Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath (/plæθ/; October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for The Colossus and Other Poems (1960), Ariel (1965), and The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical novel published shortly before her suicide in 1963. The Collected Poems was published in 1981, which included previously unpublished works. For this collection Plath was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 1982, making her the fourth to receive this honour posthumously.[1]
"Plath" redirects here. For other people, see Plath (surname).
Sylvia Plath
October 27, 1932
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
February 11, 1963 (aged 30)
London, England
Heptonstall Church, England
Victoria Lucas
- Poet
- novelist
- short story writer
English
1960–1963
- Poetry
- fiction
- short story
- Fulbright Scholarship
- Glascock Prize
1955 Two Lovers and a Beachcomber by the Real Sea - Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
1982 The Collected Poems
(posthumously)
- Otto Plath (father)
- Aurelia Schober (mother)
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Plath graduated from Smith College in Massachusetts and the University of Cambridge, England, where she was a student at Newnham College. Plath later studied with Robert Lowell at Boston University, alongside poets Anne Sexton and George Starbuck. She married fellow poet Ted Hughes in 1956, and they lived together in the United States and then in England. Their relationship was tumultuous and, in her letters, Plath alleges abuse at his hands.[2] They had two children before separating in 1962.
Plath was clinically depressed for most of her adult life, and was treated multiple times with early versions of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).[3] She ended her own life in 1963.
Biography[edit]
Early life and education[edit]
Plath was born on October 27, 1932, in Boston, Massachusetts.[4][5] Her mother, Aurelia Schober Plath (1906–1994), was a second-generation American of Austrian descent, and her father, Otto Plath (1885–1940), was from Grabow, Germany.[6] Plath's father was an entomologist and a professor of biology at Boston University who wrote a book about bumblebees.[7]
On April 27, 1935, Plath's brother Warren was born.[5] In 1936 the family moved from 24 Prince Street in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, to 92 Johnson Avenue, Winthrop, Massachusetts.[8] Plath's mother, Aurelia, with Plath's maternal grandparents, the Schobers, had lived since 1920 in a section of Winthrop called Point Shirley, a location mentioned in Plath's poetry. While living in Winthrop, eight-year-old Plath published her first poem in the Boston Herald's children's section.[9] Over the next few years, Plath published multiple poems in regional magazines and newspapers.[10] At age 11, Plath began keeping a journal.[10] In addition to writing, she showed early promise as an artist, winning an award for her paintings from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards in 1947.[11] "Even in her youth, Plath was ambitiously driven to succeed."[10]
Otto Plath died on November 5, 1940, a week and a half after Sylvia's eighth birthday,[7] of complications following the amputation of a foot due to untreated diabetes. He had become ill shortly after a close friend died of lung cancer. Comparing the similarities between his friend's symptoms and his own, Otto became convinced that he, too, had lung cancer and did not seek treatment until his diabetes had progressed too far. Raised as a Unitarian, Plath experienced a loss of faith after her father's death and remained ambivalent about religion throughout her life.[12] Her father was buried in Winthrop Cemetery in Massachusetts. A visit to her father's grave later prompted Plath to write the poem "Electra on Azalea Path".
After Otto's death, Aurelia moved her children and her parents to 26 Elmwood Road, Wellesley, Massachusetts, in 1942.[7] Plath commented in "Ocean 1212-W", one of her final works, that her first nine years "sealed themselves off like a ship in a bottle—beautiful, inaccessible, obsolete, a fine, white flying myth".[5][13] Plath attended Bradford Senior High School, which is now Wellesley High School in Wellesley, Massachusetts, graduating in 1950.[5] Just after graduating from high school, she had her first national publication in The Christian Science Monitor.[10]