Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath Connections - Coggle Diagram
Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath Connections
Themes
sylvia plath themes
: the patriarchy, the body, motherhood
Patriarchy Example: "Daddy"
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48999/daddy-56d22aafa45b2
The body example: "Edge"
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49009/edge-56d22ab50bbc1
Motherhood example: "Morning song"
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49008/morning-song-56d22ab4a0cee
Major themes in Sylvia Plath's poetry centered around pain, death being her main focus. This can be explained by her multiple attempts at suicide throughout her life.
Emily Dickinson themes:
nature and self identity.
nature example: 'The Bee"
https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/bee/
self identity example: "The Soul Selects her own Society" and "I'm Nobody! Who are you?"
https://poets.org/poem/soul-selects-her-own-society-303
https://poets.org/poem/im-nobody-who-are-you-260
Emily Dickinsons poems included topics that she observed. The nature aspect of her poems exemplify this. In addition, she also wrote about things she knew of, including her own identity, love, and death
Themes in Common:
Love, Death
Death: (Emily Dickinson) "Because I could not stop for Death"
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47652/because-i-could-not-stop-for-death-479
Love: (Sylvia Plath) "Mad Girl's Love Song"
https://neuroticpoets.com/plath/poem/madgirl
Love: (Emily Dickinson) "Wild Nights- Wild Nights!"
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44087/wild-nights-wild-nights-269
Death: (Sylvia Plath): "Lady Lazarus"
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49000/lady-lazarus
personal background
Emily Dickinson
Upbringing
: Her parents were Edward and Emily Norcross Dickinson. She had two siblings, a brother and a sister. She attended Amherst District School, and Amherst Academy. Later, she attended Mount Holyoke Female Society.
Challenges:
the death of her family and friends impacted Dickinson's life from a young age. The death of her cousin, Sophia Holland, was thought to have sparked curiosity about death. In addition, Emily felt different from others around her. She wrote to her brother, "What makes a few of us so different from others? It's a question I often ask myself."
Sylvia Plath
challenges
: When Plath was eight, her father, Otto, died. She was left with many feelings of grief and anger. Througout her life she felt lonely and surrounded by death, similar to Emily Dickinson.
Upbringing
: her parents were Otto and Aurelia Plath. She was advanced in School, and was often praised by her teachers for her writing abilities. Her first poem was released when she was eight and a half, and her first story was published later in Seventeen Magazine. Plath went to Smith College on a scholarship.
Death
: both poets were surrounded by death since their childhood. Both of their poems reflect the death that surrounded them since a young age
Poetic Voice
Emily Dickinsons poems are typically in the first person, taking on the perspective of a singular or multiple people. They explore individual thoughts and ideas from observations they make from the world around them. Sometimes, Emily uses wit or humor to portray her message.
Example of observations
: "theres a certain slant of light,/ Winter Afternoons-/ That oppresses, like the Heft/"
Example
: "I dwell in possibility-/ A fairer House than Prose-/ More numerous of windows-/ Superior- for Doors" (from "I dwell in possibility"
Sylvia Plath uses first person singular and plural, using pronouns such as "I" and "we". In some poems, "The Applicant" and "Daddy", for example, she speaks directly to the reader or the subject of the poems, typically asking them questions.
Example
: "First, are you a sort of person?/ Do you wear/ A glass eye, false teeth, or a crutch" (from "the applicant")
Both Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath speak in the first person when writing poetry. The similarities in their voice connects the two poets. The use of the first person in Sylvia Plath's writing is reminiscent of Emily Dickinson's poetry
forms
Emily Dickinson
Rhyme: Emily Dickinson poems typically included rhymes on the last word of the second and fourth lines. She also incorporated slant rhymes into her poetry.
Meter: Most of Emily Dickinson's poems alternate between lines with six syllables and 8 syllables, a type of iambic meter. Emily's poems varied in meter occasionally.
Short Stanzas: Both Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath typically write poems with around 4 lines in each stanza
Sylvia Plath
Rhyme: Sylvia Plath poems don't typically contain a rhyme pattern; however, some lines rhyme randomly without a specific sequence. She uses perfect rhyme.
meter: Sylvia Plath uses a variety of meter forms. In "To Time" she uses iambic pentameter while "Lady Lazarus" is free verse.
techniques
Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath uses personification to give human like qualities to non human objects in her poetry. In "Mirror", the poem is written from the perspective of a mirror, giving it the human ability to think and speak.
Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson used dashes throughout her poetry to portray pauses instead of using periods or commas.
Emily Dickinson capitalized words in the middle of sentences, not only words at the beginning of a line.
figurative language
Emily Dickinson uses metaphors to show her feelings and connection towards death. An example is in her poem "Because I could not stop for death"
Sylvia Plath uses both metaphors and smilies in her writing. These are typically used to compare herself to objects or even her children to show a bigger message. In "Daddy" she uses imagery to compare herself to a foot stuck in her dad's shoe. This poem uses metaphors to show her negative feelings towards society.
The majority of Emily Dickinsons poems are untitled, and are usually referred to by the first line of the poem