1. International Reseach Journal,November,2010 ISSN-0975-3486 RNI: RAJBIL 2009/300097 VOL-I *ISSUE 14
53RESEARCH ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION
“Ariel”(27Oct.,1962)bySylviaPlathisanautotelic,
self-referentialpoem.Itdiffersfromitscontemporary
species of poems in expression and vision by virtue
of presenting a mental picture of the imagery of its
ownorigin.Theconceptionofthepoemanditslingual
transcriptionseemstohavebeenbasedonthepremise
that the way in which something is said or conveyed
isallinallinpoetrywhichdependsonexpressionand
vision. Emotionally abrasive and tonally brusque, it
culminates into a life lived and art or craft conceived
thereof. What is singularly remarkable about the
hysterically dicey imagination of Plath in it is the
verbal presentation of a visual perception of an
equestrienne’shorse-ridewhichseemshalfreal,half
imagined.Thedisjunctivesyntaxesandjerkyrhythmic
movement of its verse are in keeping with the poetic
vision that expands from the “stasis in darkness”(1)
into the stasis of radiance Into the red Eye, the
cauldron of morning (30-31).A suicide manqué, the
rider–speakeris‘atone’notonlywiththedriveofthe
runaway horse ‘Ariel’ whose “brown arc of the
neck”(8-9) she can not catch but also with the flying
“arrow” and the “dew that flies ——suicidal”.
Virtually, the poem turns out to be a suicidal
equestrienne’s suisong.
The art, imagination, and vision displayed
by Plath in this poem is central to the poems of her
posthumously published eponymous volume—
Ariel. And, since the poetry of “Ariel” belongs
generically to the poetry of ideas, it demands of us,
likethepoetryofEmilyDickinson,pointsofviewand
criticalcompetence,notopinionforitsinterpretation
and analysis. One of the points of view concerning
the conception and composition of “Ariel” is based
onthenotionthat‘lifeismotion’.Plath’smetaphorical
“Thebloodjetispoetry/Thereisnostoppingit”(18-
19) in “kindness” (1 Feb., 1963) vindicates
retrospectively the notion of motion and its lingual
transcriptioninthepoetryof“Ariel”.And,moreover,
the speaker of her another poem “Years” (16 Nov.
1962)alsospeaksofbeinginlovewiththe“pistonin
motion”(12); with the “hooves of the horses” (14)
and their “merciless churn”(15).
Research Paper—English
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November, 2010
SYLVIAPLATH’S “ARIEL”& POETICS OF
KINESIS, STASIS, & HOMEOSTASIS
* V.R. Pandeya
Wallace Stevens had celebrated the notion of life as
motioninthetitlepoem“LifeisMotion”wellbefore
Plath. Expressed totidem verbis, “Ariel” also
celebrates the life lived, felt, and expressed while
being in motion. It is, however, not only the
psychosomatic state of kinesis (motion) that Plath
haspoeticizedinthepoembutalsoitscontrarystates
ofstasis(inertia)andhomeostasis(innervoid).Only
a genius poet like Plath could have poeticized such
a complex states of psychosomatic feelings and
emotions rationally and directly into poetry.
Thereisyetoneanotherpointofviewwhich
needs to be stated here about the conception and
composition of “Ariel”. And that is that Plath has
blended in it fact and fiction in such a way that
biography and poetry overlap each other. This is in
completeconformitywithBoccaccio’sconceptionof
Poetry which ought to be a fitting garment of facts
and fictions’. Plath has localized in “Ariel” a
crescendo——an equestrienne’s (her own)
experienceofridingarunawayhorse‘Ariel’whohad
taken the bit between his teeth at a riding school at
Dartmoor in Devonshire. As her poet-husband Ted
Hughes has it, the ‘horse bolted and she had to cling
toitsneckfortwomilesatfullgallop’.Onlythismuch
of biography is relevant to the conception and
compositionof“Ariel”.But,sinceevenfactsinpoetry
are mostly imagined facts, the poem is to be taken as
more than being a mere, literal, transcription of how
it feels to be on a runaway horse especially when the
rideristerrifiedbecauseshehaslostcontactwiththe
rhythm of the horse’s motion and she may at any
moment be at one with the blurred ground below,As
Roberta Burke has it:
The Ariel of the poem is not the headstrong horse at
Cambridge, nor the stallion she claimed she was
learning to master herself, nor the riding school
gelding, but an imaginary beast she created, just as
themythicalwingedhorse,Pegasuswhosymbolized
poetry, sprang from Medusa’s blood. (75-76)
Presentationofanequestrianexperience,beitrealor
imagined, in poetry is per
se quite un-poetical, but even so, its symbolic
*Asstt. Prof. Dept. of English, Kumaun University, S. S. J. Campus, Almora-

2. International Reseach Journal,November,2010 ISSN-0975-3486 RNI: RAJBIL 2009/300097 VOL-I *ISSUE 14
54 RESEARCH ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION
presentation should find preference over a literal
one. And that is why the eo nomine horse ‘Ariel’
plays only a symbolic role in the poem.The
equestrienne, the rider of ‘Ariel’, has been trapped
into an estranged world of predicates where
everything happens at the level of mind and events
and objects relate directly to suicidal condition.
Coherence,constancy,andcontrolhavebeenutterly
lost and it is “dry and rider-less” words of “Words”
(1 Feb., 1963) that push the piston of blood into
motion.Theriderspeakerisintheteethofaformidable
situationoffearpsychosis.Thereisnolexicalmention
ofthehorseexceptforinthetitleofthepoembuteven
then we feel, while we read the poem, as if the horse
like the horses in “Words” were running away “off
from the center” (5) of its rider’s life:
Godslioness,/Howonewegrow,/ Pivot of heels and
knees!- the furrow / Splits and passes, sister to
The brown arc/ Of the neck I cannot catch (3-8).
Itisthebreakneckspeedofthehorsewhichhasbeen
hintedataltogetherwithitsatonenesswiththerider-
speaker ——“How one we grow”(5). And, “What
counts here is acceleration, not allusion” (Blessing
65).Thepoembeginswithanimperceptibleperception
of ‘Stasis in darkness’ and ends with the supra-
sensuous perception of stasis in the radiance of “the
red/ Eye, the cauldron of morning”.And in between
these two stases we envisage the tinsel vision of
“substance-less blue”(2) and “pour of tor and
distances”(3). Half- formed statements spoken in
extremis by the speaker refer to the intensity and
extremity of the situation and the poem progresses
sustained only by the permeable and conducive
vocabulary, catalectic syntaxes, off-beat placement
of words, half formed sentences and use of dashes
mostly for breaking the continuity of thought. The
rider –speaker’s horse-riding experience appears
sharable only with the courage, rightness, audacity,
and ease of her own inspiration and, that too, at our
ownrisk.Themetaphoricalimageof‘God’slioness’
in the second stanza tantalizes us. It is ambiguous as
to whether this ‘lioness’ stands for the rider-speaker
orforthegeldingsheisriding. Ormaybe,Plathused
thismetaphorforthepossessionofcreative“demonic
powers” (Alvarez 14,24). Otherwise, to address
geldingaslionesswouldresorttogenderfallacy.We
hear the speaker of Plath’s “Purdah” (31 Oct. 1962)
unleashing a lioness from within herself.And as has
beenstatedearlier,thehorsehasnotbeenmentioned
lexically even once in the poem, nor do we hear its
“hoof-taps”(17)or“mercilesschurn”(15)aswedoin
“Words” and “Years” by Plath. All these referents
havestrategicallybeenback-groundedherein“Ariel”.
The poetic strategy that Plath has adopted in this
poem is to push communication as an objective of
expression to the background and to bring the act of
speech or expression itself into the foreground.
Application of this poetic strategy makes even
unnatural and incompatible elements sound
poetically natural and compatible— a “God’s
lioness”(4) (the rider speaker) riding a gelding or an
equestrienne riding a lioness (the horse ‘Ariel’).
Absenceofboththesubjectandtheobjectinthefirst
stanza implies the loss of contact between the rider-
speaker and the horse she is riding. The latter has
been hinted at only by “the brown arc/ Of the neck
I cannot catch”(8-9). We are wary of the awesome
speed of the horse as well as of the rider’s feeling not
only of stasis which involves the stoppage of her
blood circulation but also of homeostasis— a
psychosomatic feeling of inner void created in her
mind. In the state of homeostasis, one’s mind goes
blank and the world whooshes away in void. As
Anirban has it:
In the void, the primordial energy is simply existing.
In its very essence, it is both dynamic and passive,
the two distinctive forces which are always fighting
within us (137).
These twain feelings of stasis and homeostasis have
been set off against the kinetic gallop of the horse
‘Ariel’.But,ifwegobytherider-speaker’shalf-formed
statements, it is neither the feeling of stasis nor of
homeostasisbutof“somethingelse”(15)that‘hauls’
her: - through the air
Thighs,hair;/Flakesfrommyheels/White/Godiva,
I unpeel —/Dead hands, dead stringencies
And now I Foam to wheat a glitter of seas (16-23).
The word ‘haul’ implies the application of effort, of
violentforce.Whilesharingvicariouslytheequestrian
experienceoftherider-speaker,weoscillatebetween
her psychosomatic states of stasis and kinesis. The
horse‘Ariel’,the‘arrow’,andthe‘dew’areallinflight
andyetatonewiththe‘God’slioness’,inastand-still
position. Perception of stasis in kinesis and vice
versahavebeenfusedandconfusedwithoneanother
in the poem. Of several paradoxes that have raised
modern problems of time and space, “motion is an
illusion” had been pointed out by the Greek
philosopherZenoofElea(490-430BC).Sinceanarrow
in flight must occupy a determinate space at each
instant and, therefore, it must be at rest. Plath makes
her poetic persona create for herself a self-image of
thelegendaryLadyGodiva(1040-1080AD)whohad
ridden naked through the streets at noon on the
condition that her husband Leofric, Earl of Mercea,
reduced the heavy taxes levied on the people of

3. International Reseach Journal,November,2010 ISSN-0975-3486 RNI: RAJBIL 2009/300097 VOL-I *ISSUE 14
55RESEARCH ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION
Coventry.However,theimaginedGodivariding‘Ariel’
inthepoemcontrastsmarkedlywiththefactualGodiva
of the legend. The focus in the poem is on Godvia as
subject rather than as spectacle. Reference to the
legendary voyeur— the peeping Tom who turned
blind because he had peeped sneakily at Godiva
ridingahorsenakedinbroaddaylight—tooismissing
in the poem. And, instead of peeling “dead hands”,
“dead stringencies”, and “white flakes” from her
“heels”, the imagined Godiva in the poem speaks
solecistically of unpeeling them. Her foaming to
“wheat a glitter of seas” (23) resorts to her extreme
nervousness. The image of Godiva in the poem is
morescaringmorethanthatofthelegendaryone.She
feelstohavebeenhauled“throughtheair”notbythe
“Niggereye”(10),“Hooks”(12),“Blacksweetblood
mouthfuls”(13), and “shadows”(14), but by
“something else” (15) — that is by the deadly gallop
of ‘Ariel’. We are led from the visual and tactile
perception of the peeling (or unpeeling) off of white
‘flakes’fromher‘heels’,tothepeeling(orunpeeling)
off of the outer layers of her false selves— “Dead
hands” and “dead stringencies”(21). This act of
stripping off of her false selves is reminiscent of the
stripping off of “old whore petticoats” (53) by the
speaker of “Fever 1030
”(20 Oct. 1962) and “old
bandages, boredoms, old faces” (66) by the speaker
of “Getting There” (6 Nov., 1962). The auditory
perception of the “cry of a baby” (61) audible at the
endof“ABirthdayPresent”(30Sept.1962)transforms
itselfintothevisualperceptionofa“child’scry”(24)
that melts in the “wall” (25) in “Ariel”. This over-
lexicalized “cry” of a “baby” or “child” in the late
poemsofPlathseemstoservenospecificpurpose—
symbolic or poetic.To associate this incidental “Cry
ofbaby”(61)inPlath’slatepoemswiththecryofher
own male baby Nicholas would merely be a
biographicalfallacy.
Thespeakerandthegalloping‘Ariel’sheis
riding are not to be taken as separate entities
independent of each other in the poem. The former
exists only so long and so far as the motion of the
latter lasts. The personal pronoun ‘I’ of the speaker
undergoesmetamorphicchangesfromthe‘arrow’to
the ‘dew’— both having aerial association. Both are
also at one with the breakneck motion of ‘Ariel’ and
the death-drive of the rider-speaker. Their flight has
beenmadevisuallyaswellassymbolicallyeffective.
And, since the duality of life and death is to be
transcended only by the act of dying or death, the
rider, the horse, the arrow, and the dew all must fly
towards the Sun— into the cauldron of morning and
be done away with. Though the Sun is the source of
lifeanddeathboth,itimpliesfortheriderspeakerwho
isintentonridingherhorse,likeCharonintotheSun,
onlydeath.Thetwainimagesofthe“redEye”andthe
“Cauldron of morning”(30-31) for the sun are
sensuously evocative. The image of “red Eye” also
symbolizes the discriminative path of wisdom. The
sun is target of all— the arrow, the dew, and the rider
speaker.The“dew”that“makesastar”(28)in“Death
& Co.” (14 Nov. 1962) evanesces into the sun in
“Ariel”.Thearrowtoohasasymbolicreferenceinthe
poem. LiketheUpanishadicarrow,itsymbolizessoul
that transcends life through death:
Aum is the bow, Atman is the arrow
Brahman, they say is the target to be pierced (541).
Onlytheshootingbowofthe“arrow”(27)inflightis
nowhereinevidenceinthepoem.Theword“suicidal”
(28) qualifies the death-drive of the rider –speaker
who is at one with the ‘Ariel’, the ‘arrow’, and the
‘dew’——all flying towards the sun. The suicidal
flightof‘God’slioness’ridingthegalloping‘Ariel’is
also referable to the “up-flight of the murderess into
a heaven that loves her” (48) in “The Bee meeting”
(3Oct.,1962)andtothe‘Queenbee’whoin“Stings”
(6Oct.,1962)is:1-FlyingMoreterriblethansheever
was,red Redscarinthesky,redcomet(56-58).And,
to conclude, the aerial flight of ‘Ariel’ is also
reminiscent of Emily Dickinson’s flighty Horses
headingtowards“Eternity”(24)in“BecauseICould
not Stop for Death”(712). And over and above, it is
therider-speaker,notthehorse‘Ariel’,whois‘dying
to fly and be done with it’ like the “Christus/The
awful” in “Years”(16Nov. 1962) by Sylvia Plath.
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