Author: Patricia Grisafi Publisher: John Wiley & Sons ISBN: 1119782384 Category : Juvenile Nonfiction Languages : en Pages : 132
Book Description
A practical guide to Sylvia Plath’s works for middle and secondary school students One of the most dynamic and admired poets of the 20th century, Sylvia Plath wrote work about war, motherhood, jealousy, rage, grief, death, and mental illness that challenged preconceptions about what poetry should be about. The enduring power of Plath’s poetry and prose continues to attract and fascinate a multitude of readers. Best known for her poems "Daddy" and "Lady Lazarus" and the novel The Bell Jar, Plath starkly expressed a sense of alienation closely linked to both her personal experiences and the to the wider situation of women throughout mid-twentieth-century America. With an eye towards demythologizing Plath and focusing on her achievements, Breaking Down Plath aims to contextualize Plath’s work in the larger scheme of Cold War-era gender politics, debates about mental health, and anxiety about global conflict. Breaking Down Plath informs readers of essential facts about Sylvia Plath’s life and explores the works of the influential and controversial American poet, novelist, and short-story writer. Author Patricia Grisafi contextualizes and clarifies important underlying themes in Plath’s works while providing insight into how interest in Plath’s work developed, how the story of Plath’s life has been told, what we still need to discover about her, and why her life and art matter. Breaking Down Plath: Presents a critical biography of Plath’s life Offers a thematic tour through Plath's, short fiction, journals, and letters Explores the recurrent themes in Plath’s poetry Features an overview of the reception of Plath’s work Discusses the role of Plath in contemporary popular culture This book is a primer for younger or new Plath readers and a welcome addition to the toolbox used by educators, parents, and anyone interested in or studying Plath’s life and work.
Author: Camille Paglia Publisher: Vintage ISBN: 0307425096 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 274
Book Description
America’s most provocative intellectual brings her blazing powers of analysis to the most famous poems of the Western tradition—and unearths some previously obscure verses worthy of a place in our canon. Combining close reading with a panoramic breadth of learning, Camille Paglia sharpens our understanding of poems we thought we knew, from Shakespeare to Dickinson to Plath, and makes a case for including in the canon works by Paul Blackburn, Wanda Coleman, Chuck Wachtel, Rochelle Kraut—and even Joni Mitchell. Daring, riveting, and beautifully written, Break, Blow, Burn is a modern classic that excites even seasoned poetry lovers—and continues to create generations of new ones.
Author: Elizabeth Winder Publisher: Harper Collins ISBN: 0062085522 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 241
Book Description
"I dreamed of New York, I am going there." On May 31, 1953, twenty-year-old Sylvia Plath arrived in New York City for a one-month stint at "the intellectual fashion magazine" Mademoiselle to be a guest editor for its prestigious annual college issue. Over the next twenty-six days, the bright, blond New England collegian lived at the Barbizon Hotel, attended Balanchine ballets, watched a game at Yankee Stadium, and danced at the West Side Tennis Club. She typed rejection letters to writers from The New Yorker and ate an entire bowl of caviar at an advertising luncheon. She stalked Dylan Thomas and fought off an aggressive diamond-wielding delegate from the United Nations. She took hot baths, had her hair done, and discovered her signature drink (vodka, no ice). Young, beautiful, and on the cusp of an advantageous career, she was supposed to be having the time of her life. Drawing on in-depth interviews with fellow guest editors whose memories infuse these pages, Elizabeth Winder reveals how these twenty-six days indelibly altered how Plath saw herself, her mother, her friendships, and her romantic relationships, and how this period shaped her emerging identity as a woman and as a writer. Pain, Parties, Work—the three words Plath used to describe that time—shows how Manhattan's alien atmosphere unleashed an anxiety that would stay with her for the rest of her all-too-short life. Thoughtful and illuminating, this captivating portrait invites us to see Sylvia Plath before The Bell Jar, before she became an icon—a young woman with everything to live for.
Author: Carl Rollyson Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi ISBN: 1496826876 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 225
Book Description
In her last days, Sylvia Plath struggled to break out from the control of the towering figure of her husband Ted Hughes. In the antique mythology of his retinue, she had become the gorgon threatening to bring down the House of Hughes. Drawing on recently available court records, archives, and interviews, and reevaluating the memoirs of the formidable Hughes contingent who treated Plath as a female hysteric, Carl Rollyson rehabilitates the image of a woman too often viewed solely within the confines of what Hughes and his collaborators wanted to be written. Rollyson is the first biographer to gain access to the papers of Ruth Tiffany Barnhouse at Smith College, a key figure in the poet’s final days. Barnhouse was a therapist who may have been the only person to whom Plath believed she could reveal her whole self. Barnhouse went beyond the protocols of her profession, serving more as Plath’s ally, seeking a way out of the imprisoning charisma of Ted Hughes and friends he counted on to support a regime of antipathy against her. The Last Days of Sylvia Plath focuses on the train of events that plagued Plath’s last seven months when she tried to recover her own life in the midst of Hughes’s alternating threats and reassurances. In a siege-like atmosphere a tormented Plath continued to write, reach out to friends, and care for her two children. Why Barnhouse seemed, in Hughes’s malign view, his wife’s undoing, and how biographers, Hughes, and his cohort parsed the events that led to the poet’s death, form the charged and contentious story this book has to tell.
Author: Gail Crowther Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 1982138432 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 304
Book Description
Named a Best Book of 2021 by the Los Angeles Times A vividly rendered and empathetic exploration of how two of the greatest poets of the 20th century—Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton—became bitter rivals and, eventually, friends. Introduced at a workshop in Boston University led by the acclaimed and famous poet Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton formed a friendship that would soon evolve into a fierce rivalry, colored by jealousy and respect in equal terms. In the years that followed, these two women would not only become iconic figures in literature, but also lead curiously parallel lives haunted by mental illness, suicide attempts, self-doubt, and difficult personal relationships. With weekly martini meetings at the Ritz to discuss everything from sex to suicide, theirs was a relationship as complex and subversive as their poetry. Based on in-depth research and unprecedented archival access, Three-Martini Afternoons at the Ritz is a remarkable and unforgettable look at two legendary poets and how their work has turned them into lasting and beloved cultural figures.
Author: Sylvia Plath Publisher: HarperCollins ISBN: 0062940848 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 32
Book Description
“[Plath’s] story is stirring, in sneaky, unexpected ways. . . . Look carefully and there’s a new angle here — on how, and why, we read Plath today.”— Parul Sehgal, New York Times Never before published, this newly discovered story by literary legend Sylvia Plath stands on its own and is remarkable for its symbolic, allegorical approach to a young woman’s rebellion against convention and forceful taking control of her own life. Written while Sylvia Plath was a student at Smith College in 1952, Mary Ventura and The Ninth Kingdom tells the story of a young woman’s fateful train journey. Lips the color of blood, the sun an unprecedented orange, train wheels that sound like “guilt, and guilt, and guilt”: these are just some of the things Mary Ventura begins to notice on her journey to the ninth kingdom. “But what is the ninth kingdom?” she asks a kind-seeming lady in her carriage. “It is the kingdom of the frozen will,” comes the reply. “There is no going back.” Sylvia Plath’s strange, dark tale of female agency and independence, written not long after she herself left home, grapples with mortality in motion.
Author: Sylvia Plath Publisher: Harper Collins ISBN: 0060732601 Category : Poetry Languages : en Pages : 256
Book Description
Sylvia Plath's famous collection, as she intended it. When Sylvia Plath died, she not only left behind a prolific life but also her unpublished literary masterpiece, Ariel. When her husband, Ted Hughes, first brought this collection to life, it garnered worldwide acclaim, though it wasn't the draft Sylvia had wanted her readers to see. This facsimile edition restores, for the first time, Plath's original manuscript -- including handwritten notes -- and her own selection and arrangement of poems. This edition also includes in facsimile the complete working drafts of her poem "Ariel," which provide a rare glimpse into the creative process of a beloved writer. This publication introduces a truer version of Plath's works, and will no doubt alter her legacy forever. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.
Author: Heather Clark Publisher: Knopf ISBN: 0307961168 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 1185
Book Description
PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • The highly anticipated biography of Sylvia Plath that focuses on her remarkable literary and intellectual achievements, while restoring the woman behind the long-held myths about her life and art. “One of the most beautiful biographies I've ever read." —Glennon Doyle, author of #1 New York Times Bestseller, Untamed With a wealth of never-before-accessed materials, Heather Clark brings to life the brilliant Sylvia Plath, who had precocious poetic ambition and was an accomplished published writer even before she became a star at Smith College. Refusing to read Plath’s work as if her every act was a harbinger of her tragic fate, Clark considers the sociopolitical context as she thoroughly explores Plath’s world: her early relationships and determination not to become a conventional woman and wife; her troubles with an unenlightened mental health industry; her Cambridge years and thunderclap meeting with Ted Hughes; and much more. Clark’s clear-eyed portraits of Hughes, his lover Assia Wevill, and other demonized players in the arena of Plath’s suicide promote a deeper understanding of her final days. Along with illuminating readings of the poems themselves, Clark’s meticulous, compassionate research brings us closer than ever to the spirited woman and visionary artist who blazed a trail that still lights the way for women poets the world over.
Author: Sylvia Plath Publisher: Faber & Faber ISBN: 0571339220 Category : Literary Collections Languages : en Pages : 936
Book Description
Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) was one of the writers that defined the course of twentieth-century poetry. Her vivid, daring and complex poetry continues to captivate new generations of readers and writers. In the Letters, we discover the art of Plath's correspondence. Most has never before been published, and it is here presented unabridged, without revision, so that she speaks directly in her own words. Refreshingly candid and offering intimate details of her personal life, Plath is playful, too, entertaining a wide range of addressees, including family, friends and professional contacts, with inimitable wit and verve. The letters document Plath's extraordinary literary development: the genesis of many poems, short and long fiction, and journalism. Her endeavour to publish in a variety of genres had mixed receptions, but she was never dissuaded. Through acceptance of her work, and rejection, Plath strove to stay true to her creative vision. Well-read and curious, she simultaneously offers a fascinating commentary on contemporary culture. Leading Plath scholar Peter K. Steinberg and Karen V. Kukil, editor of The Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962, provide comprehensive footnotes and an extensive index informed by their meticulous research. Alongside a selection of photographs and Plath's own drawings, they masterfully contextualise what the pages disclose. This selection of later correspondence witnesses Plath and Hughes becoming major, influential contemporary writers, as it happened. Experiences recorded include first books and other publications; teaching; committing to writing full-time; travels; making professional acquaintances; settling in England; building a family; and buying a house. Throughout, Plath's voice is completely, uniquely her own.
Author: Patricia Grisafi
Author: Camille Paglia
Author: Elizabeth Winder
Author: Carl Rollyson
Author: Gail Crowther
Author: Sylvia Plath
Author: Sylvia Plath
Author: Heather Clark
Author: Sylvia Plath
Author: Howard Jacobson