Lady Lazarus Group

Question:

Why does Sylvia Plath use tercets in "Lady Lazarus"?

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Posted by jasc411 on Monday November 17, 2008 at 10:08 AM and tagged with lady lazarus, mechanics, tercets.


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  1. enotechris Teacher
    Vocational

    eNotes Editor

    Sylvia Plath's use of tercet, or group of three lines to a stanza, serves to express her difficult thoughts to the reader. In reading the poem, each stanza conveys some concept, or some event, whose expression can almost not be conveyed to the reader in words, the events are so horror-filled and difficult to describe. Thus the few words in each tercet create the powerful imagery of events and experiences of the holocaust. Each grouping of thought, each tercet, has space before the next begins, as if to give the reader a bit of an opportunity to ponder and absorb each hard experience being stated.

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    Posted by enotechris on Thursday November 20, 2008 at 3:06 PM