It is controlled, serious verse but her later work shows new strains and pressures at work and becomes a poetry of anguished confession.” Anemona Hartocollis (March 8, 2018). "Sylvia Plath, a Postwar Poet Unafraid to Confront Her Own Despair". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 8, 2018 . Retrieved March 9, 2018. a b c d e "Sylvia Plath". Academy of American Poets. February 4, 2014. Archived from the original on February 4, 2017.

Her achievement raises issues concerning the value of literature and its relation to life. The last poem suggests that words are dubious allies in the struggle to maintain a sense of reality. They are solid and fixed and resonant, abut as circumstances alter, they become emptied of meaning. Grady, Constance (January 22, 2019). "Sylvia Plath wrote this short story in 1952. It's now out in print for the first time". Vox. Archived from the original on November 12, 2020 . Retrieved January 12, 2021. The horse, Ariel, represents the speaker's own psyche and sense of self. The eye in the sky represents a sense of divine or supernatural presence.Ariel was the name of one of Plath’s favorite horses. In the introduction to the restored edition of Ariel, her daughter Frieda explains that this is what her mother had told her. Plath, Sylvia (2000). Karen V. Kukil (ed.). The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath. New York: Anchor. ISBN 0-385-72025-4. The poem is indeed full of sexual imagery. Some examples include: lines 5 and 6 ("How one we grow,/Pivot of heels and knees!"); line 17 ("thighs, hair"); and the imagery of the phallic arrow. All of these lend credence to the claim that "Ariel" is an erotic poem. Plath is clearly the female rider, but she identifies with the horse's masculinity. Further, when she ignores the child's cry, she is refusing to accept the traditionally female role of mother and care-giver. Shakespeare's Ariel is an androgynous figure, and Plath's "Ariel" might also be statement about how a female poet, when possessed by the poetic creative fury, is not a female anymore – the genius transcends gender. The transcendence is not a violent one, and is not aimed at destroying men, however. Instead, it lies entirely outside of gender.

Harriet Rosenstein research files on Sylvia Plath, 1910–2018, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University Libraries Stevenson, Anne (1990) [1989]. Bitter Fame: A Life of Sylvia Plath. London: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-010373-2. Marjorie Perloff said in her article, "The Two Ariels: The (Re)making Of The Sylvia Plath Canon” that “The fact remains that Plath herself had arranged the future Ariel poems ‘in a careful sequence,’ plotting out every detail including the first and last words of the volume." [3] Another critic remarked that “her poetry would have been valuable no matter what she had written about.” [3] A very accurate description of Plath, considering her form of poetry was notorious for being dark and questionable among her readers. On January 16, 2004, The Independent newspaper in London published an article that ranked Ariel as the 3rd best book of modern poetry among 'The 10 Best Modern Poetry Books.' Plath’s poems are a tribute to the resourcefulness of the creative imagination and its capacity to render meaningful the hazardous course of an individual life.During her last three years Plath abandoned the restraints and conventions that had bound much of her early work. She wrote with great speed, producing poems of stark self-revelation and confession. The anxiety, confusion, and doubt that haunted her were transmuted into verses of great power and pathos borne on flashes of incisive wit. Her poem “Daddy” and several others explore her conflicted relationship with her father, Otto Plath, who died when she was age eight. In 1963, after this burst of productivity, she took her own life. I got a present. But I was thinking that if I unwrapped it, it would bite my face off. So I didn't. Hah. Bates, Stephen (March 23, 2009). "Son of poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes kills himself". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on March 12, 2017. Ariel was the second book of Sylvia Plath's poetry to be published. It was first released in 1965, two years after her death by suicide. The poems of Ariel, with their free-flowing images and characteristically menacing psychic landscapes, marked a dramatic turn from Plath's earlier Colossus poems. [1]

Upon analyzing the collection of poems along with considering her other work, it is concluded that like her other poems, "Ariel" is "highly autobiographical, psychological and confessional poem." [5] Additional poems in her manuscript [ edit ] Look, let's get this straight. I am a tree, you are a woman. We can never be together, not in the way you'd like, anyway. Plus, you're kind of irritating. Ferretter, Luke (2009). Sylvia Plath's Fiction: A Critical Study (1sted.). Edinburgh University Press. doi: 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748625093.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-7486-2509-3. JSTOR 10.3366/j.ctt1r25c0. Padnani, Amisha (March 8, 2018). "How an Obits Project on Overlooked Women Was Born". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 23, 2018 . Retrieved March 24, 2018.

Nadeem Azam (2001). " 'Ted Hughes: A Talented Murderer' December 11, 2001". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on February 18, 2018 . Retrieved February 17, 2018. I like to commit suicide like some people like to visit their grandparents. You really don't want to, it's kind o

Butscher, Edward (2003). Sylvia Plath: Method and Madness. Tucson, Arizona: Schaffner Press. ISBN 0-9710598-2-9. Here we will look at some of the other notable poems featured in Sylvia Plath's poetry collection Ariel. 'Daddy' Hemphill, Stephanie. (2007). Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-375-83799-X.Kibler, James E. Jr, ed. (1980). American Novelists Since World War II (A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book). Dictionary of Literary Biography. Vol.6 (2nded.). Detroit: Gale. ISBN 0-8103-0908-4. Ariel" is composed of ten three-line stanzas with an additional single line at the end, and follows an unusual slanted rhyme scheme. Literary commentator William V. Davis notes a change in tone and break of the slanted rhyme scheme in the sixth stanza which marks a shift in the theme of the poem, from being literally about a horse ride, to more of a metaphoric experience of oneness with the horse and the act of riding itself. [3] Context [ edit ] In 1971, the volumes Winter Trees and Crossing the Water were published in the UK, including nine previously unseen poems from the original manuscript of Ariel. [36] Writing in New Statesman, fellow poet Peter Porter wrote: Kean, Danuta (April 11, 2017). "Unseen Sylvia Plath letters claim domestic abuse by Ted Hughes". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on April 15, 2020 . Retrieved April 14, 2017. a b Thorpe, Vanessa (March 19, 2000). "I failed her. I was 30 and stupid". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on March 20, 2016.