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Sylvia Plath, "Morning Song"

BIOGRAPHY

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The personal story

Sylvia Plath's poems are often very personal, and this is no exception, as she wrote it soon after the birth of her first child, a daughter, in 1960, two months after she signed a publishing contract for The Colossus. She was proud that her creativity included children as well as her poetry. Yet it is hard to read any of her poems, including this one, without being aware of her later suicide. Write a paper exploring her possible frame of mind while writing this poem, but beware of reading into it too much of what was yet to happen. Read through the biographical materials online and in your text. In the library look for letters to Plath's mother (Letters Home) and her journal at this time of her life. Two student essays take issue with some of the common responses to this poem: one by Michelle Kinsey-Clinton and one by Daniele DiGiacomo. Write a paper exploring the poem and its possible meaning in response to your reading of these materials.

Comparisons

The title of the poem suggests a subtle comparison or contrast to an aubade, a poem about dawn, a morning love song, or a poem about the parting of lovers at dawn. Several such poems which Plath knew well were Theodore Roethke's "Waking" (LIT 1002) and the morning poems in your anthology, William Shakespeare's "Full many a glorious morning have I seen" (LIT 907, LITS 679),  and John Donne's "The Good-Morrow" (LIT 891, LITS 679). Consider similarities and differences in style and theme of "Morning Song" and one or two of these poems.

The anthology has an extensive section on Plath's poem "Daddy" (LIT 1205, LITS 926) in which she writes as the child to the parent. How do you imagine these two poems "talking to each other" in the poet's mind? Consider how she uses metaphors in both.  Another poem, "Mirror" (LIT 882), might be considered in relationship to the third stanza of "Morning Song." Browse through one of the online collections of Plath's poems and locate a poem in which you find one or more similarities to the style, metaphors, or theme of "Morning Song."

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