 Plath's poem "Medallion" marks a powerful turning point in her poetry. Prior to this poem, Plath's encounters with nature describe a seeking, almost childlike vision. In poems like "Black Rook in Rainy Weather" or "Full Fathom Five" we encounter descriptions of nature that are partly naturalistic and partly mythological. This fusion of rational and mystical response is what Plath does best, but before she wrote "Medallion," there was an invisible, but quite firm, barrier between her and the natural world. Plath's father was a biologist who specialized in studying bees. He was affectionately known by his students as "King of the Bees." For Plath, initiation into nature was primarily a scientific affair, but it also carried a mystical, spiritual aspect as her father guided her to see nature with reverence and curiosity. Plath's husband, Ted Hughes, was a "muscular" poet well-known for his poems on nature and animals. What makes "Medallion" so special is that the poem marks the exact moment in Plath's development where she drops her "inherited" patriarchal vision of nature and initiates herself into a personal, more feminine and much more mystical vision of the natural world. This is the poem where she moves away from her father and her husband's view of nature as a setting for competition, dominance, and predation -- and begins to feel herself as an artist connected to the rhythms and mysteries of nature. The first lines make it clear that this is a mystical initiation, a spiritual, magickal encounter: By the gate with star and moon Worked into the peeled orange wood The bronze snake lay in the sun Believe it or not, to an old alchemist such like me, the whole of mystical transformation is laid out in this single stanza. The table is set, the stars are aligned, and we are already at bronze stage. One key element here is that, quite rightly, the bronze state of alchemical process is connected, deeply connected, with death. The message here is not: death is the power that transforms, but rather, death is merely a stage of transformation and not just literal death, but also symbolic death. So here we have a dead snake, exploding with Freudian overtones, in a setting of witchy nature, with a lone speaker, a poet, left to contemplate a world where men have seemingly vanished but left behind an enduring statement. As the lone woman of the woods, an "Eve" so to speak, what does the speaker of the poem do? She picks up the snake. And that's when things start to get really interesting. Click the pic above to read the poem and then come back next Monday to read the rest of my analysis!!! Poem tally as of today: 7-24-23: Poems Written: 318 Poetry Submissions: 51 Rejections: 24 (14 tiered) Acceptances: 0 Poem written today: "Sea Bacon" Categories All
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