Advanced Poetry Analysis: Reading Balloons

Advanced Poetry Analysis: Reading Balloons

A balloon is an intriguing object for a poet to describe. Classical poetry often invoked air or wind as a metaphor for poetic inspiration, but balloons might also make us think of ‘hot air’, the idea of words without purpose. In this seminar, we’ll be reading Plath’s poem ‘Balloon’ through previous poets’ encounters with balloons, and thinking about the ways her poem might be in conversation with them.

Here are some things you can do to prepare for the seminar:

1. Read ‘Balloons’ by Plath, and make a list of all the different ways she describes them (e.g. ‘a red / shred’, ‘oval soul-animals’). Pick TWO of these descriptions and make a note of what effect this description has.

2. Read through Shelley’s sonnet ‘To A Balloon, Laden with Knowledge’ and Emily Dickinson’s ‘You’ve seen Balloons set – Haven’t You’. Pick ONE of these poems and consider how you might compare their presentation of balloons with the Plath poem.

3. Do some internet research about ‘balloonomania’. What was it, and how might it help us understand the way balloons are described in these poems?

‘Balloons’ (1963)

Since Christmas they have lived with us,

Guileless and clear,

Oval soul-animals,

Taking up half the space,

Moving and rubbing on the silk

Invisible air drifts,

Giving a shriek and pop

When attacked, then scooting to rest, barely trembling.

Yellow cathead, blue fish---

Such queer moons we live with

Instead of dead furniture!

Straw mats, white walls

And these traveling

Globes of thin air, red, green,

Delighting

The heart like wishes or free

Peacocks blessing

Old ground with a feather

Beaten in starry metals.

Your small

Brother is making

His balloon squeak like a cat.

Seeming to see

A funny pink world he might eat on the other side of it,

He bites,

Then sits

Back, fat jug

Contemplating a world clear as water.

A red

Shred in his little fist.

Sylvia Plath

‘To A Balloon, Laden with Knowledge’ (1812)

Bright ball of flame that thro’ the gloom of even
Silently takest thine etherial way
And with surpassing glory dimmst each ray
Twinkling amid the dark blue Depths of Heaven
Unlike the Fire thou bearest, soon shall thou
Fade like a meteor in surrounding gloom
Whilst that unquencheable is doomed to glow
A watch light by the patriots lonely tomb
A ray of courage to the opprest & poor,
A spark tho' gleaming on the hovel's hearth
Which thro the tyrants gilded domes shall roar
A beacon in the darkness of the Earth
A Sun which oer the renovated scene
Shall dart like Truth where Falshood yet has been

P.B. Shelley

‘You’ve seen Balloons’ (1863)

You've seen Balloons set—Haven't You?
So stately they ascend
It is as Swans—discarded You
For Duties Diamond
Their Liquid Feet go softly out
Upon a Sea of Blonde
They spurn the Air, as t'were too mean
For Creatures so renowned
Their Ribbons just beyond the eye
They struggle—some—for Breath
And yet the Crowd applaud, below
They would not encore—Death
The Gilded Creature strains—and spins
Trips frantic in a Tree
Tears open her imperial Veins
And tumbles in the Sea
The Crowd—retire with an Oath
The Dust in Streets—go down
And Clerks in Counting Rooms
Observe—"'Twas only a Balloon”

Emily Dickinson