Sylvia Plath: 1932-1963
Born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1932, Sylvia Plath to Aurelia Schober and Otto Plath. She rose to acclaim with her novel, The Bell Jar (1963), and her two poetry collections, Colossus and Ariel. She began writing at age eleven, keeping a journal, and her first publication appeared in the children's section of The Boston Herald in 1950 (Mount, 2). Plath's father, a diabetic, died from complications from the disease when she was eight years old: his premature death and her memory of him as a stern disciplinarian would shape and inform her poetry. The poem "Daddy" engages the poet's struggle to make peace with his passing.
Photo: poetryblog
In 1950, Plath won a scholarship to Smith College. While a student there, Plath spent time in New York as an editor of Mademoiselle Magazine as a guest editor. From there she was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to Cambridge, where she met the man who would become her husband, poet Ted Hughes. Despite the successes she enjoyed, Plath was plagued by depression: at age 20, she attempted suicide during this period, by taking sleeping pills, and absconding to a crawlspace beneath her family home. She wasn't found for three days. She was sent to a mental health facility and recovered (1), and despite all, graduated with honors in 1955. She married Hughes in the spring of 1956. The couple had two children, Frieda and Nicholas (2).
By 1962, Plath discovered, accidentally, that Hughes was having an affair: she happened to answer the phone when the woman, Assia Gutmann Wevill, rang for her husband. This discovery sent Plath into a deep depression that would produce much of the content of her collection, Ariel (2). In February of 1963, depression drove Plath to commit suicide: during a harsh English winter, she tucked towels beneath the bedroom doors of her sleeping children, turned on the gas oven, and asphyxiated herself.
Sylvia Plath's poetry is, like that of Anne Sexton and Robert Lowell, confessional in nature. Much of the poetry she wrote throughout her short lifetime reflects the psychic pain she suffered as a result of the trauma of losing her father, her bouts with depression, and with suicide attempts. "Lady Lazarus" conveys, almost with tongue-in-cheek arrogance, her multiple attempts to end her own life, and her dark success at survival. In 1982, she became the first poet to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize, posthumously (2).
Plath was portrayed by Gwyneth Paltrow in the film Sylvia, a film that raised the ire of Plath's daughter, Frieda Hughes. Hughes, herself a prolific author and poet, scorned the film as invasive of her mother's life, "voyeuristically raking [her mother's] ashes" (3). She was, according to her testimony, hounded by the BBC for details of her parents' lives. In her poem, "My Mother," she vents her anger, saying:
"They think I should give them my mother's words
To fill the mouth of their monster
Their Sylvia Suicide Doll" (3)
Plath's life and poetry offer us a glimpse into the tragic state and consequences of mental illness: her poetry, letters, and journals, offer us the only subjective view of the struggles she went through. During her early life she underwent electroshock therapy--a brutal and inhuman method of treatment dramatized in Ken Kesey's autobiographical novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and the subsequent film adaptation, which disclosed the cruelty inherent in early to mid-twentieth century treatment of psychiatric patients. Adding to the extant cruelty, Plath underwent the process without anesthesia (Mount). In the video that follows, English professor Nick Mount of Toronto University, discusses Plath's time at Smith, the "Smith Imperative," her early hospitalizations and treatment, and mental illness, and "Daddy".
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In 1950, Plath won a scholarship to Smith College. While a student there, Plath spent time in New York as an editor of Mademoiselle Magazine as a guest editor. From there she was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to Cambridge, where she met the man who would become her husband, poet Ted Hughes. Despite the successes she enjoyed, Plath was plagued by depression: at age 20, she attempted suicide during this period, by taking sleeping pills, and absconding to a crawlspace beneath her family home. She wasn't found for three days. She was sent to a mental health facility and recovered (1), and despite all, graduated with honors in 1955. She married Hughes in the spring of 1956. The couple had two children, Frieda and Nicholas (2).
By 1962, Plath discovered, accidentally, that Hughes was having an affair: she happened to answer the phone when the woman, Assia Gutmann Wevill, rang for her husband. This discovery sent Plath into a deep depression that would produce much of the content of her collection, Ariel (2). In February of 1963, depression drove Plath to commit suicide: during a harsh English winter, she tucked towels beneath the bedroom doors of her sleeping children, turned on the gas oven, and asphyxiated herself.
Sylvia Plath's poetry is, like that of Anne Sexton and Robert Lowell, confessional in nature. Much of the poetry she wrote throughout her short lifetime reflects the psychic pain she suffered as a result of the trauma of losing her father, her bouts with depression, and with suicide attempts. "Lady Lazarus" conveys, almost with tongue-in-cheek arrogance, her multiple attempts to end her own life, and her dark success at survival. In 1982, she became the first poet to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize, posthumously (2).
Plath was portrayed by Gwyneth Paltrow in the film Sylvia, a film that raised the ire of Plath's daughter, Frieda Hughes. Hughes, herself a prolific author and poet, scorned the film as invasive of her mother's life, "voyeuristically raking [her mother's] ashes" (3). She was, according to her testimony, hounded by the BBC for details of her parents' lives. In her poem, "My Mother," she vents her anger, saying:
"They think I should give them my mother's words
To fill the mouth of their monster
Their Sylvia Suicide Doll" (3)
Plath's life and poetry offer us a glimpse into the tragic state and consequences of mental illness: her poetry, letters, and journals, offer us the only subjective view of the struggles she went through. During her early life she underwent electroshock therapy--a brutal and inhuman method of treatment dramatized in Ken Kesey's autobiographical novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and the subsequent film adaptation, which disclosed the cruelty inherent in early to mid-twentieth century treatment of psychiatric patients. Adding to the extant cruelty, Plath underwent the process without anesthesia (Mount). In the video that follows, English professor Nick Mount of Toronto University, discusses Plath's time at Smith, the "Smith Imperative," her early hospitalizations and treatment, and mental illness, and "Daddy".
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