Ariel

by Plath, Sylvia

• ISBN13: 9780060732592
• ISBN10: 0060732598
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-11-09
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

Upon the publication of her posthumous volume of poetry, Ariel , in the mid-1960s, Sylvia Plath became a household name. Readers may be surprised to learn that the draft of Ariel left behind by Sylvia Plath when she died in 1963 is different from the volume of poetry eventually published to worldwide acclaim.This facsimile edition restores, for the first time, the selection and arrangement of the poems as Sylvia Plath left them at the point of her death. In addition to the facsimile pages of Sylvia Plath's manuscript, this edition also includes in facsimile the complete working drafts of the title poem, "Ariel," in order to offer a sense of Plath's creative process, as well as notes the author made for the BBC about some of the manuscript's poems.In her insightful foreword to this volume, Frieda Hughes, Sylvia Plath's daughter, explains the reasons for the differences between the previously published edition of Ariel as edited by her father, Ted Hughes, and her mother's original version published here. With this publication, Sylvia Plath's legacy and vision will be re-evaluated in the light of her original working draft.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Frieda Hughes	xi
I Ariel and other poems	1	(90)
Morning Song	5	(1)
The Couriers	6	(1)
The Rabbit Catcher	7	(2)
Thalidomide	9	(2)
The Applicant	11	(2)
Barren Woman	13	(1)
Lady Lazarus	14	(4)
Tulips	18	(3)
A Secret	21	(2)
The Jailor	23	(2)
Cut	25	(2)
Elm	27	(2)
The Night Dances	29	(2)
The Detective	31	(2)
Ariel	33	(2)
Death & Co.	35	(2)
Magi	37	(1)
Lesbos	38	(3)
The Other	41	(2)
Stopped Dead	43	(1)
Poppies in October	44	(1)
The Courage of Shutting-Up	45	(2)
Nick and the Candlestick	47	(2)
Berck-Plage	49	(7)
Gulliver	56	(1)
Getting There	57	(3)
Medusa	60	(2)
Purdah	62	(3)
The Moon and the Yew Tree	65	(1)
A Birthday Present	66	(3)
Letter in November	69	(2)
Amnesiac	71	(2)
The Rival	73	(1)
Daddy	74	(3)
You're	77	(1)
Fever 103°	78	(3)
The Bee Meeting	81	(3)
The Arrival of the Bee Box	84	(2)
Stings	86	(3)
Wintering	89	(2)
II Facsimile of the manuscript for Arid and other poems	91	(84)
III Facsimile drafts of the poem "Ariel"	175	(14)
Appendix I "The Swarm"	189	(6)
Facsimile draft of the poem "The Swarm"	193	(2)
Appendix II Script for the BBC broadcast "New Poems by Sylvia Plath"	195	(4)
Notes by David Semanki	199

Excerpts

Ariel: The Restored Edition
A Facsimile of Plath's Manuscript, Reinstating Her Original Selection and Arrangement

Morning Song

Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.

I'm no more your mother
Than the cloud that distils a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind's hand.

All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat's.The window square

Whitens and swallows its dull stars.And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.

Ariel: The Restored Edition
A Facsimile of Plath's Manuscript, Reinstating Her Original Selection and Arrangement. Copyright © by Sylvia Plath. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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Excerpted from Ariel: A Facsimile of Plath's Manuscript, Reinstating Her Original Selection and Arrangement by Sylvia Plath
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.