In the humid dawn, the blue-black water is melting into blue-black water.
The trees on the mist-absorbing paper
It looks like a plant painting——
The memory is growing, one circle after another,
< p> A series of weddings.
Don’t know abortion and resentment,
More real than women,
They sow seeds so effortlessly
Tasting the legless wind
Half-body immersed in history -
Full of wings from another world.
In this they are leaders.
O Mother of Leaves and Sweetness
Who are these Pietà images?
The shadows of the turtledoves sing, but do nothing to relieve their sorrow.
(Translated by Zheng Min)
Notes:
Lida was possessed by Jupiter in the form of a swan *** .
Appreciation
As the most typical female poet of the American confessional school, Plath’s large number of poetry creations were inspired by the trend of reconstructing female culture. His early poems imitated Yeats, Auden and Eliot, and his poetic style tended to be abstruse and academic. He deliberately broke away from the constraints of logic and grammar, and used simple colloquial language and grotesque symbols to frankly explore personal privacy, inner pain, and crime. Psychology, suicidal emotions and even sexual impulses are integrated into the poetry, blending art and madness with a strong color of expressionism. She is obsessed with exploring the chaos in the relationship between the self and the objective world, almost pushing the tragic self-revelation of confessional poetry to the extreme, believing that the self and the world are combined by pain. In her works, she expresses a kind of rebellion against concepts such as war, maternal love, and love that have always been praised and sanctified in patriarchal culture. She uses a challenger attitude to question the history of literature and various sacred idols in history. and ridicule. She seeks self and the meaning of life based on personal experience, and describes specious wisdom, disordered psychology and hallucinations that are out of the normal mind. Her poems are far away from the wider life experience, and in the narrow self (and at the same time) Excavation in a vast area and digging deeper is her only way out.
"Winter Tree" was written in November 1962, after she learned that her husband had cheated on her and took away the children and separated from her. This poem, like "Munich Female Model", is the culmination of the poet's "desperate period" before his suicide. But compared with other works, this poem is written in a relatively macro and calm manner, with relatively few curses and resentments. Perhaps this is also related to the subject matter of the poem and the religious images involved in the poem, which give the work a sense of It is similar to the emotional tone of "resentment but not anger, sadness but not sadness". The most intense statement in the work is probably "I don't know abortion and resentment,/are more real than women." At first glance, it seems like the irresponsible nonsense of a male poet, but since it comes from the mouth of a woman, this sentence is Even more ironic. Its underlying meaning is probably a kind of imitation of male discourse, showing the image of women in men's thinking, allowing people to understand men's personal concepts more immersively. In the eyes of men, women only know "abortion" and "resentment", among which "bitchery" means "the behavior of a bitch", and some versions are also translated as "debauchery", "***" or "***", etc. But "abortion" itself is caused by indulgence in lust (or even prostitution). Men are obviously more active in the process. Afterwards, only women not only have to taste the bitter fruit, but also bear the charge of "promiscuity". Men Then you can escape without leaving any trace, and your narrow-mindedness, meanness, shamelessness and self-centeredness are fully exposed here. Trees do not have human worries, so they can naturally maintain a more leisurely, independent and "real" image, and can "sow seeds effortlessly / taste the wind that does not grow feet". Although the images with religious connotations are "sad but not sad", they also contain a melancholic mood, "covered with the wings of another world. / In this regard, they are Lida", Lida is a typical " The "insulted and damaged" female image was deceived into giving birth to the offspring of Zeus (Jupiter), the head of the male rulers. The poet here seems to want to show that the pollination and results between trees are often passive and unknowing. , as "the mother of leaves and sweetness", they may also have the experience of "Lamentation of Jesus Christ", so "the shadows of the turtledoves are singing, but they do not help relieve sorrow", "turtledove" is a symbol of love and loyalty, "turtledove" "Their Shadow" can be understood as the followers of loyal love, thus implying that even if women receive loyal love, it cannot alleviate the pain of childbirth or even the loss of a child.
In addition, this poem is also worthy of praise for its artistic imagination. The poet carries the image of "tree" throughout the article, expressing its inherent characteristics in a new way, which is clever and precise without losing its beauty. There are two beautiful sentences at the beginning. The first one is "In the moist dawn, the blue and black water is melting into blue and black."
/Groups of trees on fog-absorbing paper/look like plant paintings.” First, the brightening of the dawn is compared to the gradual spreading of moist blue ink, and then the background of the “blotting paper (rice paper)” is used to make the trees appear The form of the picture is highlighted, which itself introduces the scenery into the painting; and the essence of "blotting paper" is "fog", and there are many similarities between the two. For example, the blur of fog corresponds to the roughness and water-smellability of blotting paper, etc. , forming a corresponding relationship similar to "synesthesia", followed by "memory is growing, one circle after another, / a series of weddings", and the trees will increase one circle each year after experiencing pollination, mating, flowering and fruiting. The annual rings experience a "wedding" every year, so the annual rings become witnesses of the "wedding". Since the poet basically uses trees to symbolize women in the entire work, the wedding experience remains in the memory of women. It is as clear and profound as the growth rings of trees. The following "Half-body Immersed in History" is based on the tree taking root in the soil, showing that its position is caused by years of growth and cannot be changed like history; as mentioned above. The word "covered with wings from another world" seems to be used to describe the lushness of leaves, and also implies that wings are not born with Lida, but are the incarnation of Zeus for seduction. Therefore, the lushness of trees can also be attributed to the power of sexual intercourse. The result. Most of the meanings implied by these associations seem to explore the relationship between women and "sex", as well as the injuries suffered in "sex", which are still closely related to the poet's concepts and stance when reading this poem. Traveling in an extremely sharp spiritual conflict - short and concise lines, inspiring metaphors and violent images, jumping syllables corresponding to conflicting emotions, a huge, but undoubtedly restrained pain in those who The rush and conflict in the poems, you can touch it so clearly and be burned by it - this kind of restraint is natural and invisible.
Plath can be regarded as the 1960s*. ** A spokesperson for confusion, dreams and disillusionment, she wrote poetry until her death in 1963, using dissonant and sometimes morbid imagery to convey the loneliness and general sense of powerlessness experienced by women in postwar America.
(Lv Qing)