 Pictured: Poet Emily Dickinson
Plath read a lot of Plato at Cambridge in 1956, and the country of Greece went through a great deal of political upheaval that year. The island of Cyprus had been under British rule but was seeking to reunite with Greece. King Paul of Greece had three children with his wife: two sisters and the male heir to the throne. After twenty years of right and leftist split in the Greek Civil War, the two sides of Greece elected the mayor of Corfu who would become their first female mayor. Plath’s poem “Two Sisters of Persephone” was written on May 24, 1956, per her pocket calendar,[1] the day after she had begun to read Plato’s Phaedo, and within the same month, she’d read Gorgias, Symposium, The Republic and Karl Popper’s related book, The Open Society and Its Enemies. “Two Sisters of Persephone” represents the two sisters/daughters of King Paul, one who became Queen of Spain, the other who remained a “wry virgin to the last” (CP, 31). The ionic Grecian columns fit Plath’s “wainscoted room.” As the country’s economy improved, Plath’s language uses accounting images for working problems, calculations, the “sum,” the “Dry ticks” and “blown gold.” In letters, Plath wrote to her mother about all of these events in Greece and Cyprus, as well as her attention on African and the Arab states. 1956 was also a year that the poet Emily Dickinson, with whom Plath would later be compared, experienced a revival. The resurrection of this great poet may also be an influence for the virginal woman in the “wainscoted room” of Plath’s “Two Sisters of Persephone.” John Crowe Ransom published an essay that year called “Emily Dickinson: A Poet Restored,” and the well-respected Sewanee Review featured a piece called “The Poetry of Emily Dickinson” by Sergio Baldi. Even the American cartoon program Looney Tunes got into the act, with their March 4, 1956 program featuring Lois Nettleton reciting the poetry of Emily Dickinson as the cartoon’s narrative. The “meager frame” of the Dickinson-like woman marks the time and meter of her work like “A mathematical machine,” while Plath seems to have felt that she herself had learned to take more liberties, “Hearing ticks blown gold.” Plath’s “Two Sisters of Persephone” may be one of Plath’s first great poems, layering meanings of history past and present, myth, and the arts. Plath knew this too, calling it her “best poem yet” in her calendar.[2] [1] This pocket calendar is available for viewing in the Sylvia Plath Archives at the Lilly Library, Indiana University-Bloomington. [2] Per her pocket calendar dated May 24, 1956. This calendar may be found in the Sylvia Plath archives at the Lilly Library, Indiana University-Bloomington. BRITISH IMPERIALISM, CORFU, CYPRUS, EMILY DICKINSON, GREECE, KARL POPPER, KING PAUL OF GREECE, PLATH POEM, PLATO, PLATO'S GORGIAS, PLATO'S PHAEDO, PLATO'S SYMPOSIUM, PLATO'S THE REPUBLIC, SYLVIA PLATH, THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS ENEMIES, TWO SISTERS OF PERSEPHONE, VIRGIN
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