Sylvia Plath and the dangers of biography
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15503/jecs20151.55.64Keywords:
confessional, poetry, Sylvia Plath, biographyAbstract
2013 marked the 50th anniversary of the death of Sylvia Plath and was commemorated by a flurry of new publications on the life and work of the late poet. The renewed interest in Sylvia Plath also revitalized the decades-old debate on the interdependence of her poems and her biography. This paper investigates and problematizes the way in which poetry in general and the work of Sylvia Plath in particular are read and interpreted. It tries to shed some light on the “biographical fallacy” which has for so long plagued critical approaches to her work and shows ways in which S. Plath’s own poetic method differs from the method of confessional writers such as Robert Lowell, in the hope of revealing why S. Plath’s work cannot and should not be approached through the prism of her biography.
Downloads
References
Abrams, M.H. (1971). The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press.
Foucault, M. (1978). The History of Sexuality. New York: Pantheon Books.
Gilbert, S. (1979). A Fine, White Flying Myth: The Life/Work of Sylvia Plath in Shakespeare’s Sisters: Feminist Essays on Women Poets. In: S. Gilbert, & S. Gubar (Ed.). Shakespeare’s Sisters: Feminist Essays on Woman Poets. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Gill, J. (Ed.) (2006). Modern Confessional Writing: New Critical Essays. London: Routledge.
Lowell, R. (1980). Life Studies and For The Union Dead. New York: The Noonday Press.
Mill, J.S. (n.d.). Thoughts on Poetry and Its Varieties. Retrieved February 28, 2014 from http://www.laits.utexas.edu/poltheory/jsmill/diss-disc/poetry/poetry.s01.html.
Nelson, D. (2002). Pursuing Privacy in Cold War America. New York: Columbia University Press.
Orr, Peter (n.d.) A 1962 Sylvia Plath Interview with Peter Orr. Retrieved October 13, 2014 from http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/plath/orrinterview.htm.
Plath, S. (1981). The Collected Poems. In: T. Hughes (Ed.). New York: Harper and Row.
Plath, S. (2000). The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath. In: K.V. Kukil (Ed.). New York: Anchor Books.
Sartre, J.P. (1988). What is Literature and Other Essays. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Steiner, F.G. (1965). Dying is an Art. Retrieved from http://www.unz.org/Pub/Reporter-1965oct07-00051.
Uroff, M.D. (1977). Sylvia Plath and Confessional Poetry: A Reconsideration. Retrieved from http://www.sylviaplath.de/plath/uroff.html.
Vendler, H. (2010). Last Looks, Last Books: Stevens, Plath, Lowell, Bishop, Merrill. Oxford: Princeton University Press
Wordsworth, W., & Coleridge, S.T. (2003). Lyrical Ballads and Other Poems. Ware, UK: Wordsworth Editions Ltd.
Yezzi D. (1998). Confessional Poetry and The Artifice of Honesty. Retrieved from https://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Confessional-poetry---the-artifice-of-honesty-3026
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
CC-BY
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal. All authors agree for publishing their email adresses, affiliations and short bio statements with their articles during the submission process.
