Sylvia Plath Poetry Response example essay topic

Sylvia Plath (Sample paper) Write a personal response to the poetry of Sylvia Plath. Support the points you make by reference to the poetry of Plath you have studied. Sylvia Plath was a bright, intelligent and determined young woman with a burning desire to write. She wrote incessantly during her short life - poetry, short stories, essays, articles. She was an outstanding student but often experienced self-doubt and depression and her work clearly reflects a wide range of emotions. She always sought perfection, often writing, and rewriting, her poetry until she was completely satisfied.

She almost created a language for herself and this, combined with her startling images, make her poems truly unique. Her last poems are generally seen as her outstanding achievement. Here she appears to have truly found her voice expressing herself in a distinctive, unique style. She was even aware of this while writing them as she wrote to her mother that "I am a writer... I am a genius of a writer".

Plath was relentless in her work and much of her poetry reveals her struggle against herself and the world. Her poetry therefore touches on many themes and issues which clearly conveys her flexibility as an artist. During the early part of her marriage, she wrote the philosophical "Black Rook in Rainy Weather" One theme associated with the poem is the poet's identity as a writer. The poem depicts her quest for poetic inspiration and vision. She is surrounded by a dull landscape". ". and longs for something miraculous to transform the ordinary into the wonderful.

She fears emotional exhaustion". ". and is resigned to the fact that inspiration involves a long wait. She frequently returned to the idea of double identity in her poetry - her interest in what appears on the surface and what is hidden is reflected in "Mirror". Here something frightening and almost sinister is hidden deep within herself". ". , something that she would prefer to avoid but cannot escape. This preoccupation is also at the heart of "The Arrival of the Bee Box" The box appears like a simple container". ". , it appears to hide no mysteries but it also conceals something fascinating, sinister and threatening". ". .

Plath also had an abiding interest in the world around her. Her interest in nature is reflected in many of her poems. One is acutely aware of her ability to vividly describe the scene before her. "Finisterre", based on a memory of a holiday in France, allows us to visualise the rugged cliffs". ". listen to the relentless pounding of the sea". ". , picture the delicacy of the flowers and the bleakness of the rocks below. She even allows us to feel the suffocating effect of the mists".

". . "Black Rook in Rainy Weather" represents ordinary nature as it orders itself". ". . The poem is strong in visual details, vividly portraying a scene on a wet, miserable, wintry day.

"The Pheasant" stands for innocent and beautiful nature". ". . Her brilliant style creates graphic images - the pheasant itself, the hill and the elm in the background and even in an earlier scene one can visualise the "crosshatch" footprints of various birds in the snow. "The Pheasant" also clearly conveys Plath's stance against the destruction of nature.

"Poppies in July" captures the vivid colour". ". and the flickering movement of the poppies petals in the wind. Nature was also used as a poetic device to reflect her own emotional and mental state. Her descriptions of landscapes are striking and the scene at times conveys her mood upon composing the poem. "Black Rook in Rainy Weather" may be strong in visual detail, but the environment does not matter. What is apparent and significant is the poet's mood. Plath was beginning to have doubts about her husbands love for her and she needed to be constantly reassured.

In "Finisterre" there is a series of beautiful and dramatic images, many of these are personified". ". However, the anger in the poem is prevalent. This may have been the result of personal jealousies, differences between American and British views of gender roles, rural isolation and a return of her depression which caused problems in her marriage. Plath's poems are graphically morbid, technically brilliant and convey tremendous emotional power. Her language has been commended for its control, power and incisiveness.

"BRI RW" is an obvious example of her earlier control of language and form. The language is clear and precise and creates a story in pictures. "Pheasant" is an example her control of descriptive language, the words are simple and the descriptions are vivid. Many of her expressions echo everyday speech, giving the poems a light and easy rhythm, consider the opening of "Pheasant" ".

". . There are many contrasting tones used with Plath's poetry. The tone reveals her inner state and quite a lot about her personality.

She could be melancholic and elated in the same poem. In "Finisterre" there is an obvious contrast between the morbid". ". and the delicate". ". . Plath's poems are dark and moody in their imagery, clever and emotional.

Her poems contain starkly contrasting images such as the dark head and later the red and green body of the pheasant in "Pheasant" She conveyed her fantastic imagination with her surreal imagery "souls rolled in the doom-noise of the sea" (F) In the "AOT BB" Plath brilliantly interlinks madness and death in the manner in which she refers to her bee-keepers outfit "in my moon-suit and funeral veil" Sylvia Plath wrote poems that drew on her own experience of life and explored a range of emotions from happiness to terror and despair. She always looked inwards and rebelled against the conservative role she was expected to play. These inner conflicts are revealed in her poetry. Her writing has a universal appeal and it is presented innovative ly and effectively. She wrote with a confidence that was not typical of women of her era, her work almost predicted the feminist writing that appeared in the decades after her death. Her work is peerless..