Ariel

by Plath, Sylvia

• ISBN13: 9780060732608
• ISBN10: 0060732601
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-10-05
• Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics

Summary

This facsimile edition of Plath's posthumous volume of poetry restores, for the first time, the selection and arrangement as she left it at the point of her death, and includes notes the poet made for the BBC.

Table of Contents

Foreword	xi
Frieda Hughes
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)
Facsimile of the manuscript for Ariel and other poems	91	(84)
Facsimile drafts of the poem ``Ariel''	175	(24)
Appendix I
``The Swarm''	189	(4)
Facsimile draft of the poem ``The Swarm''	193	(2)
Appendix II
Script for the BBC broadcast ``New Poems by Sylvia Plath''	195	(4)
Notes	199
David Semanki

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.