Sylvia Plath Summary

Sylvia Plath (1932 - 1963) (Also wrote under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas) American poet, novelist, short story writer, essayist, memoirist, and scriptwriter. Sylvia Plath: Introduction Sylvia Plath: ... Read more

Biography EssayNow famous for her ritual flirtations with death, Sylvia Plath has emerged as a significant fig- ure in contemporary American literature in the two and a half decades since her suicide ... Read more

In "Three Women," the final poem of Winter Trees (1971), Sylvia Plath speaks through the voice of a woman in a maternity ward, whose words provide a fitting statement for the poet's singular fixation ... Read more

In his introduction to The Journals of Sylvia Plath, 1950-62 (1982), her husband, poet Ted Hughes, wrote that she wore "many masks" but that he believes he knew her "real self" -- "the self I had marr... Read more

In the following essay, Harris compares Dickinson's response to death with that of poet Sylvia Plath, finding that Plath tends to be more explicit and Dickinson more transcendent in their attit... Read more

Critical Essay by George Steiner It is fair to say that no group of poems since Dylan Thomas's Deaths and Entrances has had as vivid and disturbing an impact on English critics and readers as h... Read more

Critical Essay by Robert Boyers Crossing The Water is an extraordinary book, not promising merely nor dazzling as one might have expected of a poet who was later to write the poems in Ariel, but perfe... Read more

Critical Essay by Lorna Sage This selection [Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams], made by Ted Hughes, of Sylvia Plath's miscellaneous prose—published stories, articles, a few passages ... Read more

Critical Essay by Margaret Atwood "Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams" is a minor work by a major writer…. [It will interest] any reader sympathetic enough to Plath's wor... Read more

Critical Essay by Anthony Thwaite That mystery and obfuscation, as well as pregnant misreading, have helped to create a Plath cult is undoubtedly true. That there is a cult-like interest in her life a... Read more

Critical Essay by Thomas Blackburn It is difficult not to think of Ted Hughes (I mean, of course, some of his poems) when reading such an admirable invocation of exuberant, unparagraphed vitality as S... Read more

Critical Essay by Peter Porter Crossing the Water consists of poems written in 1960 and 1961, after The Colossus was published but before her final intense period of creation. It's important to... Read more

Critical Essay by John Wain Sylvia Plath writes clever, vivacious poetry, which will be enjoyed most by intelligent people capable of having fun with poetry and not just being holy about it. Miss Plat... Read more

Critical Essay by Elizabeth Hardwick In Sylvia Plath's work and in her life the elements of pathology are so deeply rooted and so little resisted that one is disinclined to hope for general pri... Read more

Critical Essay by Sandra M. Gilbert Being enclosed—in plaster, in a bell jar, a cellar or a waxhouse—and then being liberated from an enclosure by a maddened or suicidal or "hairy... Read more

Critical Essay by William Dowie [While reading Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams,] the reader feels as though he is looking at a Sylvia Plath pickled in a laboratory jar…. What we see is not... Read more

Critical Essay by Jon Rosenblatt More successfully than any other recent American poet, Sylvia Plath dramatized those moments of crisis during which the self must choose between life and death. By usi... Read more

Critical Essay by Marjorie Perloff [What] Letters Home reveals, is that the various roles Plath assumed—Dutiful Daughter, Bright and Bouncy Smith Girl, Cambridge Intellectual, Adoring Wife and ... Read more

Critical Essay by Peter Davidson [Plath's early poems] seemed to have no absolute necessity for being: they read like advanced exercises. She wrote a lot of prose as well, including a novel, bu... Read more

Critical Essay by William F. Claire [Sylvia Plath's] last poems hit the reader with all the passion and pathos of a mind simultaneously fused with love and hate. They are often glorious, mostly... Read more

In the following essay, Freedman discusses Plath's use of the mirror as a symbol of female passivity, subjugation, and Plath's own conflicted self-identity caused by social pressure to r... Read more

In the following essay, Spendal discusses the significance of color symbolism, historical reference, and Plath's use of physical ailment as a metaphor for psychological injury in the poem �... Read more

In the following essay, Uroff contrasts Plath's poetic voice with the confessional mode developed by American poet Robert Lowell. Uroff contends that Plath, unlike Lowell, incorporates abstract... Read more

In the following essay, Annas offers analysis of depersonalization in Plath's poetry which, according to Annas, embodies Plath's response to oppressive modern society and her "dua... Read more

In the following essay, Lindberg-Seyersted traces instances of slang in Plath's poetry. I In a great number of Sylvia Plath's poems, the reader is invited to listen to a voice talking. U... Read more

In the following essay, Schultz finds allusions to mythological images of motherhood and womanhood in “Edge.” As the last poem Sylvia Plath ever wrote, “Edge” is tempting t... Read more

In the following essay, Folsom examines the personal and professional significance of Plath's poem “Berck-Plage.” Sylvia Plath's “Berck-Plage,” which contains... Read more

In the following essay, Ramazani argues that Plath's poems expressing grief fit the criteria of modern elegy and that Plath expanded the genre by adding a tone of abiding anger. “How the... Read more

In the following essay, Murphy attempts to locate sources for the imagery of violence and destruction in Plath's poetry. Bodies melt, voices shriek; hooks pierce; human flesh is chopped, like m... Read more

In the following essay, Manners examines similarities regarding images of paternity in the works of Plath and French feminist writer Hélène Cixous. As early as 1982 (English translation,... Read more

[Hamilton is an English poet, biographer, critic, and editor. His biographies include Robert Lowell: A Biography (1982) and In Search of J. D. Salinger (1988). In the following excerpt, he traces the ... Read more

[Glendinning is an English biographer and novelist whose biographies include Elizabeth Bowen: Portrait of a Writer (1977) and Edith Sitwell: A Unicorn Among Lions (1981). In the following review of Ia... Read more

[A nonfiction writer and biographer, Malcolm is well-known for her contributions to The New Yorker. In the following excerpt, first published in The New Yorker in slightly different form in August 199... Read more

[In the following review, James describes how Malcolm's investigation into Plath's life was fueled by her sympathy for Ted Hughes and how The Silent Woman presents a revisionist view of ... Read more

[In this brief review of The Silent Woman, Cantwell stresses the elusive nature of biography and the futility of its quest to summarize a person's life.] On Feb. 11, 1963, a young American name... Read more

During the 1950's "Confessional" writing was a term not yet created. America had rarely dealt with ideas one felt so bluntly publicized to the world. It was not until Sylvia Plath began to share her... Read more

A victim of her own surroundings, Plath was self obsessed in her need to understand her own torture. Her poetry, carefully crafted from past experiences, was her medium for venting and expressing her ... Read more

Throughout the essay I will be explaining what form of poetry meter is being used in certain poems, how imagery is detailed and explain rhyming patterns that have been used as well as giving my own an... Read more

Sylvia Plath was a typical example of her generation, inpatient and greedy for life but this description has a bit different meaning. Plath indeed desired artistic fulfilment but she wanted to be an... Read more

Sylvia Plath's poetry takes a strong stance on the various aspects of power in the area of gender relations. She takes on a unique approach to criticise and reject patriarchal attitudes and values by... Read more