Trapped in language: aspects of ambiguity and intertextuality in selected poetry and prose by Sylvia Plath - Critical Essay

Style, Spring, 2002 by Andrea Gerbig, Anja Muller-Wood

The term "spikes" exemplifies the "third-type ambiguity" in William Empson's list of seven types of ambiguity. For Empson the "point" of this type of ambiguity "is the sharpness of distinction between the two meanings, of which the reader is forced to be aware; they are two pieces of information" whose "clash in a single word will mirror the tension of the whole situation" (102, 104). Poststructuralist theory calls such a "clash in a single word" intertextuality. Paraphrasing Mikhail Bakhtin's concept of intertextuality, Julia Kristeva writes that "each word (text) is an intersection of words (texts) where at least one other word (text) can be read" ("Word" 37). Words shift continuously between different signifying systems and adopt different meanings in the process. This "passage from one signifying system to another" is captured by a term, "transposition," that Kristeva uses for Intertextuality (Revolution 60). But "intertextuality" as "transposition" differs from the source study with which intertextuality is commonly associated. Rather than confirming the author's and reader's intellectual skill and scope in drawing on and deciphering literary references, Kristeva's sense of intertextuality reminds the (reading) subject that meaning is only a momentary disambiguation, that another meaning, derived from another cultural and linguistic context, is always potentially inscribed in any word. For Bakhtin and Kristeva, then "Intertextuality" corresponds to ambiguity itself.

Such a poststructuralist concept of intertextuality differs from Plath's use of intertextuality in her poetry. The poststructuralist perspective becomes of especial relevance in deciphering Plath's recurring central motifs and allusions: the sea, childhood, sexuality, violence, mythological, pagan, and Christian references, and, in various uses, the theme of death. Plath's motifs and allusions are often marked by the use of rare and unusual words. Archaic and often no longer in use, such words might well have an alienating effect because they may create a distance between poet and word as well as between reader and (learned) poet. At the same time, they may create an affiliation to the past. The thematic and metaphoric continuity established by Plath's intertextual allusions provides a basis for consistent and seemingly conclusive interpretations, not only of individual poems, but also of her work at large. But, as Bakhtin and Kristeva say, intertextuality is ambiguity. Because words can potentially participa te in and interact with different semantic fields, they hardly ever possess one single meaning. This phenomenon can also be explained as a result of the historical nature of language. Lexis is always subject to diachronic change. Words derive their meaning from conventions and habits in discourse and interaction. These conventions and habits are acquired by each new generation of speakers and, in the process, more or less modified and revalued. Because Plath was known to use dictionaries and thesauri for writing, the rarity of some of the words she uses suggests she was deliberately exploiting the historical nature of language. But, in language, that at a given synchronic moment different phases of diachronic development can co-exist creates the basis for possible ambiguity.