SYLVIA PLATH
Texts, Contexts & Perspectives
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
1932-1963
Elizabeth Taylor in Father of Bride 1950
The Great Depression  World War II  Postwar Prosperity
New Era: Consumption
 Technology - (TV, cars)
 Pop culture – Family values (Films, commercials)
 Patriarchal family structure
 1960’s counterculture
“A comfortable concentration camp” - physically luxurious,
mentally oppressive and impoverished
A 1950’s family
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Against fire and bombs through the roof.
Believe me, they'll bury you in it.
A living doll, everywhere you look.
Marilyn Monroe in Some Like it Hot 1959
It can sew, it can cook.
It can talk, talk, talk.
Nargiz
FAMILY LIFE
Winthrop Massachusetts 1936
Elmwood road, Wellesley, Massachusetts 1942
The age of 8; first poem
Paintings “The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards
Ermek
EDUCATION/WORK
Winthrop, Massachusetts public school
Got straight A’s
Published her first poem when she was eight in the Boston Herald
Finished Smith College with honors after which she got a scholarship to Newnham
College, Cambridge
3rd year of college she was awarded a position as a guest editor at Mademoiselle
Magazine
Nuric
MARRIAGE
Married: June 16, 1956
Tumultuous relationship
• ‘Shortly afterward [after meeting him], an
overwrought Plath wrote her mother, Aurelia,
describing Hughes as a brilliant poet and a “large,
hulking, healthy Adam, half French half Irish, with a
voice like the thunder of God.” But having fallen so
completely, she also felt destined for “great hurt.” ‘
• “I was the one could have helped her, and the only
one that couldn’t see that she really needed it this
time. No doubt where the blame lies.”
• DailyMail calls Hughes and Plath the “most
controversial love affair in 20 century literature”
(much like Barrett and Browning)
LITERARY INFLUENCES
«There were very few. I find it hard to trace them really. When I was at College I was stunned
and astounded by the moderns, by Dylan Thomas, by Yeats, by Auden even: at one point I was
absolutely wild for Auden…»
Poetry:
Persona:
 Dylan Thomas
 Yeats
 Auden
 Anne Sexton
 Otto Plath
 Ted Hughes
Gainizhamal
“The Colossus”
“Ariel”
“The Collected Poems”
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Her Poetry
Death
Victimization
Patriarchy
Nature
Body
Motherhood
Nurym
MENTAL ILLNESS
"To annihilate the world by annihilation of one's self is the deluded
height of desperate egoism. The simple way out of all the little
brick dead ends we scratch our nails against.... I want to kill myself,
to escape from responsibility, to crawl back abjectly into the
womb."
Narkes
MENTAL ILLNESS
He had committed suicide because he could have prevented his
own death.
November 5, 1940 "I'll never speak to God again."
“If I rest, if I think inward, I go mad”
“I wanted to see if I had the guts”
MENTAL ILLNESS
“If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the
same time, then I'm neurotic as hell. I'll be flying back and forth
between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of
my days.”
INTERVIEW/MEDIA
Two major interviews – 1961 and 1962
First about her life with Ted Hughes, first
meeting, love poems and Sylvia’s childhood
Second about her poetry, her inspiration,
main themes, role of poetry in her life
Nurzhan
INTERVIEW/MEDIA
From interview with Ted Hughes (1995)
About their first meeting
“She was a genius of some kind”
He understands that their poems “left its old path and started to
circle and search” after their meeting
“To me she was America and American literature in person”
Her most important poems were published after death
INTERVIEW/MEDIA
Other mentions in media are mainly about:
 Analyzing her poetry (Discussions)
 Opinions (agree/disagree)
 Role of her poems (effects)
ACADEMIC RESOURCES
1.
http://www.english.illinois.edu (On “Lady Lazarus”)
1.1 Critical reviews on Sylvia Plath’s poetry
2. “Reading Women's Poetry: The Meaning and Our Lives” (College English, Vol. 34, No. 1,
Women, Writing and Teaching; Oct., 1972; )
2.1 Critical analysis of “Lady Lazarus” poem
3. “Sylvia Plath’s Last Poems” (Eleanor Ross Taylor; pp. 260-262;)
3.1 The role of red color in writer’s poetry
4.
“The problem with Plath” (Jenny Tailor;)
4. The relationship between biographer and the biographee
http://www.jstor.org/ (web-portal; critical articles on Sylvia Plath’s life, poetry and
marriage). Registration is required!
Aikerim
LADY LAZARUS AND TULIPS
I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it——
A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
The tulips are too red in the first place,
they hurt me.
Even through the gift paper I could hear
them breathe
My right foot
Lightly, through their white swaddlings,
A paperweight,
like an awful baby.
My face a featureless, fine
Their redness talks to my wound, it
Jew linen.
corresponds.
….Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy…..
http://www.brainpickings.org/2013/07/16/sylvia-plath-ted-hughes-bbc-interview-1961/
• This article and radio interview provides a small glimpse into the life’s of Hughes and
Plath as well as insight into the life of a writer (in London, in late 1950’s and early
1960’s)
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/seeing-sylvia-plath-92570073/?no-ist
• This is a fascinating article about Sylvia Plath’s life that combines interesting details with
academia. A longer read but compelling enough to make it worthwhile.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2136796/Ted-Hughes-haunted-Sylvia-Plathssuicide.html
• A balanced reading considering the effect of Plath’s death on Hughes. Hughes is often
blamed for Plath’s death, the article provides a sense of Hughes own struggles.
http://lovingsylvia.tumblr.com/post/1263482483/last-letter-by-ted-hughes
• This site directs you to Hughes’ poem reflecting on Plath’s death. It is a poignant
reflection on the relationship they had and the impact Plath’s death had on Hughes.