For this week's analysis, I will use Sylvia Plath and Robert Lowell to discuss the amount of sentimentality in their poems, "Daddy" and "Water," respectively.
Sentimentality is said to be dangerous, and I think it is because the emotions can become quite repetitive and distasteful. If they delve too much and obsess with their emotions, it is difficult to have substantial meanings for the readers, who may or may not be able to relate to their feelings. It can also be emotionally draining. I can understand how reading an overly emotional poem can feel like a chore. However, on the other side, I enjoy reading poetry with so much emotion, because I myself am an emotional person [at least according to my personality test results]. I also write emotional poetry, and can only reread them when I am in the same mood. That is what poetry is to me, a literary outlet for our inner feelings.
I don't quite think Plath was successful about withholding sentimentality from "Daddy." The entire poem is bitter, hateful, and sometimes vulgar, compared to previous poems. For instance,
"There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through." [76-80]
It is obvious how she feels about her father. In my opinion, her sentimentality is what made the poem enjoyable for me. It is nice to read poems that incorporate personal feelings, because it makes me think that they are normal and have problems just like many people I know. I think there is a continuum of sentimentality, and Plath falls nicely between "mild" and "extreme."
Robert Lowell, though a great influence on Plath, just barely approaches the edge of sentimentality in "Water." That, or I am unaware of any hidden bitterness in the poem. He describes a scene in one particular town in Maine, about visiting a point where the sea meets the rock with another person [presumably female, since he writes that she dreamed of being a mermaid]. The poem seemed objective and purely descriptive until these lines:
"We wished our two souls
might return like gulls
to the rock. In the end,
the water was too cold for us." [29-32]
I was suddenly hit with a sympathetic, sad feeling. I wondered, What could this possibly mean? It can't be only literally interpreted, it must mean that they were never able to return to the rock, maybe because they had unresolved conflicts. Yes, I think it is a very subtle way of offering his emotions to the reader. He did not state it directly, and only at the end of the poem. I think this makes it more powerful for the reader, as a poem. Plath's expression of her emotions was powerful and unique to her. Lowell gives us the freedom of having our own emotions towards the poem.
Status: Graded on December 3, 2007 11:39 PM (Attempt #1)
Grade: 10 out of 10
Most Recent Comment:
sentimentality is a problem when the poem consumes itself with the emoter's emotional states only and fails to transcend that subject toward something more universal. another excellent essay from you.
