Synopses & Reviews
Sylvia Plath: A Literary Life examines the way Plath made herself into a writer. Close analysis of Plath's reading and apprenticeship writing both in fiction and poetry sheds considerable light on Plath's work in the late 1960s. In this updated edition there will be discussion of the aftermath of Plath's death, including the publication of her
Collected Poems--edited by Ted Hughes--which won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1982. Biographies of Plath will be examined along with the publication of Hughes's
Birthday Letters. A chronology maps out key events and publications both in Plath's lifetime and posthumously.
Review
". . . readers who are familiar with Plath's writing and want to know more about its personal and professional contexts would do well to begin with this succinct, commonsensical study."--
Library Journal
Synopsis
Sylvia Plath: A Literary Life examines the way Plath made herself into a writer. Close analysis of Plath's reading and apprenticeship writing both in fiction and poetry sheds considerable light on Plath's work in the late 1960s. In this updated edition there will be discussion of the aftermath of Plath's death, including the publication of her
Collected Poems--edited by Ted Hughes--which won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1982. Biographies of Plath will be examined along with the publication of Hughes's
Birthday Letters. A chronology maps out key events and publications both in Plath's lifetime and posthumously.
About the Author
Linda Wagner-Martin is the Frank Borden and Barbara Lasater Hanes Professor of English at theUniversity of North Carolina.
Table of Contents
Chronology *
Part I * The Writing Life * Creating Lives * Creating the Persona of the Self * Recalling the Bell Jar * Lifting the Bell Jar * Plath's Hospital Writing * Defining Health *
Part II * The Journey Toward
Ariel * Plath's Poems about Women * Plath's Triumphant Woman Poems * Getting Rid of Daddy * Sylvia Plath, The Poet and Her Writing Life * The Usurpation of Sylvia Plath's Narrative: Hughes's
Birthday Letters * Notes * Bibliography (selected), Primary and Secondary * Index