Van Dyck, Sir Anthony: Venetia Stanley, Lady Digby, on her Death-bed (1633)
<p>
This is how Sylvia Plath put it, hard and clear, in her last poem, "Edge":
"The woman is perfected./ Her dead/ Body wears the smile of accomplishment,/
The illusion of a Greek necessity/ Flows in the scrolls of her toga,/ Her
bare/ Feet seem to be saying:/ We have come so far, it is over.." Dead
indeed. The bare feet suggest the slab, which makes "toga" only a fine word
for a morgue shroud. And knowing what we do, about what the poet herself was
about to do, we can't help reading these lines as an imaginary, anticipatory
self-portrait, post mortem. The cause of death and of "the smile of
accomplishment" is suicide.
</p>
Read The Full StoryShare: Digg - del.icio.us - Stumble It - News Vine - buzz-itSource: Independent Published: Sunday 22nd of June 2008
Members: Save This Story
