Discussion Thread For Three Poems by Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson and Robert Burns - Essay Example

Discussion Thread For Three Poems ‘Metaphors’ by Sylvia Plath Before trying to analyze the poem ‘Metaphors’, a little knowledge of its poet Sylvia Plath’s background will help placing it in its proper perspective. Plath, an American poet, novelist and short story writer was known best for her poetry. Born on October 27, 1932, she committed suicide on February 11, 1963, having first attempted it on August 24, 1953. As explained by Kibler, she was a diagnosed case of Bipolar Disorder- mania and depression- and had been incarcerated in a mental institution for treatment (259-64). Plath has been credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry initiated by Robert Lowell and W. D. Snodgrass, as well as her contemporary Anne Sexton, who, in an unusual coincidence, was also a case of Bipolar Disorder. On that hypothesis, I perceive a sense of depression in her works, which she then disguises by swinging to the positive, a finite bipolar trend (Bidart, ). She wrote Metaphors in 1959, three years after her marriage in 1956. Whittington-Egan is emphatic when he says that wedlock was not a happy experience for her, exacerbated by her husband’s extramarital affair (Feb.2005). At the time of writing this poem, she was pregnant with her first child, a girl and would have gone through the numerous physical and mental rigors mothers-to-be have to unfortunately undergo. I believe her sense of desertion comes across stronger than her joy of motherhood, expressed in this poem as ‘I'm a means, a stage’, the resignation quite clear. What is fascinating about this poem is that it is one extended metaphor. It relates in its totality to her pregnancy and the period that gestation takes. There are many unusual aspects to the poem. It starts with the title, a nine-letter word. In my opinion, the first line, ‘I’m a riddle in nine syllables’, sets the context of the poem, the key word being ‘riddle’, with its connotation of the co-existence of the ambiguous within one ambit, as also the antithetic or the ambivalent. Every individual who has reviewed the poem states that it is an obvious reference to her difficult nine months of child carrying, setting the scene for a conundrum of sorts. Apart from its proclivity to the allegory, it is nine sentences long and every single sentence has nine syllables. As Steinberg says in his recent book on her, ” Each sentence has its own metaphor(s), some simple like ‘a cow in calf,’ some mixed like ‘O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!” (Jan.2008). Moreover, the confessional trend is also clearly evident. The tone is mixed, between ecstasy as expressed in the earlier metaphor and dejection, ‘Boarded the train there's no getting off’. It is a clear indication of the state of mind of the poet-Bipolar. Her disambiguity at her unfashionable bloated shape is reflected in an ‘elephant’, diluted next sentence as ‘a melon on two tendrils’, the womb above the ovaries and Fallopian tubes. Here is where I disagree with Wood, who likens the metaphor to her reflection in a mirror, her belly the melon and her spindly legs the two tendrils (Aug.2006), because it is the next sentence- O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!- that is the central point of her rarely quoted happiness at becoming a mother. The red fruit is the embryo, which would first appear in this world as a pink baby. ‘Ivory and fine timbers’ symbolize both the color and value of her first-born. (Austen). ‘This loaf’s big with its yeasty rising’, hardly requires explanation as it refers to her bulging as her pregnancy progresses, a simple statement of fact and among the few uncomplicated metaphors. I see a distant comparison between yeast and an impregnated ovum, although I have yet not come across this link anywhere. Her high starts to droop after the comparison to newly minted coins, as she dissociates herself from the joyous pain of delivery calling herself a point of transit, onboard a vehicle she has no control over, a line that exemplifies the riddle, which allows a fair degree of poetic license. Riddles are simple puzzles in the normal context. But, in the poetic sense, I would like to quote Hamnett, who avers that it is “one form of ambiguous or ambivalent utterances, concepts and actions, which can allow contrasting classifications and conceptual frameworks to co-exist at the same time.” Classic examples are the works of Lewis Carroll in the Alice series and Enigma in Dante’s Eden (Purgatorio 27-33). ‘It Dropped So Low--In My Regard’ by Emily Dickinson Emily Dickinson (1830-86) is regarded among the most innovative precursors of modernist poetry and prose, but not without her detractors, mainly males who set their own rules for recognizing poetry. A recluse, she worked without encouragement or any real interest from her family and her peers. Her poems were unpublished in her lifetime. (). Her niece, also a Dickinson, summarizes her style by stating that, “She cut across the customary chronological linearity of poetry. Repetition, surprise, alliteration, odd rhyme and rhythm, dislocation, deconstruction, these were her norms.“(1972) There are various opinions on the meaning of her poem. In one case, It has been taken to mean that she had really great feelings about something in her life, perhaps a love interest. But she lost those feelings for that thing when she found out more about it. I quite like Manderstwin’s simple example that It is like a boy giving a girl a ring when she agrees to his proposal of marriage. The ring is outwardly really beautiful and she is very excited about it; then she finds out it is not real and her feelings about the ring and the boy change. She now thinks very poorly of them both. This fact is reflected in this poem by using an analogy of real silver dishes and silver plated dishes. Glind takes It to another level, explaining that It was a worthy group established for some noble cause that was enthusiastically joined by Emily, but which nose-dived to its nadir in her esteem. She distances herself by saying that chance had brought about her involvement and she had embraced it totally thinking its ideals a match for her own which she metaphorically describes as pure silver. She eventually realized that its outward gloss hid a moral low, just as silver-plated tableware hid the worthless metal at its core. She dispassionately dismissed her involvement as an event that just happened. History supports this view, as Ford records that she, along with 46 others, joined a religious movement (47-48). As Max Beerbohm, the well known contemporary of George Bernard Shaw, said, “Realism is the cause of disillusionment.” She soon saw through the outward veneer of the group that she had helped create and found no justification in staying a member any longer (Bloom). ‘Stones At bottom of my Mind’ is a typical example of her deconstructed style of writing. In this case, the metaphysical or theological entity, when realized, has been the root cause of her disillusionment and needs to be removed from her mental makeup. She uses the transferred epithet very cleverly and shows her renouncement by describing its destruction on rocks which have been supposedly emplaced in her head for this very cause. ‘Oh, My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose’ by Robert Burns A Red, Red Rose is a 1794 song in Scots by Robert Burns (1759-96) based on traditional sources. The song is also referred to by the title Oh, My Love is Like A Red, Red Rose or Red, Red Rose and is often published as a poem. Pietro Urbani, the Scots singer, claims that Burns gave him the song with a special request to publish it in his Scots Songs. But, according to data available at , Burn’s claim is disputed by his sister, a Mrs Beggs, who said that the two main inspirations for this song were Burns' mother and an earlier song by a Lieutenant Hinches. The first half of the poem is pure Burns and is based on an old Scots song his mother sang. The remainder is a revision and extension by Burns of Hinches' farewell to his sweetheart. In my view, the first stanza is pure simile, a comparison of his love with firstly a freshly blossomed red rose and then with a sweetly sung melody. He commences a transition to the hyperbole through a metaphor in the second stanza, where he describes the depth of his love with a reference to his beloved’s fairness. The transition is neatly completed as he eases into poetic exaggeration, declaring unwavering affection till the seas go dry, something that will never happen in their lifespan, leave alone the future. He continues in the same vein, bringing in other examples of timelessness, i.e. till the rocks melt with the sun and while the sands of life still run. There is an interesting issue here, as Longfellow also says, albeit over fifty years later, that the sands of time are eternal. Moreover, there is a discontinuity in the poem here, as he suddenly switches to a farewell without leading up to it. Burns concludes with his last hyperbole, bidding goodbye to his love while reiterating that he is more than capable of traveling ten thousand miles to return to her. The vast distance and farewell indicates that he is, in all probability, going to India, thereby substantiating the Lieutenant Hinches theory. The theme song is a reasonable rendition of the poem and reinforces my statement of the discontinuity in the original writing. Even the singer, Davey Steele, faces this problem, though he gets over it easily enough by repeating the musical score. The poet is sincere in his expression and the singer is equally sincere, no more, no less. References Cited Austen Jane, Analysis and comments on Metaphors by Sylvia Plath, June 18th, 2007 Bidart, Frank, Editor. "On Confessional Poetry." Robert Lowell Collected Poems. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2003. Bloom, Harold. Emily Dickinson. Chelsea House Publishers,1999. Dickinson, Martha Bianchi, The Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson, Biography & Autobiography: 1972, 386 pages. Ford.D as quoted in Hammnett Ian. Ambiguity, Classification And Change: The Function Of Riddles University of Edinburgh. Kibler, James E. Jr, ed. (1980), Dictionary of Literary Biography, 2nd, vol. 6 - American Novelists Since World War II, A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book, University of Georgia. The Gale Group, pp. 259-64 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. A Psalm of Life. The Complete Poetical Works of Longfellow. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1893. Manderstwin, extracted from Yahoo Answers, Steinberg, Peter K. Great Writers Series Sylvia Plath. Chelsea House, 2004. Urbani, Pietro. Scots Songs, Burns Encyclopedia Whittington-Egan, Richard. Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath—a marriage examined. Contemporary Review (February 2005). Retrieved on 2007-06-25. Wood, Kerry. Reflections on "Mirror" and "Metaphors" by Sylvia Plath Read More