欧宝娱乐

鈥�This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary.
The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.
The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God,
Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility.鈥�

In 鈥淭he Moon and the Yew Tree鈥� Sylvia Plath presents, not a vision of the picturesque English churchyard outside her bedroom window, but a mental landscape with more melancholy, more solemnity, more Gothic gloom than any representation of physical reality could ever have.

It is a scene of austere resignation to destiny. Nothing mitigates the blackness. Terror is kept at bay only by a fatalistic acceptance of the merciless moon鈥檚 indifference to human suffering. Plath looks out of her window and knows she is home. 鈥�I live here,鈥� she says without emotion.

But Plath would have it otherwise if she could. She would like to believe in tenderness.

鈥�The moon is my mother. She is not sweet like Mary.
Her blue garments unloose small bats and owls.
How I would like to believe in tenderness鈥�
The face of the effigy, gentled by candles,
Bending, on me in particular, its mild eyes.鈥�

Before 鈥淟ady Lazarus,鈥� before 鈥淓dge,鈥� there was 鈥淭he Moon and the Yew Tree.鈥� I like to read the three poems as a group. Together they tell a story of despair, anger, and bitter defiance.

Written less than sixteen months before her death, 鈥淭he Moon and the Yew Tree鈥� establishes a mood, an ambiance, that fades into the background with 鈥淟ady Lazarus鈥� and then returns to the fore in the last lines of 鈥淓dge.鈥� Plath has not yet adopted the bravado of 鈥淟ady Lazarus鈥� here, but it is easy to see the progression from the deliberate matter-of-fact voice in this cold dark poem to the proud death-defying persona of the later poem.

鈥�I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it鈥斺赌�

Then there is the moon imagery and the aura of inevitability. 鈥�I simply cannot see where there is to get to.鈥� The line, uttered with deadpan acumen, foreshadows the decree of finality in 鈥淓dge,鈥� her final poem. 鈥�Her bare/Feet seem to be saying:/We have come so far, it is over.鈥� The bare feet that prophesy this end are the feet of the girl who walks through the moonlit landscape like God.

Plath鈥檚 emphasis is everywhere on rebirth: the moon, Lazarus, the phoenix. Do you want to know what it feels like to come back from the dead? Do you really want to know? The challenge is offered and it must not be accepted lightly, for it is a dark vision.

It is easy for casual observers to dismiss her, to take refuge in ignorance and to feign contempt so that they can deny their own demons. Who would walk through Plath鈥檚 landscape with its cold blue light, its black trees, its bats, owls, and headstones, who would gaze at the yew tree and follow its line, up, up to the remote unfeeling moon, must be made of harder stuff than the common run of men and women are made of.

Plath stares her observers down. She smirks in the faces of her detractors. And she boasts in a loud clear voice, a voice clear as a bell鈥攐r a bell jar. Plath is no penitent. Her confession is revelation, not repentance.

鈥�Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I鈥檝e a call.鈥�

She is never contrite. On the contrary, her attitude toward suicide is cavalier. 鈥淟ady Lazarus鈥� is a haughty poem. She tells it like it is, sugar-coating nothing. She refuses to restrain her rage or soften her voice. Let those who would scorn her, scorn her, but first let them shudder at the violence of her imagery. Let them wince and recoil as she looks them dead in the eyes and says: 鈥�They had to call and call/And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.鈥�

Plath makes no apologies.

鈥�What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot鈥�
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies.鈥�

It is the vulgar spectators, their flaccid mouths agape, their vacuous eyes agog, that so offend. Plath does not cast her gaze earthward and dig her toe around in the dirt, stammering out the obligatory and obsequious phrases that appease the peanut-crunching crowd. She does not hide her face from the gibbering mob, from those whose mockery conceals their own fear, whose insults spring from the senseless cruelty of their puerile and unenlightened minds.

Reading 鈥淟ady Lazarus,鈥� I hear Plath鈥檚 saucy voice above the bleating of the herd. If they want to look, let them look. Let them look and gape and drool.

鈥�It鈥檚 easy enough to do it in a cell.
It鈥檚 easy enough to do it and stay put.
It鈥檚 the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

鈥楢 miracle!鈥�
That knocks me out.鈥�

The trick is not to mind the voyeurs, to welcome them, to put on a good show. Instead of tenderness there is always brute amusement. She does not keep her secret nestled to her bosom, protected and sheltered, for the audience would have it out and, not content to take a brief and humble look and then pass on, each man, woman, and child would feel compelled to gawk and jeer and perhaps poke at it with a stick.

Better to put it on display herself, hang a sign, charge admission. Better to hold her head high and thrust out her chest, work the crowd, be barker and freak in one, expose her scars to all and sundry. And why stop there? Let them come a little closer and smell the smell of death that still clings to her garments. It is good to remember that it is they who are terrified.

鈥�There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart鈥�
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.鈥�

She will exhume the past, but before she does she would like to talk price. There is a charge, after all. It is betrayal that hurts the most, not the scrutiny of the multitude. Looking out into the audience, there is only a sea of interchangeable faces. They are of no consequence. It is the betrayal of a loved and trusted one that crushes. To believe in one, to have faith in one鈥攋ust one, is to risk all.

鈥�I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern鈥�

I think there is a sordid fascination people have with other people鈥檚 suicides. Plath knew this when she wrote 鈥淟ady Lazarus.鈥� In order to probe ever deeper into the private world of the suicidal mind they affect concern. Candor is not for these frauds. Melodrama, sensationalism, the shocking lurid details are enough for the curious. It is all they really want anyway. True candor, the guided tour and backstage pass are for the select few, the one, possibly for none at all.

Plath鈥檚 poetry is triumphant. It is her victory over death and over the scavengers who feed upon it. And it is an invitation to all of us to face the past with courage and dignity and even a little bit of arrogance.