1) Research something from the Sylvia Plath website http://www.sylviaplath.info
OR
2) Research something interesting about John Keats or Fanny Brawne and post it
OR
3) Be a vocab sleuth and look up for us and post:
acanthus (p.3: Colossus)
tumuli (20)
acanthine (21)
Oresteia (21)
Lorelei (22)
scrim (22)
whorled (23)
descant (23)
hebetude(23)
gimcrack (29)
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October 19, 2009 at 2:18 AM
When reading Plath’s biography, as many people have already stated, I was very surprised to read about the normal life Plath led. Not only did Plath lead a normal life, but she also excelled in her studies. For me it was also very interesting reading about Plath because she lived in Massachusetts, which made her story much more relatable, as I understood many references made regarding the Ma. area. The biography also helped me to make connections between Plath’s poetry and her life, as many of her poem referred to bees. The biography talks about work her father did with bees, providing me with context for subjects in some of Plath’s writings.
October 18, 2009 at 9:00 PM
As others have pointed out, Plath’s biography suggests she was an intelligent and thoughtful girl, who appeared to lead a normal, at times lighthearted, life. So my question is the same as Gordie’s: was there a specific event in her life that led her to write so darkly? Her biography discusses her struggle to find her “poetic voice.” I would be interested to see some of her earlier work (pre-voice) and see how it compares to her later and more famous works. I also agree with what many of you said about the “Colossus” and how it most likely refers to her trying to piece together a father she never really knew, because knowing now that he died while she was young removes the question of hostility towards him. It will be cool to look more at this relationship, maybe through other poems addressed to her father.
October 16, 2009 at 9:09 AM
I was surprised when reading through the biography of Plath and seeing how “normal” of a household she grew up in. I agree with Gordie i saying that there must have been some event in her life that changed her to write as she did. Agreeing with Tarun and many others, her father dying at age 8 definitely is the reason why she did not get to meet who her father really was. This further more backs up why she wrote “The Colossus”. The image posted of the Colossus is very important to the reason why she named her book this. It reminds me of the broken images she has of her father,
October 16, 2009 at 9:08 AM
I read Plath’s biography on the website. While she only wrote 22 poems in 1961, I was surprised that she was able to write 25 poems in the month of October 1962 alone. She also had had an unfaithful husband in 1962.
The method of suicide seems weird with sticking her head in a gas oven. I don’t think I would be able to do that because I would have suffered from pain and stopped the process. I also do not see why see would commit suicide if she has children who are dependent on her.
October 16, 2009 at 8:58 AM
I looked at the website on Sylvia Plath and started reading through her biography. I thought it interesting that Plath’s father was a professor at Boston University and I wonder if there are any allusions to this in “The Colossus” as a poem or as a book in general. I was also surprised by the fact that Plath’s earlier poetry was very formal and “pretty” at first because this is not a characteristic of the poetry in “The Colossus.” This led me to wonder why her poetry changed to become darker and more pessimistic: was there a defining moment in her life that introduced this transformation or was the change more gradual?
October 16, 2009 at 8:52 AM
As Laura said and in contrast to Kerrin, I am not a hopeless romantic. In fact, when watching the movie I was more interested in the relationship dynamic, the mysterious disease that John Keats became ill with, and the real history behind the relationship of Keats and his best friend. However, I decided to focus solely on the relationship dynamic between Keats and Fanny Brawne. First, I found out that Keats had a sister, who was oddly enough named Fanny, and she was Brawne’s main contact after Keats died. Speaking of his death, it was unclear to me what sickness he had. Maybe I missed it or something, but apparently he was dying of tuberculosis. I also found that the reason that Keats preferred not to marry was not just because he was poor, but because he wanted to appreciate beauty; which is interesting to me because when watching the movie I always found Keats affection towards Brawne was more along the lines of an admiration of a beautiful object. Especially with how gently he kissed her, touched her, and spoke to her. He treated her like a new bottle of rare pen ink that should not be contaminated. Also, I found this really funny: after Keats left she said something about how she wouldn’t tease or flirt with another man, because she only wanted Keats. I remember how vividly adamant she was about this, literally screaming this; yet I think that in order for her to have three children and get married in 1833, more than just a little teasing and flirting had to have taken place.
Site: http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/fanny.html
October 16, 2009 at 7:50 AM
Guilty as charged, I am not a hopeless romantic. That being said, I found the relationship between John Keats and Fanny Brawne very interesting. In my research, I found that Keats and Brawne didn’t marry because of Keat’s illness AND his “literary ambition”. From watching the movie, I was convinced his ailing health was the main reason for abstaining from marriage. Hearing of his ambition getting in the way was very surprising to me.
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/66
October 15, 2009 at 11:08 PM
I found it interesting that Fanny kept all the love letters that Keats had sent her. Its not the fact that she kept them that intrigued me so much as the fact that these letters would later become some of Keats’ most revered works. In the movie we saw that Keats’ letters meant a lot to Fanny, but I did not expect these letters to be studied by poets in the future.
http://englishhistory.net/keats/fannybrawne.html
October 15, 2009 at 11:04 PM
I chose to research John Keats, and I simply “googled” his name and was directed to his website. On the site (http://www.john-keats.com/) i found lots of really interesting material which included a full biography, the poems he wrote, and all the letters he wrote to his colleagues. I was very struck by all the personal letters he wrote. Some of them were written to Fanny Brawne, Percy Shelley, and John Hamilton Reynolds just to name a few. His letters to Fanny Brawne are very touching and he expresses his passion for her in the most “real” and beautiful way. I almost feel as if I was never meant to read these letters, but at the same time it is really interesting to see into the life and love of John Keats.
October 15, 2009 at 11:48 PM
Keats’s famous epitaph…
http://www.famousquotes.me.uk/epitaphs/10.htm
October 15, 2009 at 11:01 PM
Guilty as charged, I’m a hopeless romantic. Naturally this means that I was particularly riveted during “Bright Star”, despite the lengthiness. With that said, “Pride and Prejudice” is one of my favorite movies and I couldn’t help but draw a comparison between the two, especially upon reading more about Fanny Brawne. Looking beyond the similar setting, costumes, and story line, the greatest similarity I saw between the two stories was the quirky women. In an online biography of Fanny (englishhistory.net), describes her as having “a casual, flirtatious attitude with other men”. This source also said that “She both confused and exasperated Keats, and therein lay her attraction. He simply could not understand her.” Elizabeth Bennett was strong willed and headstrong and while Fanny Brawne didn’t necessarily have the same rebelliousness, she had her own elusiveness and individuality that reminded me of Elizabeth.
On a more concrete note, Fanny was quite young when their passionate relationship developed, making the story that much more exciting and intriguing for a dedicated drama junkie like yours truly.
October 15, 2009 at 11:37 PM
How old was she??
October 15, 2009 at 9:01 PM
Image of The Colossus:
http://www.wildhunt.org/uploaded_images/smallcolossalhead-715467.jpg
October 15, 2009 at 8:57 PM
Going in a different direction than Nick, Gus and Tarun…I looked up the poem that Fanny first read of John Keats. I remembered it was “Endymion” because my 8th grade English teacher had us memorize the beginning of the poem. As far as I know, this is one, if not the, most famous John Keats poem. I pasted the first stanza below in case you all wanted to read it again.
A THING of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. 5
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o’er-darkened ways 10
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils 15
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
’Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms 20
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven’s brink.
October 15, 2009 at 9:04 PM
Wallis– Thanks–I had forgotten how gorgeous that really is… isn’t it the beginning that Fanny says is “perfect”? (Also, cite!!! We have to get in the habit of leaving good fingerprints as we take things off the internet and post them…)
October 15, 2009 at 8:56 PM
I found a website that had some pretty interesting but random facts about John Keats. While they don’t have any particular relevance to his poetry, they are still pretty cool. The first is that John Keats was only 5’1″. I think in the movie the actor who played Keats was average height and I wonder if they ever considered using a shorter actor to play him. Another fun fact was that Keats only wrote poetry from when he was twenty-one until his death at twenty-six. It might have said this in the movie, but I did not catch it if it did. Before he was a poet, Keats was a surgeon. Also, all of his famous poems were written when he was 23 and 24.
October 15, 2009 at 9:05 PM
What was the website? It would be great to have the link embedded in your post– can you still do that? If not, just leave a new reply, I guess… (still learning
)
October 15, 2009 at 9:47 PM
http://www.enotes.com/authors/john-keats
October 15, 2009 at 8:20 PM
I think Tarun makes a very good point. When I first read the poem “The Colossus”, I thought it was about her struggling relationship with her belief in God. I knew she had some mental stability issues and that she talked about God in other poems, such as “Sow.” After class, I definitely agree that is about the father and I, too, thought that she struggled to have a good relationship with her father, but the fact that he died when she was 8 explains it. Does anyone think there is anything in “The Colossus” or any other poems they might explain her relationship with her father further?
October 15, 2009 at 7:58 PM
I did some research on Sylvia Plath and was surprised to discover that her father died when she was only 8 years old. Yesterday when we analyzed “The Colossus”, I think we all believed that Plath was talking about her inability to have a relationship with her father. I took that to mean that the two were at odds with each other, but after learning that Plath lost her father at the age of 8, maybe “The Colossus” refers to the fact that Plath misses her father. Maybe she can’t establish a good relationship with him because he was only in her life for 8 years.
October 15, 2009 at 7:27 PM
Vocabulary Words from Colossus
1. Acanthus (p.3: Colossus) : any plant of the genus Acanthus having large spiny leaves and spikes or white or purplish flowers; native to Mediterranean region; a minor character in Greek mythology. She was a nymph loved by Apollo, the sun god
2. Tumuli (20): a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds; a heap of earth placed over prehistoric tombs
3. Acanthine (21): resembling the plant acanthus
4. Oresteia (21): a trilogy of Greek tragedies written by Aeschylus, which concerns the end of the curse on the House of Atreus ; an opera in three parts, eight tableaux, with music by Sergei Taneyev, composed during 1887-1894
5. Lorelei (22): a Siren of German legend who lured boatmen in the Rhine to destruction
6. Scrim (22): a firm open-weave fabric used for a curtain in the theater, Finely woven fabric which can be translucent or opaque using lighting from different angles, modifies properties of light
7. Whorled (23): coiling: in the shape of a coil; Three or more leaves arranged in a whorl around the stem
8. Descant (23): a melodic part pitched higher than and concurrent with the melody; A lengthy discourse on a subject, a voice (cantus) above or removed from others
9. Hebetude (23): mental lethargy, dullness, stupidity.
10. Gimcrack (29): Tastelessly showy, ornamental objects of no great value
October 15, 2009 at 8:57 PM
Source?? Please cite your source for these SUPERB definitions!
October 18, 2009 at 8:33 PM
dictionary.com
google.com using define:
wikipedia.com