Run-on Line. A run-on line is a line of verse in which the sense or the grammatical structure does not end with the end of the line, but rather is continued on one or more subsequent lines. As you read, identify a run-on line in “Morning Song.”
Simile. A simile is a comparison using like or as. This figure of speech invites the reader to make a comparison between the two things being compared. The two “things” involved are the writer’s actual subject, the tenor of the simile, and another thing to which the subject is likened, the vehicle of the simile.
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Plath wrote “Morning Song” about the birth of her daughter, Frieda, in 1960. Like much of her work, this poem is highly personal and contains brilliant imagery. What might have been a joyful poem of celebration, however, is eerily dark: Plath’s severe and crippling depression shows through in her description of her new baby as “a statue / In a drafty museum.”
Make a chart for each of the three similes found in the poem. On the left, list the tenor. On the right, list the vehicle. One example has been done for you.
What sensory details such as sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and touch do you associate with morning?
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