Plath: “Daddy” and “Medusa

In 1965, two years after Sylvia Plath’s death, Ted Hughes published Ariel. This was her second collection of poetry—her first was The Colossus (1960)—but it’s the collection that elevated her reputation and established her as a literary genius. In organizing Ariel for publication, Hughes dropped twelve poems that Plath intended to include, and he replaced them with twelve later… Continue reading Plath: “Daddy” and “Medusa

Poe: The Raven

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary/Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—so reads, arguably, the most famous couplet in American poetry. It’s surely is the most famous quotation in Edgar Allan Poe’s oeuvre. One doesn’t have to be a literary scholar to recognize it and know that… Continue reading Poe: The Raven