http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/02/the-always-and-never-life-of-sylvia-plath/272707/
http://www.psychological-observations.com/key-concepts/ambivalence
I suppose she loved him for always
until he unpeeled his banana for another woman
Then she never loved him at all.
Perhaps fifty shades of beige might have been better
but then again
Some folk will always
prefer the high wire.
Until last year I had read only the most famous of Plath’s poems like “Daddy”.Then I read many more and also many works of criticism and explanation.And then I realised she was one of the most gifted poets of her era. But alas, her maturity as a poet coincided with the breakdown of her marriage.And so her talents were used to express mainly rage and then meaninglessness and death.
Was it only the tragedy of her life situation that brought about her mature voice ? I believe not. And so I grieve that her wonderful works were full of rage and destructiveness…. what would she have written otherwise.I also believe that her motives in marrying Hughe were mixed…. and so were his to her.Marriage is entered into too lightly and without understanding.I almost feel arranged marriages were better sometimes
Now maybe it is wrong of me to say this but I know we all are acquainted with anger, envy,jealous and other painful emotions .But I believe to cultivate them is not moral. And to utilise them in Art is something dangerous and maybe destructive. And without specifying any religion or ethical system I believe acting ethically is more important than art, music,writing and so on…not that there is always a conflict.
I may appear to counsel perfection but I merely grieve for the loss of a genius and what she might have written if she had been given support and help when left alone with two tiny children in a foreign land.
If we have gifts let us use them for good and for the encouragement of our human companions on this planet and not for harm,destruction ,stealing wealth and creating evil
The Death Throes of Romanticism: The Poetry of Sylvia Plath – University of San Francisco (USF). by J C Oates
This is a fascinating essay by the novelist Joyce Carol Oates..so intelligent and thoughtful…not to be missed
http://www.salon.com/2004/11/29/plath_therapist/
I know that psychoanalysts are not meant to tell patients what to do.So I was surprised this one did.. like telling her to get a divorce.Now I discover she had not even undergone her own analysis.
Make sure your therapist is trained if you need one
| There has more been written,probably, about Sylvia Plath than any other poet of the last century.Much of it is various attempts at her biography.The focus was on her actual life and its events.I had only read “Daddy” and “lady Lazarus” but lately I read more from her collected works and I am now impressed with her poetic gift and her hard work developing it.Perhaps she worked too hard.Who can say? So I was ready to read some critical evaluation of her writing.This book is excellent if a little short. I found it quite easy to read even though I have no academic training in literature. There is a summary of her life but the main focus is on each phase of her writing For someone of only 30 when she died she underwent remarkable transitions and growth of her poetic mind.I am also now re ading her prose which I had dismissed. I recommend this wholeheartedly.There is another volume “The Cambridge Companion to Sylvia Plath” Here is a poem I like especially the last verse Nick and the Candlestick By Sylvia Plath I am a miner. The light burns blue.
Waxy stalactites
Drip and thicken, tears
The earthen womb
Exudes from its dead boredom.
Black bat airs
Wrap me, raggy shawls,
Cold homicides.
They weld to me like plums.
Old cave of calcium
Icicles, old echoer.
Even the newts are white,
Those holy Joes.
And the fish, the fish—
Christ! they are panes of ice,
A vice of knives,
A piranha
Religion, drinking
Its first communion out of my live toes.
The candle
Gulps and recovers its small altitude,
Its yellows hearten.
O love, how did you get here?
O embryo
Remembering, even in sleep,
Your crossed position.
The blood blooms clean
In you, ruby.
The pain
You wake to is not yours.
Love, love,
I have hung our cave with roses,
With soft rugs—
The last of Victoriana.
Let the stars
Plummet to their dark address,
Let the mercuric
Atoms that cripple drip
Into the terrible well,
You are the one
Solid the spaces lean on, envious.
You are the baby in the barn.
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didn’t even love,in a place with no telephone,
Was it worth thirty plus years of harrowing
Grief and guilt.Did you need the excitement?
Writing,too demanding.Real love was certainly
A demand but one you’d think would be
A useful mine for poetry.Sylvia’s love
Too much?And what you thought would be
A few seemingly trivial acts,could have
such consequences.
But isn’t that always so ?
I don’t think Pontius Pilate knew
His name would go down in history
As the Judge of God himself,
Washing his hands like an obsessive,thinking
A ritual would heal him of his guilt
How my heart sings 