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Gas fireplaces aspire to a lifestyle they cannot achieve, and keep contained the flames a real fireplace lets burn free. As such, they’re a perfect expression of the bourgeois spirit.
To make up for the honey I've taken.
Tate and Lyle keeps them going, Sylvia Plath – Wintering
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Tate and Lyle is a massive British-based agribusiness, one of the world’s leading suppliers of cane sugar. Plath is feeding her bees their Golden Syrup
to make up for absent honey.
The design on the tin of golden syrup is significant. Beneath a picture of a dead lion, bees are swarming; they have made a hive of the dead predator’s innards. The motto reads ‘Out of the strong came forth sweetness’, a biblical reference from Judges:14:14, the story of Samson’s riddle. Is this also Sylvia Plath’s riddle? A hidden message in the poem to convey her hopes for inner strength and a sweeter future?
Her wings torn shawls, her long body
Rubbed of its plush—
Poor and bare and unqueenly and even shameful. Sylvia Plath – Stings
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Though for years I have eaten dust
And dried plates with my dense hair. Sylvia Plath – Stings
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More terrible than she ever was, red
Scar in the sky, red comet Sylvia Plath – Stings
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What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
Sylvia compares the hive which now contains the bees to a coffin.
The suggestion of cold, which resembles the cold of death, implies that the coffin is her own; this is just one example of her confused identification with the bees as a group or as their queen.
The ending, a triplet of three questions, resumes the pattern of questions that characterize this poem. The last line is long and balanced, satisfying in terms of neat poetic construction, but tragic in meaning. Note also that, unlike the earlier questions, there is no question mark. It is as if the questioning is just a formality; she doesn’t truly need to ask as she knows the answers. The trajectory of the message is clear but not complete, as it will be picked up again in the next poem in the sequence of five.
My study looks something like this
Brandy all around, Ptarmigan. LieutenantShinySides (Ft. HailTheKing, Kaka_Sangura, Quikstik, Rap Genius Editors & Wild Rose Chance) – It's Not About The Coke: The Rap Genius Story
Brandy is a great restorative! I recommend it to everyone for shock!
There was a P.G. Wodehouse character who always wanted to be a butler named Ptarmigan. Somehow the name just fits
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This extended section is intended as a musical accompaniment to the Apocalypse, the dead rising from their graves and marching to the throne of the great Judge.
First we hear an offstage horn, a “voice crying in the wilderness” as a warning of the End.
Next is the Dies Irae theme from the first movement, repeated twice and interspersed with extensive fanfares. The second iteration, for soft brass, is notable for the unutterable beauty of its hymn-like harmonies.
This develops into a gigantic climax, filled with brass, cymbals, and tympani.
The next section is inaugurated with the “Great Tattoo,” two crescendi for solo percussion that might well be expected to wake the dead. Various march themes, some of which echo the first movement, then take centre stage. Bells peal as even the great men of the world are subject to God’s mighty judgement, and a mighty apotheosis of the Dies Irae theme is heard.
The offstage brass band comes into play, and after one last repetition of the “death shriek” they are left to represent the far-off sounds of turmoil, while a lone flute twitters in the foreground, as though a bird were the last living thing on earth. Finally it too falls silent.
What is this?
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This implies that she is too quick for him, and also suggests that she rejected his advances. He is ‘fainting’ from tiredness but also fear. His love for her is dangerous.
The rhythm is disrupted here from iambic pentameters to the trochaic ‘Fainting I follow’, with the emphasis on the first syllable. This gives extra weight to the idea of the poet’s anxiety and distress.
Note the alliterative ‘f’s in 'fleeth’, ‘afore’, ‘fainting’ and ‘follow’, to suggest the ‘wooshing’ sound of fast movement.
Note also the caesura after ‘follow’, as if the poet is catching his breath, fighting exhaustion.
The fricative alliteration shown in “fainting” and “followe” emphasises the breathlessness and exhaustion and the fact that he still continues with the “hunt” highlights his infatuation/obsession and addiction.