Ariel: The Restored Edition by Sylvia Plath

Ariel is Sylvia Plath’s last book. Most of the poems were written in a manic burst during a period of grief and rage over her impending divorce from British poet Ted Hughes, who ran off with another woman, leaving her with two babies. She had tried suicide at nineteen and failed; after completing the Ariel poems at thirty, she succeeded. Hughes sent the Ariel manuscript off to be published, leaving out some poems she had included and adding new ones she wrote in her last days. Much controversy ensued: he was accused of everything from censorship to murder. This new facsmile edition of Ariel sets the record straight by giving us the poems as Plath left them in the manuscript, along with her typewritten drafts and handwritten corrections. Frieda Hughes, the daughter of the two poets, writes a Foreword to the edition, defending her father’s actions regarding Plath’s legacy and describing the difficulties the family has endured as a result of Plath’s canonization and Hughes’ demonization.

Frieda references Plath’s well-known fits of temper, several of which resulted in her burning her husband’s work. She also notes that Ted Hughes was a frequent target of fury in the poems. Plath was apparently a manic-depressive, swinging from ecstasy and rage to black depression, accordingly representing herself as an apotheosized victim of powerful, fascist-booted men, or an avenging Medea warning us against her superhuman powers: "Beware. Out of the ash/I rise with my red hair/And I eat men like air."

Plath pushes all aspects of her life to manic extremes: it is not enough that she herself should be larger than life, the other characters in her drama must also have mythic proportions. In the early days of her relationship with Hughes she wrote: "We make love like giants." Some readers, but not all, buy into Plath’s operatic depictions, taking them for reality. Her fans have gone so far as to erase the surname "Hughes" from her gravestone. Despite Frieda Hughes’ assertions that her parents’ marriage was companionable and quiet, Sylvia Plath had to be hell to live with.
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ler o restante ensaio: http://contemporarylit.about.com/od/poetry/fr/arielRestored.htm

Diana Manister