"Morning Song" by Sylvia Plath
Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your
footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.
Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.
In a drafty
museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as
walls.
I'm no more your mother
Than the cloud that distills a mirror to
reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind's hand.
All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I
wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.
One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my
Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window
square
Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try
Your handful
of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons
(cf.
<http://www.uv.es/fores/PoesiaUK2005/1Plath,%20Sylvia/morningsong.html>)
• Introduction
This short poem belongs to "Ariel" volume, Sylvia Plath second book,
published in 1965 after her suicide and posthumous to the poem "Ariel".
The version that was published was similar but not identical: some poems
were trimmed to reduce what her husband Ted Hughes considered to be
redundancy, and additional poems composed in her final weeks were added
to the manuscript.
(cf. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_%28Plath%29>)
The poem "Morning song" is the first poem in this book and it is less
famous than others like: "Lady Lazarus," "Daddy," "Fever 103," "Purdah,"
"Poppies in July," "Ariel". Some people argue that the title has three
meaning: the "airy spirit" who in Shakespeare’s The Tempest is a
servant to Prospero and symbolizes Prospero’s control of the upper
elements of the universe, fire and air; on an autobiographical level,
"Ariel", was the name of her favorite horse, on whom she weekly went
riding; a last meaning is a symbolic one, the symbolic name for
Jerusalem, "Ariel" in Hebrew means "lion of God."
(cf.
<http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/plath/ariel.htm>)
• Analysis of the poem
The poem is composed by six tercets , there is not regular rhyme, but
many alliteration and enjambement, which is particular of her style.
The theme is clearly the birth of his son at the beginning of the
poem and the following stages; it is described in a deeply way with
references to natural elements, surrounding the wonderful emotions that
a mother can have. It reflects her feminism, through the importance of
maternity and the joy that a son can give to her.
She presents a series of images in order to represent mental and
emotional process, by a meticulous description of the birth moment and
the after moment; in my view, the natural elements give an abstract
context in order to rise the concreteness of her verses.
It is important to give an overview of the poem analysing the
stanzas; in the first stanza it is described the moment of the birth and
the incoming to nature and life "Took its place among the elements", it
is love that allows the birth, a love that "…set you going like a fat
gold watch", it pushes you in order to generate a new life.
In the second stanza, it is shown in detail the moment of the arrival
of this new life, the moment of the birth, when the baby cries, "Our
voices echo, magnifying your arrival" and the metaphorical place in the
museum, the metaphor of the statue, in order to stress the nakedness of
the baby. Besides, it strikes me that the adjective "blankly" is used to
rise the image of nakedness and the wonder and fear of the birth.
In the third stanza, in my opinion there is a sort of abandonment of
the baby to the strongest forces of nature, "I'm no more your mother",
and she hands in to clouds and wind the task to bring up the baby.
Moreover, I have noticed, the first appearance of the first pronoun "I",
which remains as the main subject, as a result of a subjective
description in the following stanzas.
In the fourth stanza, to my mind the location is in the house, she
described what happens during the night, "your moth-breath" is a
particular description of how could be relaxing and pleasant the baby’s
breath, she listens this breath like "A far sea moves in my ear"; in my
view, natural language is used to give an almost divine atmosphere to
this new creature, the comparison with nature expresses the beauty of
her son.
In the fifth stanza, however, there is a shift; the poet, here,
describes the different actions, when the "Moth-breath" changes in
weeping. It seems to me that the tone is a little bit angry, she is
waken up by the crying of the baby and it costs physical efforts, also
the surrounding nature is striken; "The window square //Whitens and
swallows its dull stars". The final stanza follows the previous stanza,
and describes the weeping of the baby, how his notes rise to the
sky.
On the whole, the poem is very modern, for its contents and the
language, the theme is particular of Sylvia Plath, it concerns her role
as a mother, it stresses the power of a baby’s weeping, the power of
birth and in my opinion it is an ecstasy of physical and emotional
feelings, it is a heartbreaking poem, I think that she could give an
example to the other women, clarifying the power of procreation, how
much it is essential for nature life, thus the numerous reference to
natural elements, which helps the arrival of this new life and its
growing up.
• Conclusion
Finally, although this poem is the least famous, it has striken me
because the theme is very uncommon in the previous poet that I have
studied, being a feminine theme; moreover, the association to elements
belonging to the natural world used to make comparisons, expresses her
positive concept concerning natural forces and how much it is essential
its influence in our life. Besides the free-form rhyme and the
subjectivity are typical modernist technique and the language is not too
complicated or sophisticated, but it conveys her emotions in an
excellent way.
Bibliography
- "Morning song" by Sylvia Plath
<http://www.uv.es/fores/PoesiaUK2005/1Plath,%20Sylvia/morningsong.html>
Home:
www.uv.es 18/05/2007
-Ariel
introduction
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_%28Plath%29>
Home:
www.en.wikipedia.org 18/05/2007
- "Ariel" by Sylvia Plath
<http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/plath/ariel.htm>
Home:
www.english.uiuc.edu
18/05/2007