Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath (October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet, novelist, short story writer, and essayist.

Life

Born in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts (a section of Boston), Plath showed early promise, publishing her first poem at the age of 8. Her father, Otto, a college professor and noted authority on the subject of bees, died around the same time, on October 5, 1940. She continued to try to publish poems and short stories in American magazines, and achieved marginal success.

Related Topics:
Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts - Boston - October 5 - 1940

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She suffered from severe bipolar disorder throughout her adult life. In her junior year at Smith College, Plath made the first of her suicide attempts. She later depicted her breakdown in the semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar. She was committed to a mental institution (McLean Hospital), and seemed to make an acceptable recovery, graduating from Smith with honours in 1955.

Related Topics:
Bipolar disorder - Smith College - Suicide - Semi-autobiographical novel - The Bell Jar - McLean Hospital - 1955

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Plath earned a Fulbright scholarship to the University of Cambridge, where she continued writing poetry, occasionally publishing her work in the student newspaper Varsity. At Cambridge she met English poet Ted Hughes. They were married on June 16, 1956. Plath and Hughes spent from July 1957 to October 1959 living and working in the United States. Plath taught at Smith. They then moved to Boston where Plath sat in on seminars with Robert Lowell. This course was to have a profound influence on her work. Also attending the seminars was Anne Sexton. At this time Plath and Hughes also met, for the first time, W. S. Merwin, who admired their work and remained a lifelong friend. On hearing that Plath was pregnant, they moved back to the United Kingdom.

Related Topics:
Fulbright scholarship - University of Cambridge - Varsity - English - Ted Hughes - June 16 - 1956 - 1957 - 1959 - Robert Lowell - Anne Sexton - W. S. Merwin

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She and Hughes lived in London for a while and then settled in North Tawton, a small market town in Devon. She published her first collection of poetry, The Colossus, in England in 1960. In February 1961 she suffered a miscarriage. A number of poems refer to this event. The marriage met with difficulties and they were separated less than two years after the birth of their first child. Their separation was mainly due to the affair that Hughes had with fellow poet Assia Wevill.

Related Topics:
Devon - 1960 - 1961 - Assia Wevill

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Plath returned to London with their children, Frieda and Nicholas. She rented a flat in a house where W. B. Yeats once lived; Plath was extremely pleased with this and considered it a good omen as she began legal separation proceedings. The winter of 1962/1963 was very harsh. On February 11, 1963, ill and low on money, Plath asphyxiated herself with coal gas from an oven. Before she died, Plath laid out food and milk for her children. She is buried in the churchyard at Heptonstall, West Yorkshire.

Related Topics:
W. B. Yeats - 1962 - 1963 - February 11 - Coal gas - Heptonstall - West Yorkshire

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==Works==

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As her widower, Hughes became the executor of Plath?s personal and literary estates. He oversaw and edited the publication of her manuscripts. He also destroyed the final volume of Plath?s journal, detailing their time together. In 1982, Plath became the first poet to win a Pulitzer Prize posthumously (for The Collected Poems).

Related Topics:
1982 - Pulitzer Prize

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Many critics, often feminist, have accused Hughes of attempting to control the publications for his own ends. Hughes, for his part, strenuously denied this, although he did cut a deal with Plath's mother Aurelia when she tried to block publication of her daughter's more controversial works in the United States, which struck some as self-serving on Hughes's part. In his last collection, Birthday Letters, Hughes broke his silence about Plath. In it, he is unapologetic for his behaviour, and yet extremely frank. The cover artwork was done by Frieda.

Related Topics:
Feminist - Birthday Letters

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While critics initially responded favorably to Plath's first book, The Colossus, it has also been described as conventional and lacking much of the drama of her later works. The extent of Hughes's influence on her writing has been a topic of great debate. It is clear, from her journals and letters, that she respected Hughes's talent enormously and spoke respectfully of it even after their break-up. Plath's poems, however, are clearly in her own voice and the similarities between the two poets' works are, on the surface, slight.

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The poems in Ariel mark a departure from her earlier work into a more confessional area of poetry. It is likely that the teachings of Lowell, who stressed the confessional, played a large part in this shift. The impact of the publication of Ariel was quite dramatic, with its frank descriptions of a descent towards mental illness and starkly autobiographical poems such as Daddy. Plath's work has also been associated with Sexton. Both suffered from mental illness and both committed suicide so comparisons are, perhaps, inevitable.

Related Topics:
Ariel - Confessional - Daddy

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Despite the vast amount of criticism and biographies that were published after her death, the debate about Plath's work often resembles a struggle between readers who side with her and readers who side with Hughes. An indication of the level of bitterness that some people have directed at Hughes can be seen in the history of people chiseling the word Hughes off her gravestone. Her headstone has subsequently been rendered more 'tamper proof.'

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