Edge

“Edge” is a lyric poem by American poet Sylvia Plath. The poem, dated February 5, 1963, is the last piece Plath wrote before she died by suicide on February 11, 1963. Plath married the English poet Ted Hughes, and their contentious relationship has become a public literary drama, with many people portraying Hughes as a toxic husband who took Plath over the proverbial edge. Plath had a history of mental health disorders, and she attempted suicide when she was 20. After she died in 1963, Hughes inherited the copyright to Plath’s work. He controversially burned some of her last incendiary journal entries, and he published Ariel (1965), the manuscript she was working on before her death. 

Plath had a clear plan for Ariel, but Hughes took out poems and added others, as well as changing the order of the poems. “Edge” wasn’t a part of Plath’s intended collection. Nonetheless, “Edge,” like many of the other poems in Ariel, reflects Plath’s engagement with themes like The Allure of Death and Free Will Versus Fate. “Edge” isn’t as well-known as other poems in the collection, yet Ariel as a whole is one of the most famous books of the 20th century. The poems are confessional and autobiographical, linking to details of Plath’s life. Plath’s life and work have produced innumerable biographies, works of criticism, and appreciations. In 2003, she became the subject of the film Plath, with Gwyneth Paltrow playing Plath and Daniel Craig taking on the role of Hughes.

Poet Biography

Plath was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on October 27, 1932. Her parents, Aurelia and Otto Plath, were academics who met at Boston University. Otto was renowned for his work with bees, but he died in 1940. To support Plath and her younger brother Warren, Aurelia became a professor at Boston University. Like her parents, Plath excelled in school. She began writing at an early age, and by high school, she was publishing in outlets like Seventeen and The Christian Science Monitor. 

In 1951, Plath earned a scholarship to the prestigious women’s school Smith College. In 1953, the cultural periodical Mademoiselle selected Plath to be a guest editor, which allowed her to spend a summer month in New York City. The experience became the basis for her autobiographical novel The Bell Jar (1963). After Mademoiselle, Plath returned to Boston and developed a mental health condition. She received electroshock treatment, attempted suicide, and her mother put her in a psychiatric hospital.

After the psychiatric hospital, Plath returned to Smith and graduated. She earned a coveted Fulbright fellowship and went to England, where she met the up-and-coming English poet Ted Hughes. They married in 1956 and had two children, Frieda and Nicholas. Frieda became a writer and artist, and Nicholas was a marine biologist. Nicholas died by suicide on March 16, 2009. 

Plath published poems, essays, and stories in outlets such as The Atlantic and The New Yorker, but in life, she did not achieve as much fame as Hughes. In 1960, she published her first collection of poems, The Colossus. In 1962, Hughes and Plath separated, and Hughes moved in with his new romantic partner, the writer and advertiser Assia Wevill. In her letters, Plath lambasted Wevill and Hughes while faulting herself for lacking an identity separate from Hughes. She worked on a collection of poems, Ariel, that departed structurally from the formal poems featured in Colossus. The new poems were confessional and free-verse. “Edge” was not a part of the collection, but its date suggests that it was the last poem she wrote before she died by suicide. Hughes published an edition of Ariel in 1965, and Frieda Hughes published another edition in 2004 that reflects Plath’s original intentions. The intense, provocative collection made Plath a key figure of Western literature. 

Poem Text

Plath, Sylvia. “Edge.” 1965. Poetry Foundation.

Summary

The poem revolves around a series of images of a dead woman. The anonymous speaker claims that the dead woman has attained a level of perfection, and the accomplishment makes her smile. The woman wears a flowing toga, and the outfit links to Ancient Greece. The speaker suggests the woman is like a Greek tragedy. Like many women in Greek tragedies, the woman in the poem had to die. 

The woman’s feet are bare, and the feet express a relief that her journey—her life—has ended. The woman has two children, and they’re dead. The children become a part of the woman’s body as they curl up like white snakes around the woman’s breasts, which have stopped producing milk. The speaker also compares the woman and her children to a rose that closes its petals due to the actions of a sensuous garden and the night flower. 

The moon watches the dead woman and her children, and the moon looks like she’s wearing a hood made of bone. The moon is accustomed to such stark scenes, so the moon goes about pulling the night along somewhat irrelevantly.