"Mad Girl's Love Song" is a villanelle written by the American poet Sylvia Plath in 1953, when Plath was in her third year at Smith College. The poem, one of Plath’s most famous, is a portrait of the agonizing, destabilizing nature of heartbreak. Reeling from a romantic abandonment, the speaker questions whether her beloved was essentially a figment of her imagination all along. That is, she questions whether the version of this person—and of this relationship—that took hold in her mind ever existed in reality. Plath wrote the poem after being stood up for a date, and it was officially published in the August 1953 issue of the women's magazine Mademoiselle.

• Read the full text of “Mad Girl's Love Song”

• “Mad Girl's Love Song” Summary

• “Mad Girl's Love Song” Themes

  • 

    Love, Madness, and Disillusionment

    Where this theme appears in the poem:

    • Line 3
    • Lines 7-11
    • Lines 13-19
  • 

    Isolation and Denial

    Where this theme appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-6
    • Line 9
    • Line 12
    • Line 15
    • Lines 18-19

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Mad Girl's Love Song”

  • Lines 1-3

    I shut my ...
    ... inside my head.)

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 4-6

    The stars go ...
    ... world drops dead.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 7-9

    I dreamed that ...
    ... inside my head.)

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 10-12

    God topples from ...
    ... world drops dead.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 13-15

    I fancied you'd ...
    ... inside my head.)

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 16-19

    I should have ...
    ... inside my head.)

    

    

    

    

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• “Mad Girl's Love Song” Symbols

  • 

    Light and Darkness

    Where this symbol appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-2: “I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; / I lift my lids and all is born again.”
    • Lines 4-5: “The stars go waltzing out in blue and red, / And arbitrary blackness gallops in:”
    • Line 10: “hell's fires fade”
    • Line 12: “I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.”
    • Line 16: “I should have loved a thunderbird instead;”
    • Line 18: “I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.”

• “Mad Girl's Love Song” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

  • Alliteration

    

    

    

    

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    Where alliteration appears in the poem:

    • Line 1: “drops,” “dead”
    • Line 2: “lift,” “lids”
    • Line 6: “drops,” “dead”
    • Line 7: “bewitched,” “bed”
    • Line 8: “sung,” “me,” “moon,” “struck,” “kissed,” “quite”
    • Line 10: “fires,” “fade”
    • Line 11: “seraphim,” “Satan's”
    • Line 12: “drops,” “dead”
    • Line 18: “drops,” “dead”

  • Assonance

    

    

    

    

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    Where assonance appears in the poem:

    • Line 1: “I,” “my eyes”
    • Line 2: “lift,” “lids”
    • Line 3: “inside my”
    • Line 5: “blackness gallops”
    • Line 6: “I,” “my eyes”
    • Line 7: “dreamed,” “bewitched,” “me”
    • Line 8: “sung,” “struck,” “kissed,” “me”
    • Line 9: “inside my”
    • Line 10: “God topples”
    • Line 12: “I,” “my eyes”
    • Line 14: “grow old”
    • Line 15: “inside my”
    • Line 16: “loved,” “thunderbird”
    • Line 18: “I,” “my eyes”
    • Line 19: “inside my”

  • End-Stopped Line

    

    

    

    

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    Where end-stopped line appears in the poem:

    • Line 1: “dead;”
    • Line 2: “again.”
    • Line 3: “head.)”
    • Line 4: “red,”
    • Line 5: “in:”
    • Line 6: “dead.”
    • Line 7: “bed”
    • Line 8: “insane.”
    • Line 9: “head.)”
    • Line 10: “fade:”
    • Line 11: “men:”
    • Line 12: “dead.”
    • Line 13: “said,”
    • Line 14: “name.”
    • Line 15: “head.)”
    • Line 16: “instead;”
    • Line 17: “again.”
    • Line 18: “dead.”
    • Line 19: “head.)”

  • Personification

    

    

    

    

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    Where personification appears in the poem:

    • Line 1: “all the ,” “world drops dead”
    • Line 4: “The stars go waltzing out in blue and red”
    • Line 5: “arbitrary blackness gallops in”
    • Line 6: “all the ,” “world drops dead”
    • Line 12: “all the world drops dead”
    • Line 18: “all the world drops dead”

• “Mad Girl's Love Song” Vocabulary

  Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

  • Mad
  • Waltzing
  • Arbitrary
  • Moon-struck
  • Seraphim
  • Fancied
  • Thunderbird
  • (Location in poem: )

• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Mad Girl's Love Song”

  • Form

  • Meter

  • Rhyme Scheme

• “Mad Girl's Love Song” Speaker

• “Mad Girl's Love Song” Setting

• Literary and Historical Context of “Mad Girl's Love Song”

• More “Mad Girl's Love Song” Resources

  • External Resources

    • Plath's Disappearance — The Boston Evening American on Plath's disappearance and feared suicide, followed by the reprinting of "Mad Girl's Love Song." 

    • An Interview With Plath — A 1962 interview on how Plath started writing poetry.

    • "Sylvia" Trailer — Watch the trailer for the 2003 film on Sylvia Plath, starring Gwyneth Paltrow. 

    • TED-Ed Talk — Listen to a TED-Ed talk by Iseult Gillespie on the importance of Sylvia Plath. 

    • The Original Printing — See"Mad Girl's Love Song" as it first appeared in the August 1953 issue of Mademoiselle. 

  • LitCharts on Other Poems by Sylvia Plath

    • Ariel

    • Cut

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    • Edge

    • Fever 103°

    • Kindness

    • Lady Lazarus

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    • Mirror

    • Morning Song

    • Nick and the Candlestick

    • Poppies in July

    • Poppies in October

    • Sheep in Fog

    • Sow

    • The Applicant

    • The Arrival of the Bee Box

    • The Moon and the Yew Tree

    • The Munich Mannequins

    • The Night Dances

    • Tulips

    • Words

    • You're

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