This lecture on ppt slides focuses on the summary and analysis of four selected poems- Morning Song, Poppies in October, Ariel, Waking in Winter- written by Sylvia Plath. It has been prepared by Faisal Ahmed, Faculty Member, Department of English, World University of Bangladesh (WUB).

1. Week 3
Selected Poems
of Sylvia Plath
(Part 2)
Lecture by Faisal Ahmed
Faculty Member
Department of English
World University of Bangladesh

2. Selected Poems of
Sylvia Plath (Part 2)
Lesson 1: “Morning Song”
Lesson 2: “Poppies in October”
Lesson 3: “Ariel”
Lesson 4: “Waking in Winter”

3. Lesson 1: “Morning Song”
Summary
•Morning Song is one of several poems Sylvia Plath wrote concerning pregnancy,
birth and maternal feelings.
•It is a short poem that highlights the confused reactions of the mother,
the speaker (Plath) as she tends to the needs of her new baby.
•In Sylvia Plath's "Morning Song," a new mother describes how she feels about
her newly-born baby. Some of the feelings she expresses are not those we might
expect, and the poem is a fascinating exploration of the strangeness of motherhood
and how odd it can feel, at the beginning, to have created a new life.

4. Lesson 1: “Morning Song”
Analysis
•Structure: Morning Song is a six stanza free verse poem, each stanza an
unrhymed tercet, making 18 lines in total.
•Poetic Devices/Techniques: Alliteration, Assonance, Caesurae, Enjambment,
Metaphor, Personification, & Simile.
•Major Themes: Pregnancy, birth, maternal feelings
•The dominant theme in “Morning Song” is alienation and the process by which it is overcome.
A woman's poem, it deals with maternal instinct and its awakening. Plath avoids sentimentality
in taking up a subject—becoming a mother—that is too often treated in a superficial way.
•The poem's first word, Love, is what we would often associate with the bond between mother
and baby

5. Lesson 2:
“Poppies in October”

6. Lesson 2: “Poppies in October”
Summary
● This poem is the portrayal of Plath’s feelings towards nature. She shows the
beautiful contrast of nature in this poem.
● “Poppies in October” is not simple. It is a combination of conflicting feelings of
joy and pain.
● The poetess comes up with the beauty of poppies. She comes to a field of
blossomed poppies. She is overwhelmed with the beauty, with the redness of
flowers. She says that the sky and the clouds which makes morning beautiful
have no match with this beauty.
● This poem of Plath's is of the time when she used to write more about violence,
but this poem is on enhancing and breathtaking beauty of poppy flowers. The
bright light of the flower is threatened by the darting rays of the Sun.

7. Lesson 2: “Poppies in October”
Analysis
● Ironically was written on Plath's last birthday before her death.
● The title “poppies in October” immediately raises the question as if the poetess is
only talking about flowers or she used poppies flowers in a metaphorical
meaning.
● The poet declares that poppies petals are like skirts of any woman.
● Poppies are the symbol of remembrance day, the day which is celebrated in the
remembrance or memory of the soldiers who died in the World War 1.
● Structure: A 4-stanza poem, 3 lines in each, written in free verse, scant language.
● Major themes: Contrast between life & death, between joy & pain
● Poetic Devices: Symbolism, imagery, irony, Rhetorical question
● Tone: subjective & personal

8. Lesson 3:
“Ariel”

9. Lesson 3: “Ariel”
Summary
•"Ariel" depicts a woman riding her horse in the countryside, at the very
break of dawn.
•It details the ecstasy and personal transformation that occurs through
the experience.
•The poem begins with complete immobility in the darkness, while the
rider waits on the horse.
•This poem describes the terror of a wild horseback ride and the mental and emotional
transformation that the rider, and speaker, goes through as she faces death.
•The poem begins with a calm “stasis” in which nothing is happening, until, the horse,
“Ariel” throws herself headlong into a charge.

10. Lesson 3: “Ariel”
Analysis
•“Ariel” was written on Sylvia Plath’s thirtieth birthday, October 27, 1962, and published
posthumously in the collection Ariel in 1965. "Ariel" translates to "lion of God" from
Hebrew, and Plath refers to herself as "God's lioness" in line 4.
•Genre: It is a confessional poetry, as it draws upon a real life experience.
•Type: It is autobiographical, feminist & psychological.
•Structure: "Ariel" is composed in blank verse of ten (10) three-line stanzas with
an additional single line at the end, and follows an unusual slanted rhyme scheme.
•Setting: It is set in a lush countryside during the early hours of the morning.
•Poetic Devices/Techniques: Alliteration, consonance, assonance, metaphor, simile,
irony, metonymy, synecdoche, personification, hyperbole, onomatopoeia and pararhyme
•Major Themes: Mortality, transcendence, feminine spirit, power,
•Tone: The dominant tone is frightening and chaotic, interspersed with moments of
exhilaration and joyful energy.
•Protagonist & Antagonist: The protagonist is the unnamed persona, while the
antagonist is the frantic runaway horse, or perhaps the speaker's old life she is trying to
escape.

11. Lesson 4:
“Waking in Winter”

12. Lesson 4: “Waking in Winter”
Summary
● ‘Walking in Winter’ by Sylvia Plath describes a natural landscape, a hotel, and
those who reside there as hopeless and loveless.
● In the first lines of ‘Walking in Winter’ the sky is portrayed as hard, cold and slick
and the trees are relayed to reader as “stiff” as if “burnt nerves.”
● With these descriptions, Plath intended convey a space that is devoid of
feeling— it has all been burnt off. The “nerves” which are responsible for feeling
within the human body, are destroyed.
● In the fourth line she takes the reader into her dreams and speaks about
“destruction, annihilations”.

13. Lesson 4: “Waking in Winter”
Summary
● It soon becomes clear that the speaker and a companion are taking a car trip to
a resort, but the places they pass are dark, poisoned and speak of death.
● Eventually they get to the resort and the speaker describes skull-like people
looking at the views, and emotionless nurses tending to those in residence
there. The whole poem feels colourless, loveless and hopeless. Death is the
reigning power in the world Plath has created.

14. Lesson 4: “Waking in Winter”
Analysis
● Structure: Walking in Winter’ by Sylvia Plath is a two stanza poem that is
separated into two sets of eight lines, or octaves. 16 lines in total.
● Major themes: Escapism, hopelessness, lovelessness, brutality of war (WW II)
● Poetic Devices: Assonance, alliteration, enjambment, imagery
● Tone: subjective & personal

15. Week 3
End of the Lesson