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Authors: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes
Poems: Mad Girls Love Song and Love Song
Date of publication: 1952 and 1956
Place of publication: London

INTRODUCTION

I have decided to work with this two poets because in this work what I have to do is compare poems of two poets (a man and a woman) and study why they are so different, and how this two poets were married. I think that it will be interesting how different two poets that were married were.

TED HUGHES AND SYLVIA PLATH

Ted Hughes was an English poet considered by many one of the best writers of his generation. He married with the American poet Sylvia Plath who suicides and it is believed by many that he contributed to cause Plath’s suicide.

www.wikipedia.com

Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. She was most famous as a poet but she is also known for “the bell jar” (her semi-autobiographical novel) in which she details her clinical depression. Since her suicide she was risen to ironic status and she is considered one of the best poets of her generation.

www.wikipedia.com.

TITLE OF THE POEMS
Before reading this two poems if we study their titles that are “mad girl’s love song” and “love song”, we can observe that this two poems have a similar title and both are going to talk about love. One thing that impacts me is the title of the poem of Sylvia Plath because after knowing about her suicide if you read the titles of her poems that are all very strange it seems that she was a little mad.

THEME OF THE POEMS
-Mad Girl’s Love Song: This poem talks about a girl that loves a boy and when she closes her eyes and doesn’t see him she thinks that he doesn’t exist so she becomes sad, but when she opens her eyes she observes that her love exists and she becomes very happy.

-Love Song: This poem talks about two lovers which feel a very strong love for each other and they are always manifesting their love with kisses and embraces because this is their way of being happy.

COMPARISON OF THE AUTHORS AND THEIR POEMS
Having analysed the life of this two poets and one poet of each author in my opinion:

-Ted Hughes was a person that entrusts a lot in his self because in his poem (Love Song) he only sees the beautiful side of love however I think that Sylvia Plath was a person that didn’t entrust a lot in herself because in her poem (Mad Girl’s Love Song) she only sees the negative way of love.

-Ted Hughes was a person that enjoyed a lot living because he had a very happy life, however Sylvia Plath didn’t enjoy a lot living because she wasn’t very happy and she suicides at the age of 30 years. In my opinion the sad life of Sylvia Plath and her traumatic suicide were produced because she loved her husband a lot and he was a very unfaithful person.

PERSONAL RESPONSE
In my opinion men see love in a different way than women because I think that in a love relationship, men try to enjoy the time that they are with the woman that they love, without thinking what is going to happen in the future however women are always thinking in what is going to happen in the future, and they don’t enjoy the time that they are with the man that they love. Moreover I think that when a love relationship finishes women use to suffer more than men, because when it happens men use to look for another women and forget it, but women use to cry for months until they forget their love.

SOURCES
MLA:
-Plath, Sylvia, collected poems reissue, Mad Girl’s Love Song, London, 1952

-Hughes, Ted, Hawk in the rain, Love Song, London, 1956

Fuente

Other sources: www.wikipedia .com, www.google.es

Mad Girl's Love Song

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

(http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poet=6642&poem=33188)

LOVE SONG

He loved her and she loved him
His kisses sucked out her whole past and future or tried to
He had no other appetite
She bit him she gnawed him she sucked
She wanted him complete inside her
Safe and Sure forever and ever
Their little cries fluttered into the curtains

Her eyes wanted nothing to get away
Her looks nailed down his hands his wrists his elbows
He gripped her hard so that life
Should not drag her from that moment
He wanted all future to cease
He wanted to topple with his arms round her
Or everlasting or whatever there was
Her embrace was an immense press
To print him into her bones
His smiles were the garrets of a fairy place
Where the real world would never come
Her smiles were spider bites
So he would lie still till she felt hungry
His word were occupying armies
Her laughs were an assasin's attempts
His looks were bullets daggers of revenge
Her glances were ghosts in the corner with horrible secrets
His whispers were whips and jackboots
Her kisses were lawyers steadily writing
His caresses were the last hooks of a castaway
Her love-tricks were the grinding of locks
And their deep cries crawled over the floors
Like an animal dragging a great trap
His promises were the surgeon's gag
Her promises took the top off his skull
She would get a brooch made of it
His vows pulled out all her sinews
He showed her how to make a love-knot
At the back of her secret drawer
Their screams stuck in the wall
Their heads fell apart into sleep like the two halves
Of a lopped melon, but love is hard to stop

In their entwined sleep they exchanged arms and legs
In their dreams their brains took each other hostage

In the morning they wore each other's face