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Ariel [Paperback]

Sylvia Plath (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
RRP: £9.99
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Book Description

Publication Date: 1968

The poems in Sylvia Plath's Ariel, including many of her best-known such as 'Lady Lazarus', 'Daddy' and 'Fever 103 degrees', were all written between the publication in 1960 of Plath's first book, The Colossus, and her death in 1963.

'If the poems are despairing, vengeful and destructive, they are at the same time tender, open to things, and also unusually clever, sardonic, hardminded . . . They are works of great artistic purity and, despite all the nihilism, great generosity . . . the book is a major literary event.' A. Alvarez in the Observer

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Frequently Bought Together

Ariel + Birthday Letters + The Bell Jar
Price For All Three: £18.33

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  • Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes Paperback £7.58
  • The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath Paperback £3.86

Product details

  • Paperback: 86 pages
  • Publisher: Faber and Faber (1968)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0571086268
  • ISBN-13: 978-0571086269
  • Product Dimensions: 13.1 x 19.9 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 6,623 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Sylvia Plath
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Product Description

Amazon Review

Sylvia Plath churned out her final poems at the remarkable rate of two or three a day, masterworks Robert Lowell describes as written by "hardly a person at all...but one of those super-real, hypnotic, great classical heroines." Even more remarkable, she wrote them during one of the coldest, snowiest winters (1962-63) Londoners have ever known. Snowbound, without central heating, she and her two children spent much of their time sniffling, coughing, or running temperatures (In "Fever 103°" she writes, "I have been flickering, off, on, off on. / The sheets grow heavy as a lecher's kiss."). Pipes froze, lights failed, and candles were unobtainable.

As if these physical privations weren't enough, Plath was out in the cold in another sense--her husband, Ted Hughes, had left her for another woman earlier that year. Despite all this (or perhaps because of it), the Ariel poems dazzle with their lyricism, their surprising and vivid imagery, and their wit. Rather than confining herself to her bleak surroundings, Plath draws from a wide array of experience. In "Berck-Plage," for instance, clouds are "electrifyingly-coloured sherbets, scooped from the freeze." In "The Night Dances," the poet stands crib-side, revelling in her son's own brand of do-si-do: "Such pure leaps and spirals--Surely they travel / The world forever, I shall not entirely / Sit emptied of beauties, the gift / Of your small breath..."

Though at times they present the reader with hopelessness laid bare, these poems also teem with the brightest shards of a life, confounding those who merely look for the words of a gloomy, dispassionate suicide. Plath rose each morning in the final months of her life to "that still blue, almost eternal hour before the baby's cry" and left us these words like "axes/After whose stroke the wood rings..." --Martha Silano

Review

"Sylvia Plath's last poems have impressed themselves on many readers with the force of myth. They are among the handful of writings by which future generations will seek to know us and give us a name."-- "Critical Quarterly""It is fair to say that no group of poems since Dylam Thomas's "Deaths and Entrances" has had as vivid and disturbing an impact on English critics and readers as has "Ariel." Sylvia Plath's poems have already passed into legend as both representative of our present tone of emotional life and unique in their implacable, harsh brilliance...These poems take tremendous risks, extending Sylvia Plath's essentially austere manner to the very limit. They are a bitter triumph, proof of the capacity of poetry to give to reality the greater permanence of the imagined. She could not return from them."-- George Steiner, "The Reporter" --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
65 of 67 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful. And important. 7 Jan 2005
By Dog in a Flat Cap
Format:Hardcover
I have read Plath inside out and backwards, and intermittently for eight years (I discovered her at the age of 22). She is now the subject of the final chapter of my thesis, which i am just preparing for submission. My PhD supervisor encouraged me to buy this book for the sake of my thesis, although I was reluctant to buy yet another book (funds are very limited!). After all, I already had the 'Collected Poems' which lists the poems in the order plath wanted at the back of the book; I am familiar with all of them. Furthermore, I have owned and lost no less than three copies of the published 'Ariel' owing to my habit of carrying it about places with me! (Please be assured I am not some suicide-obsessed pseudo-goth.) However, this book is superb. even though I knew the correct order of the poems, reading them like this is a completely different experience. The foreword by Frieda Hughes is extremely touching, showing her troubled loyalty to both parents (Ted Hughes, who of course edited the first publication of Ariel, leaving out about a dozen of the poems that he felt were inflammatory; and including in their place some of her very last, extremely depressed/depressing works that were written shortly before her death) who have for forty years been set one against the other in the popular imagination. The trajectory of the restored text takes you down before taking you up again, famously (as noted by Hughes in his foreword to the 'Collected Poems') beginning with the word 'love' and ending with 'spring'; this being precisely as Plath desired.
Whether or not you feel you wish to add this book to your collection is impossible for me to judge, but I consider this to be an essential bookshelf item, and furthermore ought to be read alongisde the prior version of 'Ariel'. The latter ends on a note so hopeless - precluding all possibility - that it shuts down on the reader like a lens. This restored text opens up a horizon. For those more interested in suicide (or what Frieda Hughes called in a poem of her own, a 'sylvia suicide doll') than in poetic or writerly integrity, then perhaps this book is not the best choice. For anyone interested more in the poetry, however, and in what it meant for this woman to write,and what it has meant that her words were compromised, then I recommend it. But whether you buy it or not, it's absolutely right and proper that this book be published.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars At last - Ariel as Plath intended 23 Feb 2005
By Ms. Felicia Davis-burden VINE™ VOICE
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
We finally have Ariel as Sylvia Plath intended it - the poems in the order left in her black ring binder in 1963. This powerful collection should be savoured and treasured more than it is. Additionally, the forward by Freida Hughes is an insightful personal memoir. Worth all the waiting.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars The Cauldron of Morning 17 April 1998
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Sylvia Plath is, by far, one of my very favorite poets of the twentieth century. In "Ariel," Plath combines mythology, biblical stories and her own private demons in a rare concoction of an art that can never be emulated. One can read her poems at many levels and still find breakthrough significance in them. Many critics have recently disclosed that Plath may have suffered from enhanced symptoms of PMS, which would have caused her roller coaster mood swings so apparent in her poems. "Ariel" is especially interesting to read in correlation to "Letters Home." It is a great work.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars Missing the 'Forward' by Frieda Hughes
Why is this version missing the Forward by Frieda Hughes, when several reviewers specifically commented on it's poignancy? The omission in my copy is most annoying.
Published 1 month ago by Bellabeck
5.0 out of 5 stars gates
I enjoyed reading this and it is just what I needed! I have not yet completed reading, but you can dip in and out.
Published 2 months ago by Julia Gates
4.0 out of 5 stars Good
I think Sylvia Plath ignited my love for poetry as i read 'Lady lazarus' and was touched by the deep and raw emotion that came through the pages. Read more
Published 3 months ago by FanOfThings
2.0 out of 5 stars Truly Odd
Although Plath is an acclaimed poet, I didn't enjoy this at all. I feel it was too clever for its own good. Read more
Published 6 months ago by A N EFFAT
5.0 out of 5 stars Best poetry book ever writen...
Regarding previous editions of Ariel, I was beautifully surprised to acknowledged three main novelties in this restored edition: (1) the original selection of poems, as in the... Read more
Published 20 months ago by Charles DePaulo
5.0 out of 5 stars Ariel: The Director's Cut
The best single collection of poetry natively written in the English language, barring "Complete Poems of" collections. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Failed Writer
4.0 out of 5 stars Value for money
I bought this when in college doing A Level English, so had to buy it rather than out of choice. However compared to book stores the price was fantastic. Read more
Published on 4 Mar 2011 by Sarah
2.0 out of 5 stars Full of harsh beauty but too obscure for me
After reading the other reviews I think I'm a bit of a Philistine so far as Sylvia Plath is concerned. Read more
Published on 16 Aug 2010 by Suzie
4.0 out of 5 stars A marvellous read!
Sylvia Plath was an excellent poet, even if she is sometimes very difficult to comprehend.
But AMAZON, you need to get your act together! Read more
Published on 1 Feb 2010 by Henrik Both Bisbo
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful, raw, urgent poems that should be read.
I have always loved Plath's poetry and her anthology 'Ariel' is her poetry at its very best. Written during a difficult period in her life, these poems have a rawness and energy... Read more
Published on 4 May 2009 by Alice Song
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