Examining the Bee series of Sylvia Plath’s poetry.
This paper looks at how Plath uses the analogy of bees in a series of poems which describe her personal life in the poetry. The writer provides some examples of the poetry and analyzes some specific lines.
`It has been said that Sylvia Plath’s Bee poems were the culmination of her poetic genius. Plath in fact hints in her autobiography The Bell Jar that she indeed realized her writing acumen at the point when this short collection of works was completed. Plath wrote this sequence of five poems over the course of one week. The poetic works mark the movement of Plath to a state of inner realization and conscious self and a movement away from a preoccupation with her relations with others, especially her ex-husband and ties to all men. In fact the sequence moves from one of community to solitude as exhibited by the final poem, Wintering. In fact, Wintering most evidently relates the transition and putting away of Plath’s old life, poetry and notions and desire to move ahead into a new world of self-discovery.`