LITR 5535 American Romanticism UHCL 2005 student poetry presentation

Sylvia Plath:

Beauty and Tragedy

1932-1963

1950s- Attends Smith College. Relocates to study at Cambridge University, England.

1956- Marries English poet, Ted Hughes, in what proves to be an extremely intense ‘artistic’ bond.

1961- Divorces Ted Hughes, over his infidelity, they have had two children, Plath never recovers.

1965- Posthumous release of the collection of poems Ariel “powerful, angry poems” (N 2777)

Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but blackberries,
Blackberries on either side, though on the right mainly,
A blackberry alley, going down in hooks, and a sea
Somewhere at the end of it, heaving. Blackberries
Big as the ball of my thumb, and dumb as eyes
Ebon in the hedges, fat
With blue-red juices. These they squander on my fingers.
I had not asked for such a blood sisterhood; they must love me.
They accommodate themselves to my milkbottle, flattening their sides.

Overhead go the choughs in black, cacophonous flocks —
Bits of burnt paper wheeling in a blown sky.
Theirs is the only voice, protesting, protesting.
I do not think the sea will appear at all.
The high, green meadows are glowing, as if lit from within.
I come to one bush of berries so ripe it is a bush of flies,
Hanging their bluegreen bellies and their wing panes in a Chinese screen.
The honey-feast of the berries has stunned them; they believe in heaven.
One more hook, and the berries and bushes end.

The only thing to come now is the sea.
From between two hills a sudden wind funnels at me,
Slapping its phantom laundry in my face.
These hills are too green and sweet to have tasted salt.
I follow the sheep path between them. A last hook brings me
To the hills’ northern face, and the face is orange rock
That looks out on nothing, nothing but a great space
Of white and pewter lights, and a din like silversmiths
Beating and beating at an intractable metal.

1. What aspects of Romanticism are present in “Blackberrying”? Gothic vs. Sublime.

2. This poem seems to indicate feelings of betrayal and subsequent alienation. Discuss.

4. Discuss the sensation of man’s mortality juxtaposed with nature’s mortality/immortality.

5. Two major tragic events, her divorce and her father’s death, strongly shaped Plath’s expressions. How is this tragically romantic? Would Plath’s work have been the same without these hardships?

Does "Blackberrying" fill the course description of tragedy: Representation (drama or dialogue), followed by Narrative (Tragedy) and Subject (social implications).