Sylvia Plath essays

Jo Gill, editor of the 2006 Cambridge Companion to Sylvia Plath, also edited Modern Confessional Writing: New Critical Essays (Routledge: 2005, ISBN: 0415339693). In the book, there are three essays that deal with Plath. They are:

"Dangerous Confessions: the problem of reading Sylvia Plath biographically" by Tracy Brain
"Confessing the Body: Plath, Sexton, Berryman, Lowell, Ginsberg and the gendered poetics of the 'real'" by Elizabeth Gregory
"'Your Story. My Story': confessional writing and the case of Birthday Letters" by Jo Gill

I am most of the way through Tracy Brain's essay and find it interesting; I am huge Brain fan and thoroughly enjoy and recommend her The Other Sylvia Plath. To my surprise, a review of The Restored Ariel that I wrote and published via The Sylvia Plath Forum is quoted!

In the last few years, there has been a critical backlash against Plath and biography, due in part to the fictionalization of Plath in two novels, and the biopic starring Gwyneth Paltrow. Plath and her biography are linked inextricably, and far too many people (myself included perhaps) rely too heavily on Plath's biography. Perhaps some find that using Plath's biography makes it easier to interpret her writing? I think for every argument against reading Plath biographically, there is also the case that one can benefit in their reading of Plath's writing because they have biographical knowledge. It certainly helps me! My experience of tracing and photographing Plath-related places has boosted my knowledge of her biography, and also has helped me to understand much of her writing. Seeing the places that Plath wrote about is an indispensable entracnce into the works.

Another recent essay, printed in Gill's Cambridge Companion, is by Susan R. van Dyne; that essay is the first in the book and is entitled "The problem of biography". Both the van Dyne and the Brain essays are well written, thoughtful, and convincing.

Famous Quotes of Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath inspires us all in various and wonderful ways. She is in many respects a form of comfort to us, which is something that Esther Greenwood expresses in The Bell Jar , about a bath: "There must be quite a few things a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them. Whenever I'm sad I'm going to die, or so nervous I can't sleep, or in love with somebody I won't be seeing for a week, I slump down just so far and then I say: 'I'll go take a hot bath.'" We read and remember Sylvia Plath for many reasons, many of them deeply personal and private. But we commemorate her, too, in very public ways, as Anna of the long-standing Tumblr Loving Sylvia Plath , has been tracking, in the form of tattoos. (Anna's on Instagram with it too, as SylviaPlathInk .) The above bath quote is among Sylvia Plath's most famous. It often appears here and there and it is stripped of its context. But I think most people will know it is from her nove...

Sylvia Plath's Gravestone Vandalized

The following news story appeared online this morning: HEPTONSTALL, ENGLAND (APFS) - The small village of Heptonstall is once again in the news because of the grave site of American poet Sylvia Plath. The headstone controversy rose to a fever pitch in 1989 when Plath's grave was left unmarked for a long period of time after vandals repeatedly chiseled her married surname Hughes off the stone marker. Author Nick Hornby commented, "I like Plath, but the controversy reaching its fever pitch in the 80s had nothing to do with my book title choice." Today, however, it was discovered that the grave was defaced but in quite an unlikely fashion. This time, Plath's headstone has had slashed-off her maiden name "Plath," so the stone now reads "Sylvia Hughes." A statement posted on Twitter from @masculinistsfortedhughes (Masculinists for Ted Hughes) has claimed responsibility saying that, "We did this because as Ted Hughes' first wife, Sylvia de...

Sylvia Plath and McLean Hospital

In August when I was in the final preparations for the tour of Sylvia Plath The Bell Jar sites, I found that I had long been mistaken about a couple of things. This is my coming clean. It was my intention in this blog post to discuss just McLean, but I found myself deeply immersed in other aspects of Plath's recovery. The other thing I was mistaken about will be discussed in a separate blog post. I suppose I need to state from the outset that I am drawing conclusions from Plath's actual experiences from what she wrote in The Bell Jar and vice versa, taking information from the novel that is presently unconfirmed or murky and applying it to Plath's biography. There is enough in The Bell Jar , I think, based on real life to make these decisions. At the same time, I like to think that I know enough to distinguish where things are authentic and where details were clearly made up, slightly fudged, or out of chronological order. McLean Hospital was Plath's third and last...

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