Ariel by Sylvia Plath

This is first time I’ve properly sat down and read Ariel as a complete collection, and I wasn’t surprised by how immediately it clicked for me and how much I enjoyed it. Loved seeing Tulips, Daddy & other classic poems in-situ.

Reading this collection in December felt especially poignant. (Plath died in December 1963). Ariel was published posthumously in 1965.

Despite its beauty, I regret having the Ted Hughes–edited version rather than the later edition edited by her daughter, which follows a different sequence and is thought to be closer to Plath’s original intentions. I’d really like to seek that out and compare the two.

I think Sylvia Plath is a difficult writer to talk about because she’s such a cultural icon. Her work is often overshadowed by the mythology surrounding her life and death.

What I appreciated about finally reading Ariel in full was being able to hold both things at once: a real sense of sympathy and empathy for Plath as a person, alongside a deep admiration for the sheer muscularity and precision of her poetry. The control in these poems is astonishing.

The collection feels perfectly balanced: long enough to be substantial and immersive, but never so long that it becomes exhausting.

It covers an extraordinary range of emotions. One of the unexpected highlights for me was the bees sequence!

Ariel is for me was more complex, more varied, and in some ways, more hopeful, than maybe Plath’s reputation suggests.

One word: muscular.