poetry texts, poem archive at plagiarist.com

i think this is comparing a romance with changing seasons

I like it! I do not love it, but it is definitely good! It sounds a lot like a girl in the uproar and tumult of love. You see many of those types of situations these days. They think they love the man, but once they have made a commitment, their emotions go running wild like a tyrannosaurus let out of his pen.

What? When were dinosaurs ever kept in pens? Neither contributor seems to have read the poem with any degree of care. There are a number of facts that have been completely overlooked. Firstly, ‘particular girl’ carries the sense of a specific person, but also the idea that she is ‘particular’ in the sense of being fastidious or too exacting. If the suitor is her ‘latest’, then she has obviously repeated the process a number of times. And so on. The key line is the last one. Her fear of anything that threatens her ultimately life-denying need for order and neatness causes her to admit nothing. So she is protected but at the cost of also not admitting love.
I can’t believe that Plath is particularly sympathetic to this girl. The word ‘intolerably’ suggests affectation and she does come across as prissy. To contain “each sentiment within border” is obviously to limit it and ‘frosty’ is certainly pejorative.

If you ever get back to this page and read this i just want to say "Chill out!" Its just a poem don't know have to criticise other people's opinion about things. And I think you're pretty homo for trying to SHOW off, but I admire your deep insite to the poem. Congrats!

I agree very much with Andrew Mayers' acute assessment of the ironic, critical message behind "Spinster." At the same time, however, I agree with "anonymous" that he is being unnecessarily hostile and dismissive towards the perfectly worthwhile comments of the previous posters.

Nevertheless, I would not use "homo" as an alternative word for "arrogant" or "vain" or whatever it is "anonymous" is saying. Using that as a derogatory word, whether you mean it to be or not, is damaging and hurtful to unkown numbers of people around you. I would hope that someone with the intellect and sensitivity to appreciate poetry would be able to understand that once it was pointed out.

Anyway, I just love the line, "The whole season, sloven." Such a perfect, amusing illustration of this woman's unbounded, yet eloquent, fastidiousness.

okay, I came here trying to understand the poem, and maybe cheat alittle, it's all good. But what the frick? It's just hostile in here. I mean hardcore. I think some ppl need to get lives. And with that said. . . woop woop.

Alright, i'm a student in my last year at high school and doing the International Baccalaureate program. Just two weeks ago i had to give an important oral on this poem, and may i say, that if any of you had to do it, you would have probably all (except maybe the andrew boy) failed...and very horribly too. Before trying to analyze a poem, you should be sure to re read it atleast two times, and underline the aspects that you think stand out. Imagery, symbolism, rythm, diction, theme, rhyme, form, and the speaker should all be taken under consideration. While i am open to the fact that everyone is entitled to analyze a poem in their own personal ways, it is especially important

get lives? if you think that poetry is boring then leave the people that love it alone, you're obviously climbing our shoulders to get around your school assignments anyway. you probably owe people with no lives a debt of gratitude. whether you enjoy poetry or think that people who read poetry shouldn't feel passionate about it is your opinion I guess, but then it's just as legitimate to say that people who don't understand the underlying meaning and feeling behind poetry are idiots. Please do not take that comment personally, but I feel that I have been insulted for wanting to enjoy the art and human creativity that comes from the clever manipulation of words. If I wanted to read something that was straight-forward and cliche then I would just watch tv all day long.

i read poetry on the side and not for any particular academic reason. i agree with andrew and selma very much though. i'm not an idiot and sylvia plath is far from mundane. although it does not offend me that someone interpreted spinster as a so-called "uproar and tumult of love", it bothers me that they might have missed Plath's point, or read it at a face value that was parralel with their own feelings and not the feelings of the author. I'm sure there are easily millions of poems that have to do with love, as many poems as there are about rain. I think anyone, including me, would be afraid that someone who saw the poem only as that would have made a gross misjudgment. plath probably had more to say then just that, as all real poets or writers are in a constant struggle with cliches, and great thinkers have been elaborating on love for centuries. chilling out is ok I guess, but if someone is misreading one of the more brilliant poets of our century, saying that "Lord of the Flies" is just the story of some boys who get stuck on an island, then you're missing a lot. I think it's funny that some people call critical commentary harsh.

In my opinion, and of course I may be wrong, Plath was never at ease with her longings or her relationship to the values of her contemporary, patriarchal society. It seems to me the very word, spinster, indicates some misgivings about love and the courting ritual, as it is often used in a derogatory way. I do not think this poem evokes a particular fondness of the tumult and reeling that love usually amounts to. this is one of my favorite poems and one of the handful that I think I can glean an understanding of. I definitely do not think it is about being in love.

sorry if i have offended anyone. i did not mean to.

Don't bother being obsessed on her frostiness. What you have to appreciate is that love is very threatening to women in a very real, biological sense. That's why she's scared to lie down in the tumultuous growth of summer -- chances are, she may end up dead. Pre pill Copulation simply dictated that women be choosy and darn sure of their choice. Doi. Does that make any sense. They have to overcome genetic memory of eons to be as free as men, that's my opinion.

i realize some of my typograhpical errors in the previous comment. I didn't proofread until I had it sent. hopefully it does not obscure what i meant to say. sorry about that people.