“Resolve”: Battling the Invisible

Pictured: A double-decker bus in downtown London, December 1956
Scholar Nancy D. Hargrove dates Plath’s “Resolve” to be written in November or December of 1956. On December 19, 1956, a thick fog was the BBC News headline, causing death on the roads, railway, ship, air and postal delays (“unserviceable”) (CP, 52). The dirty fog (smog) was comprised of a sulfurous grit from burning coal and chimneys, trains and industry. This explains Plath’s first line: “Day of mist: day of tarnish” as well as the dying hedges, the film upon the bottles’ glass, and the line, “and the coal fire burns.”  A previous smog four years earlier killed 12,000 people in England within four days and an estimated further 8,000 died from respiratory issues in the months after. To experience a pollution event like this again in 1956 prompted a hasty resolution for the Clean Air Act. The Act became law in the summer, but would take time to see results. Local authorities (“examiners”) were given the power to create smokeless zones and worked to switch residents and industry over to more environmentally-friendly fuels. Plath was in support of this and would not “disenchant” them, nor would she participate in a losing fight with air pollution, “the wind’s sneer.” “Resolve” is another poem that has no rhyme, but plenty of reason.
1956, AIR POLLUTION, CLEAN AIR ACT, EARLY POEM, ENGLAND, FOG, LONDON, NANCY D. HARGROVE, PLATH POEM, RESOLVE, SMOG, SYLVIA PLATH