Postmodern
Sylvia Plath
1932 – 1963
American poet and writer (1932–1963)
- United States
- American
- Confessional Poetry
About
Sylvia Plath was an American poet and author. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for The Colossus and Other Poems (1960), Ariel (1965), and The Bell Jar (1963), a semi-autobiographical novel published one month before her suicide. The Collected Poems was published in 1981, which included previously unpublished works. For this collection Plath was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1982, making her the fourth person to receive this honor posthumously.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Portrait by Giovanni Giovannetti/Grazia Neri (Public domain) via Wikimedia Commons.
Life on the Timeline
Major Works
Exam Dossier
Most-asked topics
- Confessional poetry and Plath's role in the movement
- The Bell Jar as autobiographical/roman à clef novel
- Ariel and its posthumous editing history
- Imagery of death, the body, and rebirth in Plath's poetry
- Plath–Ted Hughes literary relationship
- Feminist readings of Plath's work
- Symbolism in poems like 'Daddy,' 'Lady Lazarus,' 'Mirror,' 'Edge'
- Plath's place among American poets (Lowell, Sexton) and postwar poetry
Previous-year themes
- Identification of confessional poets and features of confessional poetry
- Matching Plath's works to their years of publication
- Recognition of famous opening/closing lines from The Bell Jar and Ariel poems
- Symbolism and imagery (mirror, bell jar, colossus) in Plath's writing
- Editorial role of Ted Hughes in posthumous publication
- Plath's biography and its relation to her fiction/poetry
- Pulitzer Prize and posthumous literary recognition
Common confusions
- Confusing The Bell Jar (a novel, 1963) with Ariel (a poetry collection, 1965) as the same kind of work.
- Assuming Ariel was published exactly as Plath left it, when in fact Ted Hughes altered the order and omitted some poems from her manuscript.
- Confusing The Colossus (1960, her first collection) with The Collected Poems (1981, the posthumous complete edition).
- Believing The Bell Jar first appeared under Plath's own name, when it was originally published as by 'Victoria Lucas.'
- Mixing up Plath's confessional contemporaries -- attributing Robert Lowell's or Anne Sexton's poems/style directly to Plath.
- Assuming Plath herself won a Pulitzer during her lifetime, when the 1982 Pulitzer for The Collected Poems was awarded posthumously.
Memory tricks
'Bell before Ariel' -- The Bell Jar (1963) was published before Ariel (1965).
'Colossus comes first' -- The Colossus (1960) was Plath's first major collection.
'Hughes = Husband who edited Her' -- Ted Hughes edited Ariel and other posthumous volumes.
'Victoria Lucas hides in the Bell Jar' -- pseudonym used for the autobiographical novel.
'1982 Pulitzer = posthumous poetry' -- awarded for The Collected Poems, not during her lifetime.
'Confessional = Confess' -- personal trauma and autobiography as the poem's raw material.
