Ariel
by Sylvia Plath
First published 1965 · English · 240 pages
- Poetry
- Essays and criticism
- Biography and memoir
Ariel is the collection of poems that made Plath's reputation, published two years after her death. Most of the poems were written in the last months of her life. They range across marriage, motherhood, nature, illness, anger, memory and rebirth, in bold, compressed images and a striking, musical voice. Several, such as the poems about bees, a horse and her father, are among the best known in modern English poetry. The first edition was arranged from her manuscripts by others, and a later edition restored her own intended order. The book is a landmark of twentieth-century verse.
Quotes
DyingIs 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've a call.
Herr God, Herr Lucifer,Beware.Beware.Out of the ashI rise with my red hairAnd I eat men like air.
I am inhabited by a cry.Nightly it flaps outLooking, with its hooks, for something to love.I am terrified by this dark thingThat sleeps in me;All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.
I am incapable of more knowledge.What is this, this faceSo murderous in its strangle of branches? —Its snaky acids hiss.It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults,That kill, that kill, that kill.