“Crystal Gazer”: A Different Kind of Globe

Revisions to Plath’s poem “Crystal Gazer” were discussed in Hughes’ October 1956 letters, but Plath’s calendar notes reveal that she wrote 24 lines (probably the first four stanzas) on June 3, 1956 and worked on it through the next few days. On the 6th, she noted that she had barely begun reading Aristotle when she was struck by the poem “Gerd & Bold crock” [crack?]. This seems to reference the first line of the seventh stanza of “Crystal Gazer.” And so it seems that Aristotle, the philosophical father of Government and Science, among other things, may have had some influence on this poem’s final stanza.
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The detail of the “Crystal Gazer” poem suggests that Plath and Hughes had already been working with crystal ball gazing, also known as “scrying” or “seeing.” This said, many read this poem as autobiography. It is clear in Plath’s poem that she foresees the end of love, and the inevitability of death. If one looks deeper, however, this is another 1956 poem of the seeming blessings of the Warsaw Pact which “intertwined” eight Communist states in the Western Bloc, and resulted in “A flash like doomcrack,” for Hungary especially. The Warsaw Pact had been created to be a treaty of friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance, seen in Plath’s second and third stanzas of “Crystal Gazer.” The name “Gerd” is Old Norse/German, a prevailing language across many of those nations. Its homophone, “gird,” means to secure or encircle with a belt or band. Plath did not select this name at random.

Gerd “spins the ball” of the world, deciding the future. She is “spindle-shanked” like a globe in a stand, a rather violent description of being set in place, and also a fit for German spiked helmets in the 19th and 20th centuries that saw wide use in the occupations of the Western world. Gerd has “a lens / Fusing time’s three horizons” of the past, present, and future. She would know then that a similar pact had been in existence since 1939 when Soviet forces in alliance with Nazi Germany first occupied Central and Eastern Europe, maintaining the region after the war. She squats, looking “mummy-wise” toward Austria and Hungary. Austria had been united with Hungary until the end of World War I and was the place of origin for Plath’s mother’s side. Plath often referred to Aurelia Plath as “mummy.” Gerd’s knowledge of history, her male behavior (“hoyden”), and desire to govern more than is normally granted aligns her with the communist powers, and especially the Soviet Union. Because she sees disruption ahead, she aims at those “with power to strike” and destroys them.

Three weeks after Plath wrote this poem, in the Eastern Bloc, the Poznań 1956 protests took place. In late June 1956, factory workers in Poland held a series of massive protests against the dictatorial Soviet-placed government and were met with violent oppression. Poznań was the homeland to Otto Plath, Sylvia Plath’s father.

ARISTOTLE, AUSTRIA, CENTRAL EUROPE, COMMUNISM, COMMUNIST STATES, CRYSTAL BALL, CRYSTAL GAZER, EASTERN EUROPE, GAZING, GERD & BOLD CROCK, HUNGARY, PLATH POEM, POLAND, POZNAN, PROTESTS, SCRYING, SEEING, SOVIET UNION, SYLVIA PLATH, WARSAW PACT, WESTERN BLOC, WORLD WAR I, WORLD WAR II