Assignment: Read one of the poems in the anthology at the end of the course, and comment it from the

points of view of subject, language, musicality. If possible, find a Romanian translation, and compare it to the original.

Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath is a song of death and rebirth. "Lady Lazarus" is a complicated, dark, and brutal poem originally published in the collection Ariel. Plath composed the poem during her most productive and fecund creative period. It is considered one of Plath's best poems. It is about a weak willed and a fragile person who is driven to death three times by her enemies and critics. After receiving much oppression, the person reconciles his or her hatred and pain by forming the idea of revenge, and it is at this point in the poem wherein Sylvia Plath grants the persona rebirth and baptism by re. The author utilizes various elements to stress the progress ion of themes from exploitation to resentment and revenge, which serves as the focal point of analysis. Plaths Lady Lazarus is primarily defined by its tone and mood. Both tone and mood are responsible for the linear development seen in the characterization of the persona and also the development of the poem as a whole. The personas tone starts out as very soft and subtle, almost echoing a voice, slowly but effectively seducing the reader to sympathize with her. The lines: I have done it yet again./ One in every ten./ I manage it. From this point in the poem, the tone gets lower and deeper, which could also reflect the progression of abuse and pain within the poem. When the persona reaches the line Dying is an art, like everything else, I do it exceptionally well, she reaches the lowest point of tone and mood in the entire poem. In this part, the persona carefully sounds very sombre and defeated by saying she dies well, however it is also in this part wherein the mood takes a drastic turn.

By describing dying as an art, Sylvia Plath includes a spectator to both her deaths and resurrections. Because the death is a performance, it necessarily requires others. In large part, she kills herself to punish them for driving her to it. The eager "peanut-crunching crowd" is invited but criticized for its voyeuristic impulse. The crowd could certainly be understood to include the

reader himself, since he reads the poem to explore her dark impulses. She assumes that her voyeurs are significantly invested - they would pay the "large charge" to see her scars and heart.

The first stanza introduces the subject: she attempted suicide and cheats death every 10 years. She says: I have done it again / One year in every ten / I manage it. She equates her suffering with the experiences of the tortured Jews and she makes some Nazi references when she says: A sort of walking miracle, my skin/Bright as a Nazi lampshade/My right feet/A paperweight/My face a featureless, fine/Jew linen . Her face is featureless, just like the face of one who has been burned and because burn victims are wrapped in napkins, the command to Peel off the napkin means the poet was a burn victim. Later, she describes some of the only recognizable features of one who has had their face badly burned, including nose and eye pits, teeth, and the sour breath. So she reveals that is her third suicide attempt: And I a smiling woman/I am only thirty/And like the cat I have nine times to die/This is Number Three . And this implies that she will continue to attempt suicide every ten years. In the ninth stanza she addresses an audience as Gentlemen, Ladies, a phrase used at the circus. Her suicide attempts become the source of the others amazement and entertainment: society is fascinated with death.

At this point the calm and defeated mood of the poem reaches a turning point as the persona starts expressing anger and power. This is evident, as well, in the change of use of words by the author to exude condence and newfound strength in the persona, particularly when she rst suggests the concept of rebirth, calling it a theatrical comeback. The gradual ascent reaches its climactic apex when the persona challenges her enemies and even the powers that be with the most powerful lines in the entire poem saying Out of the ash, I rise with my red hair, and I eat men like air. The poem features a wide array of subtle metaphors to justify the feeling of bitterness that is located at the point of reconciliation the poem. Sylvia Plath uses the theme of the Holocaust and the German-led genocide, which prompted World War 2. In the poem, there are mentions of various practices that allude to the process of the holocaust such as the use of human fat for soap, or the use of human skin for lampshades. While the metaphors may be quite literal, the actually provide subtle justication personas emotion. The utilization of the gures of speech are said to provide the necessary background of hatred and pain that the persona is feeling. By scattering the uses the image of a phoenix to reinforce the grand and glorious rebirth
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of the persona as well as the re of rage the persona is feeling. Fire is primarily attributed to the phoenix, and re is the primary object that symbolized rage and fury. She also described the persona coming back in red, which also symbolizes rage. The poem is also obsessed with the number 30 using it in various sections of the poem. At the very start, the persona states that she does something once in every ten years. At the middle of the poem, it is stated that the persona dies or tries to die once in every ten years.

There is an excessive use of the number thirty associated with death, however the structure of the poem ends at twenty-eight stanzas (not reaching thirty), which could symbolize that the personas death does not reach its nal completion at this point. which is also reinforced with the idea of rebirth. In conclusion, Sylvia Plath uses the various elements in Lady Lazarus to sing a song of empowerment after death. The iambic structure of the poem provides a more masculine tone to the persona, while maintaining an loose rhyme scheme which suggest uncertainty and fear. It is in this way that Sylvia Plath reconciles the idea of fear and uncertainty in death and the glory, fury, and revenge in rebirth. Many connections can be drawn between this poem and Sylvia Plaths life. Referring to suicide attempts, the poet says: The first time it happened I was ten/It was an accident . When she was ten, her father died, a life-changing event. She may think of this as a death of the part of her. Next, she says The second time I meant/To last it out and not come back at all./I rocked shut/As a sea shell/ They had to call/ And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls . She refers when she tried to commit suicide when she was twenty. She overdosed on sleeping pills, and it took multiple days for others to find her. This poem could be read as a prophecy, the third suicide attempt discussed being one Plath herself would undertake. After this poem was written, Plath successfully committed suicide by sticking her head in oven on February 11, 1963, at the age of thirty.