sylvia plath (1932-1963) sylvia plath (1932-1963) engl 2030—summer 2013 | lavery
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Sylvia Plath(1932-1963)
ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
Sylvia Plath ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
Sylvia Plath ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
Ted Hughes (1930-1998)
At the house where Sylvia Plath committed suicide.
ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
Sylvia Plath ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
The Bell Jar (Larry Peerce, 1979)
1963
Sylvia Plath ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
Sylvia (Christine Jeffs, 2003)
Sylvia Plath ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
In the film, Sylvia Plath is, inexplicably, married to Bond, James Bond.
Ted Hughes
Sylvia PlathENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
Sylvia PlathENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
Daddy You do not do, you do not doAny more, black shoeIn which I have lived like a footFor thirty years, poor and white,Barely daring to breathe or Achoo. Daddy, I have had to kill you.You died before I had time--Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,Ghastly statue with one gray toeBig as a Frisco seal And a head in the freakish AtlanticWhere it pours bean green over blueIn the waters off beautiful Nauset.I used to pray to recover you.Ach, du.
Sylvia Plath ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
Daddy (2) In the German tongue, in the Polish townScraped flat by the rollerOf wars, wars, wars.But the name of the town is common.My Polack friend Says there are a dozen or two.So I never could tell where youPut your foot, your root,I never could talk to you.The tongue stuck in my jaw. It stuck in a barb wire snare.Ich, ich, ich, ich,I could hardly speak.I thought every German was you.And the language obscene
Sylvia PlathENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
Daddy (3)
An engine, an engineChuffing me off like a Jew.A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.I began to talk like a Jew.I think I may well be a Jew. The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of ViennaAre not very pure or true.With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luckAnd my Taroc pack and my Taroc packI may be a bit of a Jew. I have always been scared of you,With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.And your neat mustacheAnd your Aryan eye, bright blue.Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You--
Sylvia Plath ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
Daddy (4) Not God but a swastikaSo black no sky could squeak through.Every woman adores a Fascist,The boot in the face, the bruteBrute heart of a brute like you. You stand at the blackboard, daddy,In the picture I have of you,A cleft in your chin instead of your footBut no less a devil for that, no not Any less the black man who Bit my pretty red heart in two.I was ten when they buried you.At twenty I tried to dieAnd get back, back, back to you.I thought even the bones would do.
Sylvia Plath ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
Daddy (5) But they pulled me out of the sack,And they stuck me together with glue.And then I knew what to do.I made a model of you,A man in black with a Meinkampf look And a love of the rack and the screw.And I said I do, I do.So daddy, I'm finally through.The black telephone's off at the root,The voices just can't worm through. If I've killed one man, I've killed two--The vampire who said he was youAnd drank my blood for a year,Seven years, if you want to know.Daddy, you can lie back now.
Sylvia Plath ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
Daddy (6) There's a stake in your fat black heartAnd the villagers never liked you.They are dancing and stamping on you.They always knew it was you.Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.
12 October 1962
Sylvia Plath ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
Lady Lazarus I have done it again.One year in every tenI manage it-- A sort of walking miracle, my skinBright as a Nazi lampshade,My right foot A paperweight,My face a featureless, fineJew linen. Peel off the napkinO my enemy.Do I terrify?--
Sylvia Plath ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
Lady Lazarus (2) The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?The sour breathWill vanish in a day. Soon, soon the fleshThe grave cave ate will beAt home on me And I a smiling woman.I am only thirty.And like the cat I have nine times to die. This is Number Three.What a trashTo annihilate each decade.
Sylvia Plath ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
Lady Lazarus (3) What a million filaments.The peanut-crunching crowdShoves in to see Them unwrap me hand and foot--The big strip tease.Gentlemen, ladies These are my handsMy knees.I may be skin and bone, Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.The first time it happened I was ten.It was an accident.
Sylvia Plath
Lady Lazarus (4) The second time I meantTo last it out and not come back at all.I rocked shut As a seashell.They had to call and callAnd pick the worms off me like sticky pearls. DyingIs an art, like everything else.I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like hell.I do it so it feels real.I guess you could say I've a call.
ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
Sylvia Plath
Lady Lazarus (5) It's easy enough to do it in a cell.It's easy enough to do it and stay put.It's the theatrical Comeback in broad dayTo the same place, the same face, the same bruteAmused shout: 'A miracle!'That knocks me out.There is a charge For the eyeing of my scars, there is a chargeFor the hearing of my heart--It really goes.
ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
Sylvia Plath
Lady Lazarus (6) And there is a charge, a very large chargeFor a word or a touchOr a bit of blood Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.So, so, Herr Doktor.So, Herr Enemy. I am your opus,I am your valuable,The pure gold baby That melts to a shriek.I turn and burn.Do not think I underestimate your great concern.
ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
Sylvia Plath
Lady Lazarus (7)
Ash, ash--You poke and stir.Flesh, bone, there is nothing there-- A cake of soap, A wedding ring,A gold filling. Herr God, Herr LuciferBewareBeware. Out of the ashI rise with my red hairAnd I eat men like air.
23-29 October 1962
ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
Sylvia Plath
Morning Song Love set you going like a fat gold watch.The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cryTook its place among the elements. Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.In a drafty museum, your nakednessShadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls. I'm no more your motherThan the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slowEffacement at the wind's hand. All night your moth-breathFlickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:A far sea moves in my ear.
ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
Sylvia Plath
Morning Song (2) One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floralIn my Victorian nightgown.Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window square Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you tryYour handful of notes;The clear vowels rise like balloons.
ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
Sylvia Plath
Ariel
Stasis in darkness.Then the substanceless bluePour of tor and distances. God's lioness,How one we grow,Pivot of heels and knees! -- The furrow Splits and passes, sister toThe brown arcOf the neck I cannot catch, Nigger-eyeBerries cast darkHooks ----
ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
Sylvia Plath
Ariel (2) Black sweet blood mouthfuls,Shadows.Something else Hauls me through air ----Thighs, hair;Flakes from my heels. WhiteGodiva, I unpeel ----Dead hands, dead stringencies. And now IFoam to wheat, a glitter of seas.The child's cry
ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
Sylvia Plath
Ariel (3) Melts in the wall.And IAm the arrow, The dew that flies,Suicidal, at one with the driveInto the red Eye, the cauldron of morning.
ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery