Ariel

This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary.
The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.

"The Moon and the Yew Tree"

Ariel is a collection of poetry by Sylvia Plath. Published posthumously, it's her most well known work (well, that or The Bell Jar), and her most critically acclaimed. Ariel is generally regarded to be one of the most important books of poetry of the twentieth century.

Ariel was originally published in 1965, two years after Plath died, by her husband Ted Hughes. However, the contents of this edition weren't exactly what Plath wrote the contents were to be, and another version (called "The Restored Edition") was published in 2004, with Plath's original table of contents.

Not to be mistaken for the Shakespeare character, the Disney Princess, the Lawrence Block novel, or the songs by Dean Friedman and October Project.

Tropes used in Ariel include:
  • Audio Adaptation: Sylvia Plath read several of the poems from Ariel on a radio show for the BBC in 1952, including "Lady Lazarus," "Daddy," "Fever 103," "Ariel," "The Applicant," and "A Birthday Present." You can still find them, too - in a collection the Beeb did, or online (if you know where to look.)
  • Author Existence Failure: Pretty soon after she finished, which is why there's two versions with two different tables of contents.
  • Creator Breakdown: Near the end of the writing process ("Edge" was written a couple of days before Plath committed suicide).
  • Dr. Seuss: Some poems, "Daddy" in particular, have a kind of Seussian rhyme thing going on. To illustrate, check out the opening stanza of "Daddy" :

You do not do you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or achoo.

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