“Recantation”: An Incantation of Political Disgust

“Recantation” is an undated poem, but considering Britain’s stance regarding 1956’s crisis in the Suez, the French in Algeria, and the Hungarian Revolution, Sylvia Plath was angry at the United Kingdom too. In “Recantation,” she recants her new-found allegiance to her husband’s country in disgust over the Cold War politics, playing upon the idea of an occult incantation. Plath’s symbols in the poem are distinctly English: tea leaves, the queen, crystal, and her ravens at the Tower of London. She has given them up. It was a “black pilgrimage” from America to England, and the bombings and bullets across the globe has made the world a “moon-pocked crystal ball” in which she does not foresee, nor does it bother, to help bring peace.
Plath’s poem here states that her earlier image of Britain proved to be an illusion, “tricks of sight.” The “flower” in her blood may be a Mayflower reference, uniting her with the pilgrims who settled in her American home state of Massachusetts. She feels called to return home: “Go to your greenhorn youth.” Plath pledges that her “white hands” are both innocent, and part of the race that gets the benefits of a good life. She would strive to simply “do good.”
COLD WAR, COLD WAR POLITICS, EARLY POEM, FRENCH IN ALGERIA, HUNGARIAN REVOLUTION, MASSACHUSETTS, MAYFLOWER, PILGRIMAGE, PLATH POEM, POLITICAL DISGUST, RECANTATION, SUEZ CRISIS, SYLVIA PLATH, UNITED KINGDOM, UNITED STATES