Ennui (sonnet)
Encyclopedia
"Ennui" is a sonnet
by Sylvia Plath
published for the first time in November 2006 in the online literary journal Blackbird http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu. Sylvia Plath wrote the Petrarchan sonnet “Ennui” during her undergraduate years at Smith College
and may have intended to publish it, as she placed her name and address in the upper right-hand corner of the typed poem, a practice which she often followed with poems she considered good enough for submission to journals. However, she may have simply been identifying the poem for her teacher, Alfred Young Fisher, with whom she took a special studies course in poetry during the spring of her senior year in 1955. “It is difficult to realize how hard Plath worked to perfect her craft unless you read the poems written before 1956,” Karen V. Kukil, editor of The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, wrote to Blackbird; “many of these poems, like 'Ennui,' deserve publication.” Plath's original typescripts of her poem (including an earlier draft and the final finished version), which Blackbird reproduced photographically, are currently housed in the Sylvia Plath Archive of juvenilia in the Lilly Library at Indiana University under the label “Ennui (I).”
, and current Ph.D. candidate at the University of Houston, discovered that this poem was unpublished, and brought it to the attention of the Blackbird editorial staff, along with a number of additional reasons why it is a poem of interest. Her essay, “Dragon Goes to Bed with Princess: F. Scott Fitzgerald
’s Influence on Sylvia Plath” (published in Notes on Contemporary Literature, Vol. 37.4, September, 2007), explores in detail how “Ennui” germinated from Plath’s creative response to The Great Gatsby
, as evidenced by her handwritten notes in her personal copy of that novel (housed in the Bruccoli Collection of F. Scott Fitzgerald at the University of South Carolina), as well as an essay Plath wrote on Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night
. Fitzgerald’s lingering influence continued to produce echoes in Plath’s work, even in such a later poem as “Daddy”, whose last line may recall Dick Diver’s farewell to his dead father in Tender Is the Night. Plath's broad range of allusions in “Ennui” also includes Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
, The Lady or the Tiger? by Frank R. Stockton
, and The Beast in the Jungle
by Henry James
, as well as providing an indirect response to that “delicate monster”, Ennui, as it was famously described in “Au Lecteur” (“To the Reader”) by Charles Baudelaire
, a poem whose sardonic tone matches Plath’s own (Blackbird, V5N2).
In fact knowingness is at the heart of its gesture. The speaker is offering up her insight directly and forcefully. It is an insight that claims for itself a world-weary bitterness and disappointment - life is a let down, life is empty. Those French words (ennui, jejune, blasé, insouciant) enforce this sense of sophisticated hopelessness.
On one level this is very much a post-Eliot stance (and the opening quatrain is full of allusions to T. S. Eliot
). But this is perhaps also typically the attitude of a certain kind of young writer. The poem is a version of 'been there, done that', a badge of identity as much as a statement of fact. I am relishing my ennui, thank you. Keep away.
An interesting parallel to this is the wonderful short ballad by Emily Brontë
- 'The Night is Darkening Round Me'. In contrast to 'Ennui' the Bronte poem creates a world that is heroic and sublime, dark and dangerous. The speaker is in the grip of a malevolent power, but the ballad's greatest moment comes in the twist of the final line - 'I will not, cannot go'. She is willing herself towards this fate. The speaker of 'Ennui' is trapped in a very different world, but there is a sense that she also is willing it.
At times the poem's craft is very impressive. Take the second quatrain:
This is wonderfully taut and restless in a manner that recalls Robert Browning
or William Empson
. That first phrase is probably the best moment in the poem, relishing its own archness. These lines delight in a sense of near anarchic consonantal energy and the enjambment at the beginning of the third line is very effective, the way the word 'of' comes as a nervous jolt, hemmed up against the beginning of the line by that comma.
The poem ends with a slightly overwrought and grandiose set piece, half vision of apocalypse
, half of packed Roman arena. The angels of Plath's sonnet (“and when insouciant angels play God's trump”) sarcastically echo the angels of Donne
's sonnet to the apocalypse (“At the round earth's imagined corners, blow/ Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise”) before the poem moves on to the image of a crowd of spectators gripped by a sudden and atypical moment of hope, only, of course, to be disappointed. Nothing happens.
It is a self-conscious rejoinder to the finale of Keats
' "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer
", which begins 'Much have I traveled in the realms of gold', where the explorers are overwhelmed by the immensity of what they are witnessing, 'silent upon a peak in Darien'. This poem, 'Ennui', bitterly relishes its witnessing of nothing but bathos (Bainbridge, Guardian Unlimited).
This poem shows Plath in full possession of her voice: ironic, acidulous, blackly funny, and demanding more of life (Hoffert, Library Journal).
to New Delhi
. Reports on the poem were featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian Unlimited, The International Herald Tribune, and other journals.
Sonnet
A sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...
by Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. Born in Massachusetts, she studied at Smith College and Newnham College, Cambridge before receiving acclaim as a professional poet and writer...
published for the first time in November 2006 in the online literary journal Blackbird http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu. Sylvia Plath wrote the Petrarchan sonnet “Ennui” during her undergraduate years at Smith College
Smith College
Smith College is a private, independent women's liberal arts college located in Northampton, Massachusetts. It is the largest member of the Seven Sisters...
and may have intended to publish it, as she placed her name and address in the upper right-hand corner of the typed poem, a practice which she often followed with poems she considered good enough for submission to journals. However, she may have simply been identifying the poem for her teacher, Alfred Young Fisher, with whom she took a special studies course in poetry during the spring of her senior year in 1955. “It is difficult to realize how hard Plath worked to perfect her craft unless you read the poems written before 1956,” Karen V. Kukil, editor of The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, wrote to Blackbird; “many of these poems, like 'Ennui,' deserve publication.” Plath's original typescripts of her poem (including an earlier draft and the final finished version), which Blackbird reproduced photographically, are currently housed in the Sylvia Plath Archive of juvenilia in the Lilly Library at Indiana University under the label “Ennui (I).”
Discovery
Anna Journey, a former graduate student in creative writing at Virginia Commonwealth UniversityVirginia Commonwealth University
Virginia Commonwealth University is a public university located in Richmond, Virginia. It comprises two campuses in the Downtown Richmond area, the product of a merger between the Richmond Professional Institute and the Medical College of Virginia in 1968...
, and current Ph.D. candidate at the University of Houston, discovered that this poem was unpublished, and brought it to the attention of the Blackbird editorial staff, along with a number of additional reasons why it is a poem of interest. Her essay, “Dragon Goes to Bed with Princess: F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost...
’s Influence on Sylvia Plath” (published in Notes on Contemporary Literature, Vol. 37.4, September, 2007), explores in detail how “Ennui” germinated from Plath’s creative response to The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby is a novel by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published in1925, it is set on Long Island's North Shore and in New York City from spring to autumn of 1922....
, as evidenced by her handwritten notes in her personal copy of that novel (housed in the Bruccoli Collection of F. Scott Fitzgerald at the University of South Carolina), as well as an essay Plath wrote on Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night
Tender is the Night
Tender Is the Night is a novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. It was his fourth and final completed novel, and was first published in Scribner's Magazine between January-April, 1934 in four issues...
. Fitzgerald’s lingering influence continued to produce echoes in Plath’s work, even in such a later poem as “Daddy”, whose last line may recall Dick Diver’s farewell to his dead father in Tender Is the Night. Plath's broad range of allusions in “Ennui” also includes Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, considered the first modern novel, is a classic of Western literature, and is regarded amongst the best works of fiction ever written...
, The Lady or the Tiger? by Frank R. Stockton
Frank R. Stockton
Frank Richard Stockton was an American writer and humorist, best known today for a series of innovative children's fairy tales that were widely popular during the last decades of the 19th century...
, and The Beast in the Jungle
The Beast in the Jungle
The Beast in the Jungle is a 1903 novella by Henry James, first published as part of the collection, The Better Sort. Almost universally considered one of James' finest short narratives, this story treats appropriately universal themes: loneliness, fate, love and death...
by Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
, as well as providing an indirect response to that “delicate monster”, Ennui, as it was famously described in “Au Lecteur” (“To the Reader”) by Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...
, a poem whose sardonic tone matches Plath’s own (Blackbird, V5N2).
Analysis
"Ennui", the newly discovered undergraduate sonnet by Sylvia Plath is very much about craft, about delivering a tough resonant argument. It is concerned with the art of rhetoric, densely and self-consciously built, full of literary references and brandishing its knowingness.In fact knowingness is at the heart of its gesture. The speaker is offering up her insight directly and forcefully. It is an insight that claims for itself a world-weary bitterness and disappointment - life is a let down, life is empty. Those French words (ennui, jejune, blasé, insouciant) enforce this sense of sophisticated hopelessness.
On one level this is very much a post-Eliot stance (and the opening quatrain is full of allusions to T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
). But this is perhaps also typically the attitude of a certain kind of young writer. The poem is a version of 'been there, done that', a badge of identity as much as a statement of fact. I am relishing my ennui, thank you. Keep away.
An interesting parallel to this is the wonderful short ballad by Emily Brontë
Emily Brontë
Emily Jane Brontë 30 July 1818 – 19 December 1848) was an English novelist and poet, best remembered for her only novel, Wuthering Heights, now considered a classic of English literature. Emily was the third eldest of the four surviving Brontë siblings, between the youngest Anne and her brother...
- 'The Night is Darkening Round Me'. In contrast to 'Ennui' the Bronte poem creates a world that is heroic and sublime, dark and dangerous. The speaker is in the grip of a malevolent power, but the ballad's greatest moment comes in the twist of the final line - 'I will not, cannot go'. She is willing herself towards this fate. The speaker of 'Ennui' is trapped in a very different world, but there is a sense that she also is willing it.
At times the poem's craft is very impressive. Take the second quatrain:
- Jeopardy is jejune now: naïve knight
- finds ogres out-of-date and dragons unheard
- of, while blasé princesses indict
- tilts at terror as downright absurd.
This is wonderfully taut and restless in a manner that recalls Robert Browning
Robert Browning
Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.-Early years:...
or William Empson
William Empson
Sir William Empson was an English literary critic and poet.He was known as "燕卜荪" in Chinese.He was widely influential for his practice of closely reading literary works, fundamental to the New Critics...
. That first phrase is probably the best moment in the poem, relishing its own archness. These lines delight in a sense of near anarchic consonantal energy and the enjambment at the beginning of the third line is very effective, the way the word 'of' comes as a nervous jolt, hemmed up against the beginning of the line by that comma.
The poem ends with a slightly overwrought and grandiose set piece, half vision of apocalypse
Apocalypse
An Apocalypse is a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception, i.e. the veil to be lifted. The Apocalypse of John is the Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament...
, half of packed Roman arena. The angels of Plath's sonnet (“and when insouciant angels play God's trump”) sarcastically echo the angels of Donne
John Donne
John Donne 31 March 1631), English poet, satirist, lawyer, and priest, is now considered the preeminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His works are notable for their strong and sensual style and include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs,...
's sonnet to the apocalypse (“At the round earth's imagined corners, blow/ Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise”) before the poem moves on to the image of a crowd of spectators gripped by a sudden and atypical moment of hope, only, of course, to be disappointed. Nothing happens.
It is a self-conscious rejoinder to the finale of Keats
John Keats
John Keats was an English Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death.Although his poems were not...
' "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer
On First Looking into Chapman's Homer
Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told...
", which begins 'Much have I traveled in the realms of gold', where the explorers are overwhelmed by the immensity of what they are witnessing, 'silent upon a peak in Darien'. This poem, 'Ennui', bitterly relishes its witnessing of nothing but bathos (Bainbridge, Guardian Unlimited).
This poem shows Plath in full possession of her voice: ironic, acidulous, blackly funny, and demanding more of life (Hoffert, Library Journal).
International reaction
The first appearance of “Ennui” in print received international attention, from New YorkNew York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
to New Delhi
New Delhi
New Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...
. Reports on the poem were featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian Unlimited, The International Herald Tribune, and other journals.
External links
- Scan of final draft at the Blackbird Archive
- Blog of Charles Bainbridge, with comments of others