Sylvia Plath

Edge

Edge - context Summary

Published Posthumously in Ariel

Published posthumously in Ariel, "Edge" presents a spare, ritualized depiction of a woman perfected by death. The poem collapses domestic and mythic images—toga, moon, folded children—into a final, orderly stillness that reads as both resolution and erasure. Its controlled, elegiac voice and stark metaphors suggest personal despair made formal, reflecting Sylvia Plath’s struggles while avoiding explicit narrative explanation.

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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. Each dead child coiled, a white serpent, One at each little Pitcher of milk, now empty She has folded Them back into her body as petals Of a rose close when the garden Stiffens and odors bleed From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower. The moon has nothing to be sad about, Staring from her hood of bone. She is used to this sort of thing. Her blacks crackle and drag.

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