Lesbos Lyrics

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About

Genius Annotation

Sylvia Plath wrote this poem during the period leading up to her death by suicide in February 1963. Her marriage to Ted Hughes was failing, but her heightened emotions and neuroses generated a creative outpouring.

The title is ironic. Lesbos is an island in the Aegean Sea, the home 2,500 years ago of the Greek poetess Sappho. Plath may be drawing a wry parallel between this talented woman and herself. Sappho was said to have “loved women”. This is also ironic as the relationship between the Sappho/Plath persona and her female adversary in the poem couldn’t be further from love or female solidarity.

This poem differs from most of her others in that she abandons her usual three, four or five lined stanzas — her characteristic organised structure — in favour of long stanzas and irregular length lines, as if to reflect her uncontrolled emotions. The poem is chaotic and venomous in its hatred of the domestic life she was leading, as expressed in her bitchiness and dislike of the family who provided her with hospitality.

The biographical information relating to this visit is worth reading. At the time of the break-up of her marriage Sylvia Plath packed her children and some pet kittens into the car and paid a visit to her friends, Marvin and Kathy Kane, who had moved to the Cornish coast. The title may be a derogatory reference to her friends, as Marvin is described as weak and “impotent” throughout the poem; hence they are two “lesbos”. Moreover, Plath herself can’t have been an easy guest, given her bitchiness and judgmental comments, not to mention the disruption caused by a toddler and a baby. This visit was clearly not a success.

The commentator states that “Sylvia Plath’s poems invite us to read them biographically”. This is true, and yet other commentators urge us to read Plath’s work with detachment. Her view of the world is always original, but often strange and distorted. In short, not to take the poems too literally.

This is born out by the fact that what she describes is a situation of domestic conflict, though it isn’t totally autobiographical. For example the girl is described as ‘schizophrenic’, while her daughter in life, Frieda, was certainly not. Plath here is railing against domesticity. Her negative feelings were exacerbated by the crisis in her marriage and the tensions generated by the visit. So, her anger and resentment are directed at her hostess and the emasculated husband. In reality, from her hosts' point of view, one wonders how easy it was to have a critical, judgemental guest with sick kittens and a tantrum-prone toddler. The picture is an exaggeration, expressing Plath’s pent-up emotions. While it conveys bitchy resentment it is also a diatribe against the drudgery and intellectual restrictions of domestic life.

The result is a work of humour, power and, given the tragedy that was to follow, deep sadness.

See Sylvia Plath: A Critical Study, Time Kendall, Faber and Faber

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