'Somehow I have to keep and hold the rapture of being seventeen.'

Sylvia Plath, an unpublished diary entry, November 13, 1949.

‘Rapture’ is a big word to use when you are seventeen. To be enraptured is to be in the throes of some sort ecstatic experience; think of the sculpture by Bellini, ‘The Ecstasy of St. Theresa’ in the Roman church of Santa Maria della Vittoria: the marbled saint is so transfigured by feeling she seems almost in pain. The young writer, Sylvia Plath, is, like many teenagers overflowing with a heightened sense of now. ‘Now, now is the perfect time of my life.’ ‘Now’ is the magical present brimming with possibility. Not to be in now is to miss all opportunities for the future. Now is the engine of the future and it must run as long as possible. Now and never, follow the young diarist about like stern presages of fate as she speaks out loud to herself. Never, never, never will I reach the perfection I long for with all my soul. ‘Never’ is another big word. It contradicts what is, in part, a piece of eschatology: the belief that Christ will return to earth one day and appear before his true disciples. Plath isn’t confessing to believing in Christ returning to earth, but she is confessing to the return of a familiar feeling of being overwhelmed by life: her own life force; her love of life. This is the other, Christian meaning of rapture. St. Theresa is full of rapture because she has been pierced by the love of Christ: that keen looking angel who hovers over her with his sharp arrow directed at her breast. Sylvia Plath doesn’t confess to believing in God; rather, she positions herself as God. ‘I think I shall call myself ‘The Girl who wanted to be God.’ It’s an audacious bit of self-fantasising, but it makes sense that a young girl would want to devise her own future; to act as prophet and divine source over her own life. The Greeks called it Fate. Plath calls it ‘The Girl who wanted to be God,’ a part she auditions herself for between the pages of her journal.

She is convinced she has already lived much that is tragic and happy: ‘I’m reflecting back upon these last 16 years, I can see tragedies and happiness, all relative – all unimportant now . . . [if only to smile upon a bit mistily . . .]’ Her intention is to sound wise, and indeed, this whole passage is an extended voice-practise in sounding wiser than her years. And so, now she must debate with Father Time and assert herself over the past, present and future, expanding this magical NOW into something that continues ad infinitum. What she longs for (longing being an ongoing feeling of lack) is to hold herself out of time. Time is the most precious commodity of any human ‘soul’ and souls — as the metaphysical poet, John Donne reminds us — transmigrate; cross from one sphere to another as they surf towards eternity. Seventeen-year-old-Plath is on the hunt for more space in which to move and roam; a larger landscape in which to unfold her developing ego. Later in this same passage she writes:

I am not so wise as I thought. I can now see, as from a valley, the roads lying open to me, but I cannot see the end – the consequences. They lose themselves among the hills. When will I stand on the hilltop?

When will she hold the map of consequences for her life choices in her hand? Never is the cruel answer, which is why it’s a good idea to store up some of that rapture to roll out across distant hills. It might even be wise.

You can find a film related to Plath’s diary passage on the creative collaborations page of this website; The Girl Who Would be God was created by film maker Suzie hanna in 2007 as part of a symposium celebrating Sylvia Plath’s achievements as an artist. This entry is for Alanna, age 16, new to the complex and ambiguous performances of an artist internally on the move.