The Education of Sylvia Plath, Smith College, 1951-1952

This is the second post in a series on the Education of Sylvia Plath and it reviews the courses she took during the 1951-1952 academic year.

In Sylvia Plath's second year at Smith College, she roomed with Marcia Brown (later Stern), in Room 6 of Haven House. This room was on the middle floor of the house (2nd floor American, 1st floor elsewhere). Plath's room faced the Davis Student Center this year and the room had a bay window, a nice architectural feature.

View from bay window of Room 6, toward Library

View from bay window of Room 6, toward Elm Street

1950s floor plan of Haven House

As with her first year, Plath carried six courses and received 15 credits (Physical Education did not earn her any credit). Using the finding aid to Plath mss II at the Lilly Library, I have added some of the papers that Sylvia Plath submitted for her courses. Her artwork I am unable to attribute at this time, an oversight for which I apologize. Plath's notebooks for Government 11 and Religion 14 are held by the Lilly Library.

Art 210: Development of Principles and Methods of Visual Expression. Studio and individual projects in creative pictorial organization, using various painting and graphic media and techniques. Prerequisite, 13. Students must consult the instructor before enrolling. Nine studio hours of which six must be M T W 10-12. Mr Cohen. (51)

English 211: Literature of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. M T W 9. Miss Randall and Miss Drew. (71).

English 220a, 220b: Practice in Various Forms of Writing. M T W 11, 2. Miss Page. (73)

"The Perfect Set-Up", September 1951;
"The Estonian", 30 October 1951;
"Sonnet: To Eva", before 2 November 1951;
"Sonnet: To Time", before 15 November 1951;
"Somebody and We", 15 November 1951;
"Suburban Nocturne", 15 November 1951;
"Mary Ventura", 14 December 1951;
"All I Can Tell You Is about the Fog", Spring 1952;
"The Latvian", 29 February 1952;
"Though Dynasties Pass", 14 March 1952;
"Sunday at the Mintons", March-April 1952;
"The Dead", 11 April 1952;
"Marie", 4 May 1952; and
"Cinderella", 1951-1952

Government 11: Introduction to Politics. Leading problems, principles, and concepts in political science. For Freshmen and Sophomores only; not open to students who have taken Social Science 192. Two lectures and one recitation. Lee. M T 12. Rec. W 9, 12, 2; Th 11, 12, 3; F 11, 2. Mr Overstreet, Mr Pierce, and members of the Department. (84)

Physical Education 2a, 2b: Dance and Sports. Three periods of one hour each. Required for Sophomores. Each term a choice of sports and dance as listed under the corresponding term for 1a and b. (111)

Religion 14: Introduction to the Study of Religion. Teachings of contemporary Judaism, Roman Catholicism, and Protestantism. Problems presented by scientific thought, nationalism, and industrialized society. Survey of certain important religious ideas. For Freshmen and Sophomores only. Lee. Th 10. Rec. (for Freshmen) Th F 3, F S 10; (for Sophomores) Th F 2, F S 10. Miss Corwin, Mr Christian. (117)

["Religious Beliefs"], circa Fall 1951?;
"Unitarianism: Yesterday and Today", 8 December 1951; and
"Religion As I See It", 3 May 1952

See the other posts in the Education of Sylvia Plath series: 1950-1951; 1952-1953; 1954; and 1954-1955.

All links accessed 2 August and 7 December 2017.

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...

Some final photographs of Sylvia Plath

Susan O'Neill-Roe took a series of photographs of Sylvia Plath and her children from October to late November (or maybe early December) 1962 while she was a day nanny/mother's help at Court Green. From nearby Belstone , it was a short drive to North Tawton and the aid she provided enabled Plath to complete the masterful October and November poems and also to make day or overnight trips to London for poetry business and other business. Some of O'Neill-Roe's photographs are well-known. However, a cache of photographs formed a part of the papers of failed biographer Harriet Rosenstein. They were sold separately from the rest of her papers that went to Emory. I was fortunate enough to see low resolution scans of them a while back so please note these are being posted today as mere reference quality images. There are two series here. The first of the children with Plath dressed in red and black. (This should be referred to in the future, please, as Plath's Stendhal-c...

Amy C. Rea Reviews Heather Clark's Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath

Here’s a thing about me: I’m a voracious reader, but very rarely have a physically based emotional response to something I’m reading. I don’t laugh out loud, I don’t cry, both of which I do when watching movies. It’s not that I don’t find things funny or sad when I read, but apparently I need more of a visual cue. So it’s telling that when I got to the end of Dr. Heather Clark’s new biography of Sylvia Plath, Red Comet , I cried. It’s not as if I didn’t know how the story ended. But the level of detail and analysis Clark brings to her study of Plath is so detailed, and her examination of those brutal last weeks so deeply explored, that it broke my heart. Clark has done some tremendously important and much-needed work with this biography. It would be remiss of me not to note the aid she received from Peter K. Steinberg and the work he did compiling Plath’s Letters . Clark clearly spent a great deal of time studying these source materials, as well as others that were not available ...

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