SYLVIA PLATH
Sylvia Plath was born on 27th October 1932 to Otto and Aurelia Plath in Boston, Massachusetts. Her father was a professor at Boston University, teaching German and biology, his main interest being the study of bees. In 1940, when Sylvia was just 8, he died as a result of complications involving diabetes. His authoritarian demeanor and traumatic death has resonated throughout much of Plath's poems later in her life, particularly her famous work, "Daddy".
Throughout her later teenage years, Plath suffered from deep depression, resulting in an attempted suicide by sleeping pill overdose when she was twenty years old. Her recovery included electroshock and psychotherapy. Despite this, she graduated from Smith College in 1955 with the highest distinction and moved to Cambridge, England on a Fulbright scholarship.
At Cambridge, she met poet Ted Hughes, married him in 1956 and had two children. Her first collection of poems, Colossus, was published in 1960. Soon later she published her only novel, and arguably her most famous work, The Bell Jar, under the pseudonym of Victoria Lucas. Less than two years after the birth of their first child, Sylvia and Ted's marriage dissolved, resulting in him leaving her for another woman. Plath sunk into a deep depression, during which she wrote most of the poems for her collection of poems, a book called Ariel.
At the age of thirty, Plath again attempted suicide, and this time very meticulously succeeding. She left a note to her downstairs neighbour, informing him to call a doctor, left milk and bread out on the table for her children's breakfast, sealed the windows and doors and gassed herself using her oven.
Plath's poetry is often classified as Confessional poetry, providing insight into her thoughts and feelings of her own darkest and lightest moments. However, often Sylvia Plath's personal experiences act as a dark veil over the work she has produced, obstructing the appreciation her writing deserves as stand-alone pieces. Her extraordinary gift for capturing intense emotions, dark ideas and primeval fears whilst writing with beautiful articulation and phrase, can be overshadowed by her melancholy life. This poses the question: If her traumatic life experiences were not known, would her poetry be as distinguished?
It is obvious, however, that Plath's poetry is deeply influenced, almost centred, on her personal experiences. The images she conjures are passionate, profound and sometimes shocking, suggesting an element of reality. Her easy acceptance, and perhaps desire, of death and depression allow Plath's understanding of emotions and dark dispositions to be superior to other poets and authors, marking her as one who is troubled by such feelings herself and is able to express them with honesty. As she wrote in one of her journals, "I desire the things which will destroy me in the end," and "all I want is blackness; blackness and silence..."
Haunted by the demons of her past, Sylvia Plath remains one of the most eerily honest poets of all time, her sad and evocative writing singing to the hearts and feelings of many around the world. As she says, "Perhaps some day I’ll crawl back home, beaten, defeated. But not as long as I can make stories out of my heartbreak, beauty out of sorrow." - an appropriate summary for the masterpieces she has created from such a life of shadows and despair.
Throughout her later teenage years, Plath suffered from deep depression, resulting in an attempted suicide by sleeping pill overdose when she was twenty years old. Her recovery included electroshock and psychotherapy. Despite this, she graduated from Smith College in 1955 with the highest distinction and moved to Cambridge, England on a Fulbright scholarship.
At Cambridge, she met poet Ted Hughes, married him in 1956 and had two children. Her first collection of poems, Colossus, was published in 1960. Soon later she published her only novel, and arguably her most famous work, The Bell Jar, under the pseudonym of Victoria Lucas. Less than two years after the birth of their first child, Sylvia and Ted's marriage dissolved, resulting in him leaving her for another woman. Plath sunk into a deep depression, during which she wrote most of the poems for her collection of poems, a book called Ariel.
At the age of thirty, Plath again attempted suicide, and this time very meticulously succeeding. She left a note to her downstairs neighbour, informing him to call a doctor, left milk and bread out on the table for her children's breakfast, sealed the windows and doors and gassed herself using her oven.
Plath's poetry is often classified as Confessional poetry, providing insight into her thoughts and feelings of her own darkest and lightest moments. However, often Sylvia Plath's personal experiences act as a dark veil over the work she has produced, obstructing the appreciation her writing deserves as stand-alone pieces. Her extraordinary gift for capturing intense emotions, dark ideas and primeval fears whilst writing with beautiful articulation and phrase, can be overshadowed by her melancholy life. This poses the question: If her traumatic life experiences were not known, would her poetry be as distinguished?
It is obvious, however, that Plath's poetry is deeply influenced, almost centred, on her personal experiences. The images she conjures are passionate, profound and sometimes shocking, suggesting an element of reality. Her easy acceptance, and perhaps desire, of death and depression allow Plath's understanding of emotions and dark dispositions to be superior to other poets and authors, marking her as one who is troubled by such feelings herself and is able to express them with honesty. As she wrote in one of her journals, "I desire the things which will destroy me in the end," and "all I want is blackness; blackness and silence..."
Haunted by the demons of her past, Sylvia Plath remains one of the most eerily honest poets of all time, her sad and evocative writing singing to the hearts and feelings of many around the world. As she says, "Perhaps some day I’ll crawl back home, beaten, defeated. But not as long as I can make stories out of my heartbreak, beauty out of sorrow." - an appropriate summary for the masterpieces she has created from such a life of shadows and despair.