“Black Rook in Rainy Weather”: Crowing Over Hubris

Life Magazine photo of Britain’s Prime Minister, Anthony Eden
In 1956, British Prime Minister Anthony Eden’s career had taken a dive over the Suez Crisis and his underestimation of opposition to attack by the United States. Eden was one of the least liked and least successful leaders in British politics, and Plath likened him to the fraudster meaning of “rook” in her poem, “Black Rook in Rainy Weather,” although, as Prime Minister, the castle chess piece meaning wasn’t far off either (CP, 56). Plath got in her digs with “On the stiff twig,” as he primped and preened his feathers, known always for his fashion style even in the rain of controversy. In a November 6, 1956 letter to her mother, Plath said that Eden was more or less helping to murder the Hungarians (LH, 284). Plath was thinking about the black rook image as early as January 15, 1956, when she noted “black as rooks” in the top margin of her calendar.[1]
Plath’s repeating idea of waiting for the angel in this poem is a nod to Greek poet and diplomat George Seferis (who would go on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1963). Seferis was minister to Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Iraq in this year when Plath wrote “Black Rook in Rainy Weather.” For a number of years he lived in London. Seferis’ position was comparable to Eden’s, only on a more humble scale.
In his long prose poem, Mythistorema (1935), Seferis interweaves ancient myths connecting failure of the epic journey with hubris. Seferis’ poem begins: “The angel– / three years we waited for him,” and Mythistorema’s last stanza contains these lines which echo Plath’s last stanza of “Black Rook in Rainy Weather”: “On the stone of patience we wait for the miracle /  that opens the heavens and makes all things possible / we wait for the angel as in the age-old drama…”
Plath clearly saw hubris as Anthony Eden’s greatest problem and a miraculous angel as the only solution.
[1] Plath’s calendar notes for January 15, 1956. This calendar is held in the Sylvia Plath Archives of the Lilly Library, at the Indiana University-Bloomington.
ANTHONY EDEN, BLACK ROOK IN RAINY WEATHER, BRITISH POLITICS, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER ANTHONY EDEN, EARLY POEM, GEORGE SEFERIS, GREAT BRITAIN, HUNGARIAN REFUGEES, HUNGARY, MYTHISTOREMA, PLATH POEM, SUEZ CRISIS, SYLVIA PLATH