SOURCE: "The Deathly Paradise of Sylvia Plath," in The Antioch Review, Vol. 34, No. 4, Summer, 1976, pp. 469-80.

In the following essay, Scheerer traces Plath's rejection of mythic paradise—which she evokes using imagery of death—in her poetry.

Green alleys where we reveled have become
 The infernal haunt of demon dangers;

.....

Backward we traveled to reclaim the day
 Before we fell. . .

All we find are altars in decay....
 Sylvia Plath, "Doom of Exiles," 1954

In Ted Hughes's "Notes on the Chronological Order of Sylvia Plath's Poems," included in The Art of Sylvia Plath, he refers to several written in 1956-57, calling their vision of "the deathly paradise" a "chilling" one. The comment is haunting, also puzzling: how can "paradise" be "deathly"? Sylvia Plath was, Hughes adds, evolving her own pantheon of deities at the time, her special cosmic vision. Although she was inspired by the works of "primitive painters" from...