Aspects of Pastoral in Sylvia Plath's 'Child'

Abstract

This article considers Sylvia Plath's late poem, ‘Child’, in terms of its relations with some pastoral motifs and conventions. In particular, Plath's use of floral imagery in her many presentations of children locates the work in a pastoral tradition which includes, for example, Marvell and Blake, but is closer in its depiction of landscape, and in register, to the early Americans Edward Taylor and Anne Bradstreet. Plath's use of the unusual wildflower, the Indian pipe, references not only the American landscape, but also the work of Emily Dickinson. Plath's interest in the eye-like form of the Indian pipes suggests, also, an engagement with Emerson, but her dystopian anti-pastoral vision reverses Emersonian optimism. ‘Child’ is not simply, or not solely, an untroubled blessing for a child. Drawing on the heightened sense of both function and artifice associated with pastoral elegy, Plath allows her writing to register the fact that her poetry may be unable to do any good, or may even to do harm. The salient point is not that ‘Child’ was written so close to her death, but that it is a post-Ariel poem representing an impressive development from what is, anyway, a remarkable volume.