— Disclaimer: despite this article covering artist intent and Fever 103, I’m not covering the controversial war references in this post. After some more research I’d like to discuss artist responsibility, but that’s not the goal of this post. —
If you’re interested in a sphere that analyses any form of art, you’ll have likely come across a critique that sounds like “The artist definitely didn’t think of all that,” or “you’re giving them wayy too much credit.” What is that sort of rebuttal actually getting at? I think I’m finally close to an answer. I’ll use literature as my main example, purely because it’s easy to actually show examples, but you can sub in any art form you want—the sentiment is everywhere. (I actually think Genius might give better examples, might update soon)
Consider this analysis by Kary Wayson of Sylvia Plath’s Fever 103. We see a sentence like
In a few bold strokes, Plath uses repetition’s incantatory effect to undercut our assumptions about purity.
and assume Wayson means that Plath intended to “undercut out assumptions about purity”, so used repetition for it’s “incantatory effect” to do exactly that. Maybe that is what Wayson meant. But I think a much useful reading is that Plath’s poem challenges our assumptions. The poem, not the poet. That sounds like a stretch, or at least an inconsequential “uhm actually.” But look at some of the other ways Wayson describes Plath’s work. Actually, look at every way Wayson describes Plath’s work!
Kary Wayson begins her Poem Guide with the name “Sylvia Plath.” About half of the claims in this guide have Plath as their subject. But, importantly, Wayson never claims Plath “wants,” “tries,” “desires,” or “thinks,” anything.
A real danger with comment sections is that, unfortunately, it’s easy to see a field we know little about, and, instead of learning humbly, choose to shout opinions based not on craft, fact, or critical thinking, but on feelings. In our naivety, most analysis looks big and scary, so we scramble for ways to bring the analysis down. Were Wayson’s article a youtube video, I can imagine several commenters attacking her analysis, claiming, “We don’t know Plath was trying to use repetition like an incantation!! We have no idea what Plath wanted to do!!” And a comment like this would miss the point entirely.
I said earlier that half of the sentences in the guide have Plath as the subject. What’s the other half?
The pleasure of rhyme heightens the …
The imagery here is lacerating.
The nightmarish imagery morphs …
The poem builds to an elated sense of momentum here …
Do you see it? Wayson often uses phrases describing objectively what the poem is, or what it’s existence does for the reader. In fact, several of the quotes seemingly centred around Plath are completely focused on the reader:
…Plath leads us into an apocalyptic wasteland.
In this “flickering,” we see faint flashes of dim light and we hear tiny electrical noises.
She is almost out of sight, almost out of earshot—and then, in the very last line, even the sound-play disintegrates.
That last one is subtle, but the idea is the same. The sentence is about Plath (or the speaker, anyway), yet it refers to what the reader can see and hear.
All that to say, the key point to analysing poetry is not to uncover the thoughts of the poet, but to understand what the poem is doing to us, the readers. This has a few interesting consequences.
Firstly, artists can’t control their art forever. Somewhere between Plath scribbling ideas for this poem, and the moment this poem appeared on my screen, Fever 103 became a ’thing.’ An entity that exists outside of Plath’s mind. After all, if the poem only exists through Plath and for Plath, then is she even expressing anything? If Plath needs to explain her own work for it to have meaning, why not just skip the poem and explain exactly how she feels?
Secondly, we as theorists shouldn’t back away from searching for depth, just because some people say it’s a silly idea.
Lastly (and most excitingly), if you happen to be both an artist and a theorist, this means you can actually uncover unforeseen depth in your own work too! After declaring your poem, drawing, song, finished, simply take a good long break, and come back with analytical eyes, and ask questions about your work, not to make fixes, but to make connections.
Bonus thought: Wayson’s article proved full of depth, and it wasn’t even outwardly posing to be an artwork. We only really explored one feature of Wayson’s article, but her use of imagery, and her careful balance of tone, are other aspects I’d happily dive into. I don’t know whether you would call it “art.” Maybe not. But I do know analysing this felt eerily similar to how I imagine Wayson herself felt analysing Plath.
References:
- Wayson, K. (2007). Sylvia Plath: “Fever 103º”: The incinerating vision of this Plath classic. Poetry Foundation https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/68911/sylvia-plath-fever-103. All emboldened text is my doing.
- Plath, S. (1965). Fever 103º In T. Hughes (Ed.), Ariel. Faber & Faber.