Quotes from work
Ariel

Ariel
Sylvia Plath

"Ariel" is a poem written by the American poet Sylvia Plath. It was written on her thirtieth birthday, October 27, 1962, and published posthumously in the collection Ariel in 1965, of which it is the namesake. Despite its ambiguity, it is literally understood to describe an early morning horse-ride towards the rising sun. Scholars and literary critics have applied various methods of interpretation to "Ariel".

Sylvia Plath photo

“I am inhabited by a cry.
Nightly it flaps out
Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.”

Sylvia Plath Ariel

Source: Ariel

Sylvia Plath photo

“I am terrified by this dark thing
That sleeps in me;
All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.”

Sylvia Plath Ariel

"Elm" http://www.angelfire.com/tn/plath/elm.html
Source: Ariel (1965)
Context: p>I am inhabited by a cry.
Nightly it flaps out
Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.I am terrified by this dark thing
That sleeps in me;
All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.</p

Sylvia Plath photo

“At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.”

Sylvia Plath Ariel

Source: Ariel

Sylvia Plath photo

“They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

--From the poem "Lady Lazarus", written 23-29 October 1962”

Sylvia Plath Ariel

Source: Ariel

Sylvia Plath photo

“The slime of all my yesterdays rots in the hollow of my skull.”

Sylvia Plath Ariel

Source: Ariel

Sylvia Plath photo

“Dying
Is 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.”

Sylvia Plath Ariel

"Lady Lazarus" http://www.angelfire.com/tn/plath/lady.html
Source: Ariel (1965)

Sylvia Plath photo

“This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary.
The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.”

Sylvia Plath Ariel

"The Moon and the Yew Tree" http://www.angelfire.com/tn/plath/yew.html
Ariel (1965)

Sylvia Plath photo

“I didn’t want any flowers, I only wanted
to lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty.
How free it is, you have no idea how free.”

Sylvia Plath Ariel

Source: Ariel

Sylvia Plath photo

“The blood jet is poetry,
There is no stopping it.”

Sylvia Plath Ariel

"Kindness" http://www.angelfire.com/tn/plath/kindness.html
Source: Ariel (1965)

Sylvia Plath photo

“I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly, as the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands. I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions.”

Sylvia Plath Ariel

Source: Ariel

Sylvia Plath photo

“Love is a shadow.
How you lie and cry after it”

Sylvia Plath Ariel

Source: Ariel

Sylvia Plath photo

“Clouds pass and disperse.
Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables?
Is it for such I agitate my heart?”

Sylvia Plath Ariel

Source: Ariel

Sylvia Plath photo

“The frost makes a flower,
the dew makes a star.”

Sylvia Plath Ariel

Source: Ariel

Sylvia Plath photo

“Stupid pupil, it has to take everything in.”

Sylvia Plath Ariel

Source: Ariel

Sylvia Plath photo

“Is it the sea you hear in me,
Its dissatisfactions?
Or the voice of nothing, that was you madness?”

Sylvia Plath Ariel

Source: Ariel

Sylvia Plath photo

“Darling, all night
I have been flickering, off, on, off, on.
The sheets grow heavy as a lecher's kiss.”

Sylvia Plath Ariel

"Fever 103" http://www.angelfire.com/tn/plath/103.html
Ariel (1965)

Sylvia Plath photo

“The woman is perfected
Her dead

Body wears the smile of accomplishment,
The illusion of a Greek necessity

Flows in the scrolls of her toga,
Her bare

Feet seem to be saying:
We have come so far, it is over.

Each dead child coiled, a white serpent,
One at each little

Pitcher of milk, now empty.
She has folded

Them back into her body as petals
Of a rose close when the garden

Stiffens and odors bleed
From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower.

The moon has nothing to be sad about,
Staring from her hood of bone.

She is used to this sort of thing.
Her blacks crackle and drag.”

Sylvia Plath Ariel

"Edge" http://www.angelfire.com/tn/plath/edge.html
Ariel (1965)

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