findsitselfwhole."
The passionate urge to "put togetherentirely" the bits and
pieces of her life and her work to formone being began to look
possible as Plath went whirling into the maelstrom of the un-
conscious, thumping savage rhythms (as in "Mushrooms,"
"Elm," "Daddy") while she went, into "The Abyss" a mad
Roethke has described:
Is the stairhere?
Where'sthestair?
"The stair'srightthere,
But it goes nowhere."
And theabyss?theabyss?
"The abyssyou can't miss:
It's rightwhereyou are-
A step down thestair."
Plath has fairwarning that the descent may have the shattering
12
Hughes, in Newman, 192.

effectof Marcel Duchamp's "Nude Descendinga Staircase,"
for Roethke goes on to tell of his experience in "The Abyss":
Be withme,Whitman,makerofcatalogues:
For theworldinvadesme again,
And once more the tonguesbegin babbling.
And the terriblehungerforobjectsquails me:
The sill trembles.
And thereon theblind
A furredcaterpillarcrawlsdown a string.
My symboll
For I have movedcloserto death,lived withdeath;
Like a nursehe sat withme forweeks,a slysurlyattendant,
Watchingmyhands,wary.
Who senthim away?
I'm no longera birddippinga beak intoripplingwater
But a mole windingthroughearth,
A night-fishingotter.
Plath took the risk of this animal-studded descent for the sake
of itsresult,as Roethke promises it, in art: "A terribleviolence
of creation, / A flashinto the burning heart of the abominable
.." But she also assumed the greaterrisk of going too far, of
not being able to come back up to Roethke's return-rejoicing:
I am mostimmoderatelymarried:
The Lord God has takenmyheavinessaway;
I have merged,like thebird,withthebrightair,
And mythoughtfliesto theplace by thebo-tree.
Being,not doing,is myfirstjoy.13
Encouraged by her reading of folktales and Roethke's re-
lentless autobiographical poems (particularly the greenhouse
and bad papa series,The Lost Son and OtherPoems), Plath
took the first"step down the stair," knowing that as she ex-
ploredherown dreadand rageshe mightnot be able to make
Roethke's triumphalcomeback. The timelyappearance of
Robert Lowell's Life Studies in 1959 and Anne Sexton's To
13 Theodore Roethke, Collected Poems (Garden City,1966),219-222.

BedlamandPartWayBackin 1960andtheconsequent devel-
opment of theso-called
"confessional"movement in poetry
sanctioned the perilousjourneySylviaPlath
and sanctified
wantedherarttomake.Sheexplainedhersenseoftheother-
worldlyonenesssuchpoemsaccomplished ani-
bytheirfierce,
mal integrityin response to a query fromLondon Magazine:
"The poets I delight in are possessed by their poems as by the
rhythmsof theirown breathing.Their finestpoems seem born
all-of-a-piece,not put together by hand: certain poems in
Robert Lowell's Life Studies, for instance; Theodore
Roethke's greenhouse poems; some of Elizabeth Bishop and a
verygreat deal of Stevie Smith ('Art is wild as a cat and quite
separate fromcivilization')."'4
Reiterating that she found her own peculiar medium, her
own specificexpression "all-of-a-piece"forher demons in con-
fessional poetry, she told Peter Orr in an interview late in
1962:
Robert Lowell's poems about his experiencein a mental hospital

... interestedme verymuch. These peculiar, private and taboo
subjects,I feel,have been explored in recentAmericanpoetry.I
thinkparticularlythe poetessAnne Sexton,who writesabout her
experiencesas a mother,as a motherwho has had a nervousbreak-
down, is an extremelyemotional and feelingyoung woman and
herpoems are wonderfully craftsman-likepoemsand yettheyhave
a kindofemotionaland psychologicaldepthwhichI thinkis some-
thingperhapsquite new,quite exciting.15
The dark, sinistersecretsof Sylvia Plath, so tranquilly kept in
The Colossus, broke maniacally free when Robert Lowell,
Anne Sexton, and company arrived like intense,determinedly
scowling doctor, matron, and attendants bent on experiment-
ally releasing the patient fromthe asylum.
Wallace Stevens, in his essay, "The Noble Rider and the
Sound of Words," insisted in 1942:
14 "Context," London Magazine, NS, 1, p. 46 (Feb. 1962).
15 The Poet Speaks (New York, 1966), 168.

Wehavebeena littleinsaneaboutthetruth.Wehavehadan ob-
session.
In itsultimate the
extension, truthaboutwhichwehave
beeninsanewillleadus tolookbeyondthetruthtosomething in
which theimagination
willbethedominant It is
complement. not
onlythattheimaginationadheres but,also,thatreality
toreality,
adheres andthattheinterdependence
totheimagination is essen-
tial.16
Freedtobe autobiographical, encouraged tomakeshock-treat-
mentpoetry, Plathpushedthe"interdependence" ofimagina-
tionandrealitytoitsextreme. Sheattainedat lasta stillpoint,
thelong-sought "Stasisin darkness"withinherself as herlife
andworkmerged, becameinterchangeable and indistinguish-
able. A rideon herhorse,Ariel,comesto embodytheunity
shesearchedfor,theactive,ecstatic oblivion:
Stasisindarkness.
Thenthesubstanceless blue
Pouroftoranddistances.
God'slioness,
Howonewegrow,
Pivotofheelsandknees!...
Gallopingon herhorse,shefeelstheburdensome worldfall
away--"White / Godiva, I unpeel- / Dead hands,dead strin-
And
gencies." the whimpering ofher childhushes,dropsout
ofhearing,losesitspoweroverher,as sheescapes:
AndI
Amthearrow
Thedewthatflies
atonewiththedrive
Suicidal,
Intothered
Eye,thecauldron
ofmorning.
The unitiveurgein SylviaPlath'sartreachesitsghastly
end
in thistitlepoemof hersecondvolume,publishedposthu-
16 The
NecessaryAngel: Essays on Reality and the Imagination (New York,
1951),33.

mously.The center,thestillpoint,is the eternal"red / Eye."
Propelledbythefanaticneed to "put togetherentirely"the
bulky"Colossus"ofmemory, ofcreativity,oftheguilt-ridden,
contemptuous,misanthropic, and suicidal ruins of her own
being, Plath descendedinto her own abyss.What she found
was a murky,stinkingmorass.Learningthatthestillpointof
herown lifewas mankind'smorass,themorassof Caliban or a
fee-fie-fo-fum
giantcannibal,she proceededlike the scrubgirl
in "The Colossus":
Scalinglittleladderswithgluepotsand pailsoflysol
I crawllikean antin mourning
Overtheweedyacresofyourbrow
To mendtheimmense skullplatesand clear
The bald,whitetumuliofyoureyes.
What she soughtat the end was morethantheartist'swishto
breakdown divisionsbetweenimaginationand reality,more
thantheneurotic'sneed to span fantasylifeand actual,habit-
ual life.She wanted,at last,unitywhichcan spiritualize,con-
secrate, and transubstantiate, the most earth-rooted,foul
things.
When Stevensproposed for American poetrya sensible
fusionof imaginationand reality,he foresawa "nobility"of
effect:"It is a violence fromwithinthatprotectsus froma
violencewithout.It is the imaginationpressingback against
the pressureof reality.It seems,in the last analysis,to have
somethingtodo withour self-preservation; and that,no doubt,
is whytheexpressionof it, the sound of itswords,helpsus to
live our lives.""17But forSylviaPlath the achievementof "a
violence fromwithin"was fatal.As she hurtleddown into
"Stasis in darkness,"into the abyssof her own madness,she
flungforward, whirled,and turned"Suicidal,at one withthe
drive/ The red / Eye,thecauldronofmorning."She became
what she ultimatelyknew she had alwayswanted to be, had
alwaysbeen.
17 Stevens,36.

It would seemthatin workingfora kindof poeticnirvana,
a Roethkeancontentment ("Being,notdoing,is myfirstjoy"),
Plath insteadended by performing voodoo. William Barrett,
in "Writersand Madness,"warnsof thedangersofpsychologi-
cally explorativecompositionin whichthe writertransforms
himself(DostoevskybecomingRaskolnikovor Kafkabecom-
ing GregorSamsabecomingtheinsect):"[T]his identification
with the objects of fantasyis ... in the direction of insanity;
and perhapsthisis just whattheancientsknew: thatthe poet
in inspirationventuresas close to thatundrawnborderas he
can, forthe closerhe goes the more vitalityhe bringsback
withhim.The gamewouldseemto be togo as closeas possible
withoutcrossingover."18
The psychognostic plunge of SylviaPlath's last writingre-
sultedin a "crossingover."As perversedaughter,spitefulwife,
resentfulmother,bitch,and martyr,she found herselfun-
bearable.In an excruciating, frenziedattemptat spiritualiza-
tion-and absolution,itwouldappear-she transformed herself
into a scapegoat,took on the role at "the cold dead centre/
Where spiltlives congealand stiffen to history."Mining the
nightmarerecessesof her own unconscious,she strucka vein
of the "collectiveunconscious"and epitomizedits uncontrol
as theArmageddonofWorldWar II. Eviscerated,raw ("I am
redmeat,"sheannouncesin "Death & Co."), she "put together
entirely"herlife,self-knowledge,history,misanthropic vision,
her art,and death. As Germandaughterand Jewessto her
father'sSS man,as "Lady Lazarus,"thevindictivesufferer, she
astonishedherselfwiththe insightthatvictimand persecutor
are one. In her poetryand presumablyin her life,she taught
herselfto hate to protectherselffrompain and torture;the
daughterand wifewho believedherselfto have been treated
brutallyreactedby turninginto a maneater:"If I've killed
one man, I've killed two-," she appallingly admits in
"Daddy." Fromtheperceptionofherown abysmalgrotesque-
ls"Writers and Madness," in Art and Psychoanalysis,William Phillips,
editor (1957; rpt. New York, 1967), 394-

rie, the only redemption, she imagined, was to offerherself
up, to put herself to death in a private pogrom. Thus, she
passes over the brink, the "Edge" of everythingin Ariel:
The woman is perfected.
Her dead
Body wearsthesmileof accomplishment,

The illusion of a Greeknecessity
Flows in the scrollsof her toga,
Her bare
Feet seem to be saying:
We have come so far,it is over.


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The Unitive Urge in the Poetry of Sylvia Plath

Author(s): Pamela A. Smith and Sylvia Plath

This content downloaded from 181.29.46.82 on Tue, 4 Jun 2013 13:22:50 PM

THE UNITIVE URGE IN THE POETRY

"I SHALL never get you put togetherentirely,"fretsthe

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Bythetimeshewasseventeen, shehad sold a storyto Seventeen

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In The Colossus, Sylvia Plath, the restrained acrobat, re-

She would not permit herself to complain to her husband

And she most certainlywould not boast, as she does in "Lady

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This content downloaded from 181.29.46.82 on Tue, 4 Jun 2013 13:22:50 PM

When Ariel was finished,Sylvia Plath trundled her babies

It would seem that her early work served as an escape, a

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This content downloaded from 181.29.46.82 on Tue, 4 Jun 2013 13:22:50 PM

whollysomething otherinevitably became,throughthe es-

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Of "Stones," the last of thisseries,Hughes comments,"It is full

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Robert Lowell's poems about his experiencein a mental hospital

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Body wearsthesmileof accomplishment,

This content downloaded from 181.29.46.82 on Tue, 4 Jun 2013 13:22:50 PM

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