<&>Wellington Corpus of Spoken New Zealand English Version One <&>Copyright 1998 School of Linguistics & Applied Language Studies <&>Victoria University of Wellington <&>side one <&>the recording begins with a recital of a poem <&>2:29 all right it's very <,> you can see the same lines as there <,> but if you have a look at the um <,> the writing you know the notes that i gave you <,> what i've said there is um it's on the back <,> um it reads from <,> three and four <,,> um <,,> plath said this poem is about two kinds of fire <,> the fires of hell which merely <&>3:00 agonise and the fires of heaven which purify and during the poem the first sort of fire suffers itself into the second now i'll go through the poem with you and show you that <,,> at first the theme seems to be that illness and pain are cumbersome and intolerable but if they go on long enough they can set you free and the purity of death takes over but the <.>progre though through is not actually haphazard because death's there from the start dull fat cerberus who is cerberus <&>3:35 <&>dialogue not transcribed <&>4:11 um <,,><&>4 so <.>what's <.>what's voc as we go through the poem you'll find it works away at this idea of heavy and mundane death <,> and you've got AGAIN this typical plath image of heaviness of yellow cloud until it's purged of ALL extraneous matter imagine this this total purification <,> and ONLY the essential remains <,,><&>3 now <,> secondly <,> and i think we'll trace this through catherine that the movement is a kind of personal catharsis? catharsis is a kind of working out of something in you if <.>you're a catharsis <,> is where you um <,,> you might come to a climax over some emotional problem and then all of a sudden it's resolved <&>5:05 laughter <&>5:18 RIGHT we will continue <,> now <,,><&>5 what's happening <,> is there's a movement and feeling and this ALWAYS happens in people <,> sometimes your feelings are cluttered and you're feeling totally heavy about something and then at some point a kind of revelation and an ease and a purity comes forward and that's what you will notice coming through in this poem and she lets image breed in <.>this a kind of thought association we've seen this with plath before <&>6:00 and this kind of thought association that goes on the baby becomes the orchid the spotted orchid the leopard and the beast of prey becomes the adulteress and by which point the tension of the fever has built up to a kind of atomic explosion <,> and <.>she i <.>mean <.>sh ONLY plath could join adultery and irradiation atomic explosion <,> it's an idea of purging <,,> and i'll think we'll look later and see that actually takes this a little bit further but they've both got that same sort of theme <,> now <,> you know this whole idea of purity one of the things i'm doing with the sixth form at the moment is the crucible which is exactly the same it's the notion of being purified in the fires <,> um of a crucible <.>i which is <.>a an experiment you know you the crucible and you actually purify things and you put it into a crucible the fire can purify <,> um <&>7:01 <&>dialogue not transcribed <&>7:10 now <,,><&>3 right <,> what is purity is literally what she's asking the tongues of hell you know the fires of hell aren't the purifying ones <,> are dulled her use AGAIN note the repetition of DULL <,> as the tongues of dull fat cerberus who wheezes at the gate the fires of hell they're no good they won't lick clean the sin <,,><&>3 and she has this image if you follow through now all of these images <,> of a kind of <,> claustrophobic fire yeah <&>7:54 <&>dialogue not transcribed <&>8:20 um <,,><&>3 all of her image of <.>this USE your imagination make the pictures in your mind of this with <.>the the low smoke rolling from her like isadora's scarves isadora duncan and this is worth noting isadora duncan was a famous um <,> exponent of early modern dance and what happened was her scarf caught in the wheel of a car she was famous for her scarves <&>laughter and talking not transcribed <&>9:00 <.>and WELL I DON'T WANT TO GO THAT WAY <,> <.>her she <.>was choked <&>9:07 <&>dialogue and laughter not transcribed <&>9:27 well it's similar i mean isadora duncan dressed for that kind of effect but can you see that she's comparing the smoke <,> so again she's scared that this kind <.>of the fire of this kind of pain this kind of burning will ANCHOR her in the wheel such yellow sullen smokes make their own elements think of that awful smoke yellow smoke on the ground almost sulphurous <,> it's cloying <&>9:57 <&>dialogue not transcribed <&>10:04 now <,> and NOW of course being plath she has to extend what she's talking about on her personal level to the whole WORLD <,> she MOVES from her own personal pain or you know this kind of cloying fire pain to <,> the smokes that won't rise but trundle around the globe <,> traking choking everyone the aged and the meek and the weak hothouse baby in its crib this awful image <.>even if you think about it it's like the world being a greenhouse and um <,> yeah this is long before um we'd really thought about it <&>dialogue not transcribed <&>11:02 um <,,><&>4 <.>i i think you know and then she moves on the image the orchid perhaps because of yellow and black orchids through toward the image of a <.>de a beast of PREY <,> now and THEN <,,><&>5 radiation turned it white and killed it in an hour and somehow she makes this amazing leap to adultery and comparing adultery and hiroshima so from this tiny little bit of fire here because the fires of hiroshima <,> were destructive <&>dialogue not transcribed <&>11:47 NOW <,,> at THIS point <,> i think we see a movement <,> in the poem <,> because she moves BACK to her own fever <.>catherine now <&>dialogue not transcribed <&>13:13 well <.>ther i mean <,> it's a poem about <,,> mental anguish <,> is a fever if you are TORN in the way that i think you know that <.>n <.>i high pitch of mental anguish when the very <.>THOUGHT i heard a person talk about sexual jealousy as like acid dropping on your soul she's now <.>just you know she's SITTING there thinking <,> he's WITH her <&>dialogue not transcribed <&>14:18 right now we have a movement in the poem and i think that's worth noting <,> <.>it's she comes back from the MARVELLOUS <,,> <.>b <.>b BREADTH that she's put at this cosmic WORLD <.>a aspect of suffering and she's back to the personal darling all night i've been flickering off on off on it's a WONDERFUL image <.>if you know the tossing with a fever? sort of off on and you ju you know one also thinks of an electric light bulb <.>thish NOW <,,> that sexual imagery <.>just sit think about it <,> a LECHER is someone who um is it's a very negative connotation it means someone who's interested in sex but it's actually <.>i if someone <.>an <.>an you talk about somebody as a DIRTY OLD LECHER <,> um <&>dialogue not transcribed <&>15:24 right <,,><&>4 okay we've got the suffering of the fever three days three nights <,> um lemon water lemon <.>chicken i mean lemon water chicken water this is what you have is lemon drink and chicken broth you know when you're sick water makes me retch and <.>use you yeah <,,> right <&>dialogue not transcribed <&>16:05 okay <,,><&>4 coming through <,,> can you see <,> catherine? coming through can you see the character <,,><&>3 the character of the lady lazarus person this rising up from through the fever <,> now the <.>nex i am too pure for you or anyone your body hurts me as the world hurts god just think about that image you're SO purified and sensitive that i wouldn't WANT any contact with voc with this man's body catherine <&>dialogue not transcribed <&>18:35 SIT <,> <.>ya sit quietly for a minute <,> and imagine <,> the kind of <,,> texture of what she's talking about there a lantern like a japanese lantern or my head is a moon of japanese paper <,> my gold beaten skin infinitely delicate and <,> infinitely expensive that beautiful thin gold leaf <,,><&>3 and now this is <.>the the the good old plath bravado <,,><&>3 does not my heat astound you <,> and my light all by myself i'm a huge camellia <&>dialogue not transcribed <&>19:48 this notion of rising up <,> this beads of hot metal flying out and think of an acetylene torch? she's this PURE FLAME now <,> and then a pure acetylene virgin attended by roses what is she evoking there what religious event anyone know <&>dialogue not transcribed <&>20:31 she <.>was when mary died she <.>wasn't or i'm not sure if she's actually <.>with if she DIED or she was assumed in her old age god in legend assumed her up into heaven and all of those pictures have her attended by little cherubim you know little angels? so she's likening herself this this ascending acetylene flame to the virgin mary being ASSUMED into heaven <&>21:00 attended by all these little cherubim and that WONDERFUL way that she's got of the colloquial coming in? <.>she's she's carried away here i am a pure acetylene virgin attended by roses by kisses by cherubim by whatever those pink things mean you know the way she breaks register there? do you get it? you know it's just a throw away line <,,> and AGAIN this whole <,> thing that we've seen relentlessly through him NOT by her father NOT by ted and all of her old self is dissolving she's going up to paradise she calls all her old self her suffering self like an old whore petticoat <,> A MARVELLOUS image you know discarding petticoat and <.>the voc i see some sort of <,,> sort of tart in the west in the er in the old west in <&>22:00 her petticoat <,> um so it's a very very clever poem <&>dialogue not transcribed <&>22:07 um <,> now somebody said about the the way that they go um what <.>the i looked at yesterday because you don't WORK when you're set work in the afternoon <&>inhales and laughs so i set you the work on yesterday we should have done it in a different order <,> but then you don't DO anything in the afternoons SO laughs <,,><&>3 um and i'll just read this through go back to the notes that i've given you because um <,,> is actually a stage further than <,,> because according to the notes its subject is the TOTAL purification of the achieved death you will note too that it's much more intimately connected with the drift voc <&>23:00 plath likes <,> and the deaths you know she talks in of her own suicide the deaths of the poem correspond with her own crises and that MIGHT make the poem more direct than <.>some the details don't CLOG one another um it's got a much more forward movement with sweep <,,> and um <,,> you can have a look at some of that um the critics this is just what one critic has said about she does actually handle her own personal material quite objective <,> but she's talking also not just of her OWN suffering but about ALL suffering because she becomes an imaginary jew and relates her father to the oppressors <,> and what does which it <.>doesn't <,> and she doesn't do in is that wonderful assertion of her OWN <,> absolute <&>24:00 omnipotence power i rise with my red hair and i eat men like air whereas think of the rhythm of it just goes down down down DADDY i'm true there's no sense of transcendence? <,> they're all talking about suffering they're all dealing with suffering of some description <,> but is a relentless kind of anger and it doesn't transcend <&>dialogue not transcribed <&>24:30 um <,> is is i think is one of the best personally because i love <.>the the sheer virtuosity which she moves from image to image but the absolute assertion of um probably makes that a good autocedonym as um and then <,> what i want to do with you though is probably now her last poem <,> and it's chilling <,,> there is none of this assertion it's a perfect work of art cos it's totally still <,,> um and that is can you find that <&>dialogue not transcribed <&>25:56 no i would like everyone to look at this because it's one of the poems where form is very important <,,><&>4 okay who needs to look on who has no access at all to one <,> yeah well just have a look at one for now laughter <&>26:20 now i want you to very carefully to <.>l watch FORM here <.>her the way she's structured <.>the <&>reciting of the poem follows <&>27:23 it is an immensely visual poem <,,> look at it you know? what do you see <,> in that poem describe what's the you know the images that you can see <&>dialogue continues to end of side <&>27:37