Both Plath and Hughes seem to write with different motives Plath, being a confessional poet, wrote to explore her internal feelings and concerns particularly her struggle with motherhood, as is shown in Morning Song, and her fight with mental illness meanwhile, Hughes‘s poetry is concerned with the quality and effect of nature whilst at times he refers to personal experiences such as a precious moment with his daughter in Full Moon and Little Frieda, the focus of the poem is on humans’ relationship with the external world. Therefore, it seems evident that Plath’s poetry is autobiographical in an attempt to understand herself. However, Plath’s attempt is ‘hazardous‘ because it often appears to gives her a warped understanding of herself, indeed in Edge, she paints an image of a mother as being completed and beautiful in death, perhaps igniting her premeditated suicide that followed five days after writing the poem. Hughes poetry is less interested in internal exploration so in part disagrees that poetry is ‘the deepest part of autobiography’.
However, the strength and beauty is a recurring theme of strength and beauty of nature in his poetry, for example, I Horses where Hughes using the everlasting imagery of the ‘Megalith- still’ nature to help him understand his place in relation to the rest of the world, thus agreeing with the first part of Warren’s quote that a poem is an ‘attempt at self-understanding.‘ Plath was known to have been exhausted by motherhood and anxious about the concept, she documents this ambiguity in Morning song to attempt to understand the notion, The title ‘Morning Song’ possesses alternative meanings, through the contrasting homophone ‘mourning’ which alludes to death or perhaps Path‘s grief at losing independence as a mother.
This homophone is juxtaposed to the usual connotations of morning with a new dawn and thus new life. joy and a fresh start this contrast of interpretations immediately suggests her uncertainty of new life and motherhood. The active verb ‘stumble’ cements this uncertainty, it seems to be an inversion of the family hierarchy as ‘stumble’ alludes to making mistakes, it a weakness that is often associated with children this reflects her feeling unqualified for being a mother. The focus of the poem is largely on Plath‘s internal relationship with her new born child, which compounded by the use of the 1“ person pronoun ‘l’, This a stark contrast to the use of the 2″d and 3″J person pronoun in Full Moon and Little Frieda, whilst Hughes refers to his child the focus is solely on his child and its relationship with the moon, this conveys that Hughes view his presence as immaterial. he is a spectator.
127 our experts are availableright now
The present participles ‘listening’ ‘gazing’ shows his engagement in the moment and show harmony between Frieda and the Moon as they seem to ‘gaze’ upon each other. Man’s harmony within nature was of particular of interest to Hughes because of his upbringing in the countryside where he spent much of his time in the natural environment. Whilst this is autobiographical the poem makes no mention of Hughes himself which therefore denies the claim that this poem was written for the same self-understanding that is shown in Morning Song. In Little Moon and Frieda, nature is presented as awe inspiring. Hughes finds a close kinship between man‘s relation with the universe, with the natural world and with his own inner self. Hughes‘ admiration for his daughter comes through her wonderment of nature. The Moon and Little Frieda has a chronological is narrative, which starts from a sense of exact phonological precision, throwing the reader straight into an intricate image of ‘a small evening shrunk to a dog bark and the clank of a/bucket-.‘
The deliberate enjambment of ‘bucket‘ suggesting the sound dying out, but with this then circumvented by the dash, going onto ‘And you listening.’ Creates a character and deliberate narrative tension, Images are listed precisely to covey the minutiae of how the spider’s web has been remembered. ‘tense for the dew’s touch’ the consonance of the ‘t’ and ‘d’ augment the tautness of this web as if brimming with apprehension which seems to mirror the apprehension and joy of Frieda. The ‘r’ sounds brimming/mirror/first/star/tremor and half rhymes of ‘mirror/tremor’ all serve to accentuate the precision and vividness of the moment. The second stanza develops the narrative with another description of nature 7 the cows going home, the alliterative metaphor of ‘warm wreathes of breath’ accentuated through the curious symmetry of the alliteration, consonance and assonance, then its warm reassurance juxtaposed with the unexpected dark river of blood – perhaps the reddish brown of the cows in their line/ herd resembles a river of blood – it is an image that builds up the tension, and the ‘boulders’ flit the reader to the sense of danger conflated with the ‘unspilled milk’, Milk has strong maternal connotation and perhaps alludes to Plath’s precarious mental state, it could be a metaphor for Plath’s potential to ‘spill’ the current balance and harmony.
This image of milk like to the ‘pitcher of milk, now empty‘ in Plath’s poem Edge. The cesura disrupts the flow of the line and reflects how the possibility and development associated with milk have been stunted. Plath left out milk for her children before she committed suicide in 1963, therefore the milks presence in edge perhaps shows the suicide was premeditated. Furthermore, Hughes’ poem was written in 1967 so this reference undoubtable relates to Plath. In this sense it is autobiographical in the same sense at Plath‘s poems. Plath similar to Hughes in some ways that she ends with the presence of the child. Both parents are mentioned: “Our voices echo” and “your nakedness/ Shadows our safety. We stand round.’ With Hughes, he is absent; Frieda is the only human signified. Whereas with Plath it as about nature in relation to herself, the process of becoming a mother. ‘
Than the cloud…wind‘s hand’ — referring to her previous miscarriage. Like Hughes, exactness of the moment sometimes made exact through sounds ‘flickers among flat pink roses Plenty of natural images used – cloud/ winds/ moth/ rises/ sea/ cow/cat/stars but all used to bring the child into existence. No longer a statue, the child’s presence takes on more spirited animation through the animal imagery. There is clarity in the final three stanzas, the climax and theme of this poem. the appearance of the moon. Youth and innocence and wonderment in relation to the moon. It is how the moon is being perceived, and, then in turn, how the moon sees itself as being seen.
The power of nature to transform etc. A moment of concentrated awareness. The poem is not about self-understanding his feelings as a father but rather how his daughter is positioned in relation to a moment in nature. This his compounded by the fact that it has been observed that Ted Hughes’s “give expression to, a level of being at which the continuity between the processes of nature experienced within and observed without is unimpeded by consciousness” Nature shifts and changes, and that is why Hughes’ poems show nature from so many differing attitudes, for example in Hawk Roasting ,hawk is symbolic of the thinking of Nature itself and the first person pronoun shows his affinity with nature and understanding of its power. Nature in many of his poems are symbolic of the violence that lies inside man such as The jaguar, the repetition of the plosive ‘b’ in ‘bang of blood in the brain’ conveys his inherent violence but also primal state. This fascinates the readers, largely because they find in him what they feel they once possessed but have been deprived of by Puritanswho dismissed all Nature as evil.
The structure of the poems are different. Hughes’s largest stanza relates solely to nature which shows that nature is is of greatest importance. Additionally, the lack of punctuation at the end of the poem suggests that Frieda’s infatuation with nature is ingoing and isn’t contained. Morning Song is quite different with regular 3 line stanzas giving all aspects equal importance. Plath may be experimenting with a traditional form of love poem called an aubade in French which refers to a lyric about dawn or a morning serenade. Like in Full Moon and Little Frieda where the narrative moves towards the voice of the child. registering its existence- but with Plath it is in relation to her as a mother, with Hughes it is in relation to nature, This further cements the idea that Hughes’s poetry far from being autobiographical is about fascination with nature, meanwhile the regular structure of Morning songs suggests Plath’s journey to self-understanding.
Both poems about their relationship with Frieda however Plath’s relationship is an active here whereas Hughes is more observational, however, this could simply relate to 1950’s expectations of woman where they were expected to have the active role with their children and the father’s only role was to provide the money Morning Song appears as a self? documentation of her journey to becoming a mother. The over punctuated crisp sentences combined with the thin assonance, ‘new statue/ museum’ stand/ blankly/walls’ heightens the lack of emotional connection with the baby and sense of alienation, ‘l‘m no more your mother…’ to a kind of instinctive awakening to its needs and presence. All through the viewpoint of the mother, her connection with her child comes though her appreciation of its “handful of notes” like balloons. The speaker’s lack of feeling for her child gradually transforms into appreciation and wonder, particularly at its sounds – not a “bald cry” any longer but something shaped, “a handful of notes.
” The child enters the human world when the speaker perceives its attempts at language with the clear vowels that rise like balloons. The poem closes with this idea of the child making poetry of natural innate human sounds filled with emotion. Morning Song records how the speaker’s perception of her baby changes, her intimacy with her child grants her the vision of its animated being. Whilst this suggests an acceptance and joy at becoming a mother particularly due to the image of balloons which have connotations of celebration, just like the title of the poem, there is an alternative more ominous interpretation of this ending ‘vowels rise like balloons’.
Could alternatively be interpreted as referring to her the baby screaming and the sluggish image of balloons rising alludes to the idea that these screams are ongoing and the way to stop them are out of Plath’s reach. They do use the same autobiographical context by each focusing on their daughter, Frieda. but do so in quite different ways because of their different roles as poets and how they each use poetry to understand the self. Plath uses it as a platform for the self, to metaphorically unpick, expose and confront her emotions and sense of shifting identity due to her status of being a confessional poet. The creative process becomes synonymous with the process of understanding and controlling human angst and emotion as is seen in Edge where Plath’s suicidal thoughts are hazardouslyjustiiied through the languorous long vowel sounds in ‘rose close’ which paint of image of beauty surrounding death.
The internal self is exposed to the external reader whereas in Hughes, the role of the poet to show the inner power of the imagination to recreate the outer world of nature in its full power and reality. His imagination draws on his subconscious to unearth and depict the raw imagery of the moment he chooses to witness. His focus is the relationship between the poet’s imagination and the natural world. Therefore, Hughes is only autobiographical when this can be used to enhance an image of nature, thus the focus of full moon and little Frieda is the relationship with the external environment. So whilst Plath’s poetry fits Warren’s quote, in the majority of cases Hughes’ poetry disagrees with it.
