Sylvia Plath may be one of the most influential modern poets. Born in a middle class family in Boston in 1932, her parents were Otto and Aurelia Plath. Otto met Aurelia while teaching at Boston University and had an affair with her while still married to but separated from his previous wife. Sylvia was the first child the couple had.
At the age of eight her father died, and her first poem was published. Throughout her school career Plath continued to publish works, and by the time she graduated high school she had been published nationally. She graduated as valedictorian of her high school class.
Plath attended Smith college, and had her first bouts of depression soon thereafter. She was published in magazines such as Seventeen and Mademoiselle, and even became guest editor for Mademoiselle before graduating college. At this time she also attempted suicide, and underwent electroshock therapy in 1953 in an attempt to cure her now-diagnosed depression.
Shortly after the therapy she attempted suicide again, this time by swallowing pills that had been locked away. This experience was fictionalized in her work, The Bell Jar, after she was taken to the hospital and treated. She was admitted to a mental hospital and again given shock treatment.
After this she returned to her previous prolific writing, and kept up in her schoolwork as well. She was admitted to Oxford and Cambridge in England for school. At Cambridge she met her eventual husband, poet Ted Hughes. Even at the time he was known to be quite a ladies’ man, and Plath was warned away from him.
When the couple first married, they kept their marriage a secret until Plath was sure that it would not hinder the fellowship she had been given for study. The couple later returned to America, and Plath began teaching at Smith. After only one semester she again became ill and quit.
Plath later had two children with Hughes, and found out about the affairs he had been having. Her marriage with Hughes fell apart, and she began writing more poetry than ever before. Much of her best known work is from this time period. She also published The Bell Jar under a pseudonym, but to warm reviews.
Her depression returned and on February 11, 1963, after several attempts to have herself placed in another asylum, she committed suicide. Ted Hughes went on to publish many of Plath’s works, and in 1982 she was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
Plath is, of course, best known as a Confessional poet. Her works are written about things said, seen, or done in her daily life, but also are about her deepest and darkest feelings. She wrote many poems about the antithesis she felt for her father, her desires to kill herself, and the problems she had as a mother and wife of Hughes.
She was among the avant-garde, working with writers like Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton, and of course, Ted Hughes. She and other Confessional poets created what is in many ways the basis for today’s poetic styles. Many modern poets write about topics that could be considered Confessional, though the themes are not generally as outrageous as the early poets’ seemed to be, perhaps because of changes in society.
Her two most famous poems are probably “Daddy” and “Ariel.” “Daddy” explores her frustration at growing up without her father, and without coming to terms with her problems with him. He died when she was too young to have come to grips with the reality of his person, and so bears this hostility toward him into her adult years, despite wanting to put it behind her.
This poem is a lyric poem, focusing mostly on the sounds the words produce, and the most common sound used is the “oo.” The first line is a prime example of her use of this very guttural sound. “You do not do, you do not do” she says, though in the rest of the stanza there are other words that also produce this sound, “shoe” and “Achoo.” This is also a crying sound like that a young child might make.
In “Ariel” Plath also emphasizes the same guttural vowel noises, “pour”, “tor”, “furrow”, and “foam.” She makes the most of every word used in this poem, about the trouble she had as a mother and her feelings of being pulled in many directions. Still, the most commonly repeated sounds are vowel sounds.
It is easy to see the influence Plath and other writers of her generation have had on today’s writers. They struck out on their own path, not following the ideals set forth by Eliot and his companions to avoid personal poetry at all costs. Instead, her poetry was extremely personal.
Reference:
- Academy of American Poets. “Sylvia Plath.”; October 3, 2001. April 14, 2004. www.poets.org/Neurotic Poets. “Sylvia Plath.”; July, 2001. April 14, 2004. www.neuroticpoets.com Ramazani, Jahan; Richard Ellman, and Robert O’Clair. “Sylvia Plath.”; The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, Vol. 2. New York. W. W. Norton and Company, 2003. 593-615.
