Ariel was a horse on which Sylvia Plath was learning to ride. The experience of riding it was the basis of her poem "Ariel", written in about October 1962, and this poem gave its name to the posthumous (1965) collection Ariel, on which her fame and importance chiefly rests.
The horse is referred to only allusively in the 31-line poem, as the arc of a neck she cannot catch, and a mention of Godiva, but is very present in the fierce motion and the imagery of sexual potential: both feminine and masculine (lioness, foam, arrow). She is fleeing from and to death ("suicidal, at one with the drive"), and the poem is pervaded by darkness and blood; and also by a sense of timeless or abolished space, opening with the words "Stasis in darkness / Then the substanceless blue".
The poems Plath was working on from about June 1962 to her death in February the following year are the ones her reputation rests on, including "Daddy", "Lady Lazarus", and all her preoccupation with death, Germans, Jews, mutilation, sexuality, rage, and so on. Ted Hughes collected them into a slim volume he called Ariel and they were published by Faber and Faber in 1965.
The poems in the collection are:
- Morning Song
- The Couriers
- Sheep in Fog
- The Applicant
- Lady Lazarus
- Tulips
- Cut
- Elm
- The Night Dances
- Poppies in October
- Berck-Plage
- Ariel
- Death & Co.
- Nick and the Candlestick
- Gulliver
- Getting There
- Medusa
- The Moon and the Yew Tree
- A Birthday Present
- Letter in November
- The Rival
- Daddy
- You're
- Fever 103º
- The Bee Meeting
- The Arrival of the Bee Box
- Stings
- Wintering
- The Hanging Man
- Little Fugue
- Years
- The Munich Mannequins
- Totem
- Paralytic
- Balloons
- Poppies in July
- Kindness
- Contusion
- Edge
- Words
N.B. Hardlinks in the above are for cross-reference only. None of the poem texts should exist on E2, as that would be copyright violation.