Philosophizing with Sylvia Plath

Abstract

Phenomenological approaches to philosophy share a commitment to describing phenomena as we encounter them in the world, existentialist phenomenology in particular. In this essay, I extend the theoretical commitments of phenomenology to an applied study of an individual poem in order to explore how we can understand a poem through the multiple aspects of our embodiment.1 are four overlapping and dynamic aspects of the body that are constantly at work: the rational (cognitive-linguistic), the social, the motor, and the perceptual. When we respond to a poem, our understanding is not a mental act narrowly conceived but rather a bodily event where we begin to see and act according to the poem given by the author. Merleau-Ponty's description of how we perceive visual artworks is instructive for this understanding of poetry: It is more accurate to say that I see according to it [the artwork], or with it, than that I see it.2 Phenomenology should not re- place other ways of understanding poetry, but it is an important resource for deepening our understanding of the gestural and embodied nature of language and speech. Phenomenology reveals that our experience of understanding a poem is an event that can be social, communal, and therefore speakable. A single artwork discloses concrete ideas and concepts through the lines of the work. A single artwork is not unlike a philosophical book or major article and requires the same careful attention and study. This means that the artwork receives the same degree of ontological status as a single philosophical text rather than being classified as a secondary source or illustration of a separate philosophical theory or school of thought. One challenge for this type of phenomenological-hermeneutic is to reveal the materiality of language usually suppressed and hidden in our calculative-rational discourse.3 Merleau-Ponty's late work on modernist painting helps us understand the act of understanding a poem. In our perception, receiving, and breathing in of a poem, we also come to see according to the lines, rhythms, and undulations of its lines. His remarks about painting and breath are quite revealing in this context, There really is inspiration and expiration of Being, action and passion so slightly discernible that it becomes impossible to distinguish between what sees and what is seen, what paints and what is painted (EM 167). Sylvia Plath's work has not yet received analysis specifically from philosophers, though scholars working in other disciplines, particularly in Literary and Feminist Theory, have revealed the philosophical depth of Plath's writings. Plath's poetic works were written before the emergence of second-wave feminism. She wrote during a time when possibilities for women and women writers were beginning to open. Early Plath scholarship tended to subsume the writer beneath the heavy burden of biographical curiosity. In particular, speculations concerning Plath's possible schizophrenia and manic-depression as well as her suicide attempts made it difficult to separate Plath the author from the speakers we encounter in her poetic works. Her marriage to British poet laureate Ted Hughes launched her into the literary elite while exposing her to scrutiny usually reserved for non-poets. Her eventual separation from Hughes as well as rumors of his infidelity and abuse continue to ignite attention from feminists, fans, and critics. The recent publication of Hughes' partly autobiographical Birthday Letters has only strengthened interest in Plath as well as her relationship with her recently deceased husband.4 But it is not surprising that critics and devotees of Plath's work emphasize the need for studies that do not conflate biography with poetry. In fact, the phenomenological approach I adopt in my meditations alongside Plath's poetry retrieves a spiritual dimension in her work. Though it is impossible to delineate a meaning of the spiritual that would lay out its necessary and sufficient conditions, by spiritual I mean a level of existence that that unites the bodily with the divine. …