http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072405228/student_view0/complete_glossary.html#
http://gale.cengage.com/free_resources/glossary/
If you are still stumped on any of the terms, ask in class Wednesday. We're going to work at least in part on pattern and rhythm, so scan the intros to the chapters Rhythm & Meter (12) and Pattern (14) and the work will go better.
See you then!
Dear class—I wrote this informal essay a couple of years ago while I was out on medical leave. Looking over your blog entries, I see that a number of you have hit some of the same themes I did. But this is a more comprehensive look, much longer than the typical blog entry.
A few notes: the poem has a rhyme scheme of abcbac that is consistent in each of its five sections. But most of the rhymes are of the “slant” variety (see below). The meter is variable; most prominent is “trimeter”’—three accented feet in a line. But the poet in general indulges in as many beats per line as suits her.
The title, “Spinster,” as many of you note, is a word that in law designates a woman who has not married. In general it signifies a woman who has remained unmarried beyond the “usual age.” We can confidently say that “this particular girl” has set herself on that course.
My take on Sylvia Plath’s “Spinster”
This is, to me, a funny poem about an imperious, rigid girl who decides she prefers a sort of wintry order, as she sees it, to spring and all it traditionally stands for: love, music, “burgeoning” growth of new life (look that word “burgeoning” up, and you’ll see why it’s perfect), renewal, fertility, etc., etc.
Now I’d never read this poem before Mrs. Minor chose it from the newest collection. But the first thing I want to sense about it, besides the experience that it contains or relates, is its tone. So I read it through several times, which even done carefully takes just a few minutes. And I find the tone to be rather mocking. The speaker is not peddling her subject’s philosophy—she’s creating an ironic portrait that somehow gives us and her particular enjoyment.
So how about this “particular girl”? She’s not looking for romance; others are looking for romance from her—a whole string of them is hinted at by “latest suitor.” Suitors are those who go down on one knee to ask for the hand of their adored one. But this “particular” girl (and that word has at least two meanings: one out of a group of girls, or a girl who insists that everything around her must be correct in every detail) finds something disconcerting in the “irregular babel” of birdsong and the leaves’ litter (nice a-litter-ation, eh?). When arrogant humans attempted to construct a “Tower of Babel” to reach the heavens, the Biblical God sent the language of the builders into confusion to thwart their ambition. Maybe this arrogant girl simply fails to understand the birdsong that is the one of the primary languages of spring, as she rejects everything about the season that she doesn’t understand or finds disorderly, or is afraid of.
(By the way: I don’t know how she’d feel about the order of this poem, because its rhythm is often irregular; most regular, perhaps, in the section in which “she longed for winter then!” There’s a rhyme pattern, but the rhymes are often of the type known as “slant”, or inexact rhymes: “wits” & “idiots” is an example of that; so is “weather” and “either” in the last section. But we haven’t gotten to pattern yet.)
Going through the poem a few times more, I notice that our girl is a queenly sort of person on “a ceremonious April walk” who “judged petals in disarray” and compares the season of spring to a slob (“sloven”). She’s afraid of the unpredictability of spring, which could unsettle her “five wits” (a very old, even medieval expression covering common wit, imagination, fantasy, estimation, and memory) and thus reverse her standing in her own royal court from queen to jester (a “vulgar” one who wears “motley”). Such an idiot can “Reel giddy in bedlam spring” and make quite a fool of her/himself.
“Bedlam”, I find, is a word that denotes a scene of mad confusion and comes from the insane asylum in old London known as “Bedlam.” The allusions to ancient or medieval things somehow reinforces the image I get of a queen in royal surroundings with courtiers in attendance and a jester, or professional fool, on call at his station at foot of the throne. Within the order of her universe are her five wits, which she keeps in check lest they get out of control—especially imagination and fantasy. Those are too free-flowing and adventurous. And how did I learn about the five wits? I looked the term up until I found what I sort of remembered from my own reading.
That brings me to her suitor. I think suitor is a good word for him, because he’s a wannabe on his way out, and Bedlam might just be the place for the likes of him. He’s the jester, idiot sort. I like Hari’s Raghavan’s idea of a dog, even if he got stuck on the literal notion of one. This guy is sawing the air with romantic enthusiasm as he gestures and talks and bounds along and off the path like a happy dog—doing everything but pee on the bushes before he puts his pair of muddy paws on her shoulders and gives her a couple of doggy licks on her puss. But the particular girl doesn’t appreciate the dog-boy’s Keatsian appreciation of nature and love together in bloom. To her it’s all ”a rank wilderness of fern and flower.”
It’s probably just a coincidence, but I can’t help but picture this particular girl doing what’s known as “playing Hamlet” (she could be an English major, after all, and she does like black!), putting on airs of sophisticated disillusionment while she mutters haughtily to herself:
Fie on’t! ah fie! ‘tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely.
Uh uh. Not for her. She’s a sharp-edged perfect snowflake, with a taste for “ice and rock”. That third section is a marvel of hard-edged, astringent words and phrases (Scrupulously austere, frosty discipline, exact—these are words that could give you paper cuts, and wow would those cuts ever smart in that ice-cold air!). And as I said, this one section really stands out for its greater order of rhythm, especially if read aloud after the second, which contains such unruly, rambling lines as “Observed her lover’s gestures unbalance the air” and “Through a rank wilderness of fern and flower.” In fact, section one was pacing along in pretty good order until line four threw everything literally and figuratively off-balance: “Found herself, of a sudden, intolerably struck”.
She’s shaken by the sheer uncontained fertility of it all. And so she withdraws “neatly” (in what other way could she withdraw?). She’s the sort of princess who enchants herself within her own chosen castle, surrounded by thorns (“barricade of barb and check”) with a moat full of sharks and the drawbridge up at all times (okay, some of this is my imagery, but I think it fits). The adjectives “mutinous” and “insurgent” are appropriate for our queenly girl who will maintain the picturesque (nicely framed, of course) order of her life at all costs, including love. No revolt by an excitable, overly romantic young man could possibly succeed in dethroning this snow queen to bring the unrestricted freedom of love and the rest of that burgeoning stuff into her realm.
As far as symbols go, I think I previously noted what spring often stands for (without losing its identity as a season). That symbol she rejects, and substitutes clean and orderly winder for spring’s rank and gross confusion (thanks, O Prince of Denmark. May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. No bird “babel” for you). Winter as a paradigm of order and discipline is more of a personal symbol for our heroine. Others might see winter as symbolic of death and also of disorder—storms and wild weather that could rip a roof off, or send the queen skidding down an icy path. The house of the final section we could take as a metaphor for her chosen isolation from the impetuous and uncontrollable change that spring symbolizes..
The cool thing is that something so compact and brief as this little poem can contain so much in it that magnifies and extends the little black and white symbols on paper that we call words.
All I’m doing is looking at the “how” before I decide (if I ever do such a thing) the “what” of the poem. How did Hari imagine that dog? Well, now I understand a little better, and for me how Sylvia Plath planted the seed that made the dog grow in Hari’s brain makes the poem better and more vivid than it was before.
(By the way, Hari: you really need to see a doctor sometime soon.)
Exploring the connotations and multiple denotations, noting the echoes thrown off by the allusions—these things bring me to greater comprehension. So—believe it or not—I’ve had a lot of fun writing this loose little essay.
J.D.
My Last Duchess1
Ferrara2:
That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will't please you sit and look at her? I said 5
“Frà Pandolf” by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) 10
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps 15
Frà Pandolf chanced to say “Her mantle laps
Over my Lady's wrist too much,” or “Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat”: such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough 20
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart — how shall I say? — too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 'twas all one! My favour at her breast, 25
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace — all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech, 30
Or blush, at least. She thanked men, — good! but thanked
Somehow — I know not how — as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill 35
In speech — (which I have not) — to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark" — and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set 40
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,--
E'en then would be some stooping, and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without 45
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence 50
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity, 55
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!
Notes
1. The poem as originally published was entitled "I. Italy," the companion piece to "II. France" (later entitled "Count Gismond") under the general title "Italy and France." The dramatic monologue is a byproduct of Browning's research for Sordello, during which he read about Alfonso II d'Este, fifth Duke of Ferrara (1533-1597; ruled 1559-1597), the patron of the writer Tasso.
2. The place is the ducal palace in the Italian city-state of Ferrara; the time is the Renaissance.
Spinster
Now this particular girl
During a ceremonious April walk
With her latest suitor
Found herself, of a sudden, intolerably struck
By the birds' irregular babel
And the leaves' litter.
By this tumult afflicted, she
Observed her lover's gestures unbalance the air,
His gait stray uneven
Through a rank wilderness of fern and flower.
She judged petals in disarray,
The whole season, sloven.
How she longed for winter then! ——
Scrupulously austere in its order
Of white and black
Ice and rock, each sentiment within border,
And heart's frosty discipline
Exact as a snowflake.
But here —— a burgeoning
Unruly enough to pitch her five queenly wits
Into vulgar motley ——
A treason not to be borne. Let idiots
Reel giddy in bedlam spring:
She withdrew neatly.
And round her house she set
Such a barricade of barb and check
Against mutinous weather
As no mere insurgent man could hope to break
With curse, fist, threat
Or love, either.
— Sylvia Plath
The five wits: the five senses; also, sometimes, the five qualities or faculties: common wit, imagination, fantasy, estimation, and memory.
Questions for study—
1. What are the various meanings of the word “spinster?” How does it work as a title to this poem?
2. Explore the multiple denotations and/or connotations attached to these words: particular, ceremonious, suitor, struck, litter, rank, sloven, austere, motley.
3. Compare the poet’s choice of these words to possible synonyms: racket or turmoil rather than tumult; hubbub rather than babel; flourishing rather than burgeoning; rebellious rather than insurgent; spike rather than barb; disobedient rather than mutinous.
4. What sort of pattern, if any, do you perceive in this poem? Is it as pronounced as in “Pathedy of Manners”? Is it unpredictable or erratic? Is there a rhyme scheme?
5. What, expressed in one or two sentences, is this poem about? What are the various meanings of the word “spinster?” How does it work as a title to this poem?
6. Explore the multiple denotations and/or connotations attached to these words: particular, ceremonious, suitor, struck, litter, rank, sloven, austere, motley.
7. Compare the poet’s choice of these words to possible synonyms: racket or turmoil rather than tumult; hubbub rather than babel; flourishing rather than burgeoning; rebellious rather than insurgent; spike rather than barb; disobedient rather than mutinous.
8. What sort of pattern, if any, do you perceive in this poem? Is it as pronounced as in “Pathedy of Manners”? Is it unpredictable or erratic? Is there a rhyme scheme?
9. What, expressed in one or two sentences, is this poem about?
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
