Not easy to state the change you made.
If I'm alive now, then I was dead,
Though, like a stone, unbothered by it,
Staying put according to habit.
You didn't just tow me an inch, no-
Nor leave me to set my small bald eye
Skyward again, without hope, of course,
Of apprehending blueness, or stars.
That wasn't it. I slept, say: a snake
Masked among black rocks as a black rock
In the white hiatus of winter-
Like my neighbors, taking no pleasure
In the million perfectly-chisled
Cheeks alighting each moment to melt
My cheeks of basalt. They turned to tears,
Angels weeping over dull natures,
But didn't convince me. Those tears froze.
Each dead head had a visor of ice.
And I slept on like a bent finger.
The first thing I was was sheer air
And the locked drops rising in dew
Limpid as spirits. Many stones lay
Dense and expressionless round about.
I didn't know what to make of it.
I shone, mice-scaled, and unfolded
To pour myself out like a fluid
Among bird feet and the stems of plants.
I wasn't fooled. I knew you at once.
Tree and stone glittered, without shadows.
My finger-length grew lucent as glass.
I started to bud like a March twig:
An arm and a leg, and arm, a leg.
From stone to cloud, so I ascended.
Now I resemble a sort of god
Floating through the air in my soul-shift
Pure as a pane of ice. It's a gift.
Poem: Love Letter
Extracted from: http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poet=6642&poem=29888
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
Off that moment's brink and into nothing
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 palace
Where the real world would never come
Her smiles were spider bites
So he would lie still till she felt hungry
His words were occupying armies
Her laughs were an assassin's attempts
His looks were bullets daggers of revenge
His 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
Her vows put his eyes in formalin
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
Poem:
Lovesong.
Extracted from: http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poet=6616&poem=30213
Today we are going to analyse and compare a poem of Sylvia Plath, name Love
Letter, written over the 1960, and a poem of Ted Hughes, Love Song. The main topic of both poems is the same: love, but Plath
and Hughes talk about love in a different way.
Firstly, we are going to analyse Love Letter. It is named like this because it is the letter of a woman
in love to her lover. It is written in first person, the poem expresses
the feelings and experiences of the speaker (If I’m alive now, the I
was edad, verse 2). The poem is structured in four stanzas. The first
and the fourth stanzas have eight verses, and the second
and the fourth stanzas have ten verses.
In the first stanza the
speakar tells the reader not only how she feels in that moment, but how
she felt before. She feels that before loving him she was dead, and he has
brought her to life. She even did not care how she
was (Though, like a stone, unbothered by it/ Staying put according to
habit, verses 3 and 4), but he has helped to live with happiness (You
didn’t just tow me an inch, verse 5; nor leaver me to set my small
blad eye/ skyward again, withoout hope, verses 6 and 7).
In the second stanza
Plath explains haw she felt, she looked like a dead, between dead people
(a snake/ Masked among black rocks as a black rock, verse 9 and 10).
The angels tried to wake her up, but they could not convince her (Angels
weeping over dull naturees/But didn’t convince me. Those tears froze,
verses 16 and 17).
In the third stanza,
the speaker suddenly wakes up and sees what she was (Many stones lay/Dense
and expressionlessround about, verses 22 and 23). Now she knows the
truth because she has met him.
In the fourth stanza,
Plath expresses the way that she felt after knowing him. She really feels
that she is reborning, he feels like she is growing (My finger length
grew lucent as glass./ I started to bud like a March twig:/An arm and
a leg, and arm, a leg, verses 30, 31 and 32). She feels very good, like a
god (Now I resemble a sort of good, verse 34), all because of his
love.
This poem is, as we have said before, a letter from Sylvia Plath
to her lover, where she tells him what he has done for her. He has saved her. When Plath says that she was dead before knowing
him, she refers to her continuous periods of depression. The angels that she name in the
poem could be her family and friends, who wanted her to heal her depression.
They wanted, but they couldn’t help her. We could state reading this poem
that her lover, Ted Hughes, was the medicine that she needed.
Now we are going to analyse Lovesong. The poem has this
title because the poem it is like a song. The poem is structured in six
stanzas. The first stanza has seven verses; the second, eight verses; the
third twenty-three; the fourth and the fifth, two verses ech one, and the
sixth stanza has only one verse. The poem is written in third person, the
author is telling the reader something the probably he has not experienced.
He narrates the story of two lovers.
In the first stanza,
the speaker describes the physical attraction of the lovers (His kisses
sucked out her whole past and future ar tried to, verse 2; She bit
him she gnawed him she sucked, verse 4). They have a great sexual attraction,
and they need each other, in order to feel safe and sure (She wanted
him complete inside her/ Safe and sure forever and ever, verses 5 and
6).
In the second stanza,
the speaker carries on describing their love, but now he goes deeply in
the need of the lovers for being together(Her looks nailed down his hands
his wrists his elbows, verse 9; He wanted to topple with his arms
round her, verse 13). In this stanza we can observe that their love is
not only physical attraction, but affection.
In the third stanza Hughes
describes, as in all the poem, actions that do not seem as lovely as in
the first two stanzas. The author describes here a sort of war (Her laughs
were an assassin’s attempts/His looks were bullets daggers of revenge,
verse 23 and 24). The violence that we can feel in the text, the violent
action that Hughes describes here could be interpreted as the sexual intercourse
of the lovers, with the screams at he end of the stanza that could be the
climax of the act, the orgasms of the lovers (Their screams stuck in
the wall, verse 39).
In the fourth and fith
stanzas, the attack that the speaker narrates in the third stanza has finished
and the lovers are sleeping. The sexual act has finished and they need to
rest. They have shown everything to each other and now they understand perfectly
each other (Their heads fell apart into sleep like the the two halves,
verse 40; In their dreams their brains took each other hostage, verse
42).
In the final stanza,
the author tells the reader the result of everything he has told, everything
the lovers have experienced: the lovers has become one (In the morning
they wore each other’s face, verse 44). They know each other so perfectly
that they could be the other and don’t notice.
If we have to compare
both poems, we can observe that they are very different. Firstly, the poem
of Sylvia Plath is written in first person, and Hughes wrote his poem in
the third person, since his poem is more objective whereas the poem of Plath
is more subjetive, she is involved in the text, in the text are her feelings
and her experiences. Love Letter is a poem about emotions. Lovesong
is a poem about emotions, too, but Love Letter
is only about the emotions of the mind and soul Plath, and Lovesong
deals with the physical feelings, too, and he expresses the emotions of
both lovers, not as the poem of Plath, which tells the emotions of the reader
and does not tell the emotions of the lover, she just claims her love for
him and that he is her salvation. Hughes does not speak in his poem about
salvation, he expresses what the lovers are feeling in that moment, not in
the past or in the future.
We could say that the
poem of Plath is woman’s poetry, but we will not, because we should take
into account that Plath was a woman who suffered continuous depressions,
and that maybe Hughes was the solution to her problems, so we should consider her personal
life, not her gender. With regards to Lovesong, personally, I say
that this poem could be written by anybody who has loved or wanted somebody.
It reflects a love relationship between two people.
| First Paper |
Next |
Bibliography.
ü
Neuroticpoets.com: http://www.neuroticpoets.com/plath/
06.05.2006.
© 1997-2006 Brenda C. Mondragón
ü
Poemhunter.com:
http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poet=6642&poem=29888
06.05.2006.
http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poet=6616&poem=30213
06.05.2006.
ü
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Hughes
06.05.2006
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Plath
06.05.2006
Wikipedia