With regard to Plath's questionable use of Nazi imagery in
'Daddy', there are other examples which I think suffer from this
same mis-appropriation. Poems like 'Thalidomide' (The lopped/
blood-caul of absences . . . . knuckles at shoulder-blades . . .),
'Childless Woman' (this/ Gleaming with the mouths of corpses)
and 'Paralytic' (Dead egg, I lie/ Whole . . . The claw/ Of the
magnolia) . . . . in each case, the subject being approached not
for itself but only as a framework around which Plath could hang
her excessively Gothic imagination. It is this tendancy more than
any other which I find wearisome.
Which reminds me -- Anne Stevenson suggested I read Octavio
Paz's book . . . which for the life of me I can't remember the title of . .
'The Gothic Imagination' maybe? . . . with regard to Plath's work.
I bought it years ago but never fully read it -- anyone know which
one I'm talking about?? Can't see anything on Amazon either . . . .
published by OUP as far as I remember.
Anyway -- I find it difficult to imagine Plath without Mary Shelley.
As to the question of whether writers should concern themselves
with 'personal hells', I don't see why not in principle -- isn't that
exactly what T.S. Eliot did all through his writing life? The danger
is one of style, specifically this Gothic urge. Unfortunately all the
student poems I read containing phrases like 'my septic soul'
appeared to take Plath as their inspiration.
Andy
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