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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Olwyn didn't write her own book because she wasn't a writer and, as Ted told her, no one would have ________.
(a) Bought the book.
(b) Believed her account.
(c) Been willing to publish it.
(d) Understood her language.

2. What book by A. Alvarez about suicide gained added resonance from his friendship with Plath?
(a) The Savage God.
(b) Where Did It All Go Right.
(c) School of Donne.
(d) Life after Marriage: Scenes from Divorce.

3. Who wrote The Colossus and Other Poems?
(a) A. Alvarez.
(b) Linda Wagner-Martin.
(c) Sylvia Plath.
(d) Anne Stevenson.

4. What poet and playwright had previously lived at the residence where Sylvia Plath committed suicide?
(a) Leonard Cohen.
(b) Charles Bukowski.
(c) W. B. Yeats.
(d) Jack Kerouac.

5. Under what pseudonym was The Bell Jar originally published?
(a) Victoria Lucas.
(b) Johanna Mills.
(c) Cassandra Owens.
(d) Melissa Bouvier.

Short Answer Questions

1. At what meeting had Anne Stevenson appeared to speak in Part Two: Chapter I?

2. Dealing with Olwyn for three years, Malcolm saw none of the expected ________ in her character?

3. How was Anne Stevenson viewed by the author and her peers while at the university?

4. How many words did Ted Hughes cut from Linda Wagner-Martin's manuscript?

5. Janet Malcolm wrote to Olwyn Hughes in an effort to get an interview with whom in Part One: Chapter IV?

Short Essay Questions

1. What was the first official bad review of Bitter Fame? Who wrote it?

2. Ted Hughes wrote two introductions to The Journals of Sylvia Plath. What did he write in the first introduction, and when was this edition published?

3. How did Janet Malcolm compare her writing to Anne Stevenson's in college? What was Stevenson's career like?

4. Where did Olwyn and Malcolm go together in Part One: Chapter VII? What did Malcolm learn there?

5. What struggle did Ted face after the death of Sylvia Plath?

6. What does Malcolm write of the power and struggle of the biographer in Part One: Chapter I?

7. What qualities of Sylvia Plath's work made her appealing to feminists?

8. How old were Sylvia and Ted when Sylvia died? How did she die?

9. What is Plath's book The Bell Jar about? What was Sylvia's mother's reaction to the work?

10. How did Sylvia's demeanor and image change from her youth to her death?

(see the answer keys)

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