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Sylvia Plath [1932-1963] USA
Ranked #14 in the top 380 poets
Votes 89%: 3038 up, 393 down

Clinically depressed. Ted Hughes wife.

Born in 1932 to middle class parents in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, Sylvia Plath published her first poem at the age of eight. A sensitive person who tended to be a bit of a perfectionist she was what many would consider a model daughter and student - popular, a straight A student, always winning the best prizes. She won a scholarship to Smith College in 1950 and even then she had an enviable list of publications. While at Smith she wrote over four hundred poems. 

	However, beneath the surface of her seeming perfection were some grave discontinuities, some which probably were caused by the death of her father, an entomologist, when she was eight. During the summer after her junior year in college, Sylvia made her first (and almost successful) attempt at suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills. The experience is described in her autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar , published in 1963. After a period of recovery, which involved electroshock and psychotherapy she once again pursued academic and literary success, graduating from Smith summa cum laude in 1955 and winning a Fulbright scholarship to study in Cambridge, England.

	In 1956 she married Ted Hughes, an English poet, and in 1960, at the age of twenty-eight she published her first book, The Colossus in England. The poems found in the book clearly showed the dedication with which she pursued her apprenticeship, yet they only gave a taste of what was to come in the poems she began writing in early 1961. She and Hughes settled for a brief time in an English country village in Devon, England. However, less than two years after the birth of their first child the marriage disintegrated.

	In the winter if 1962-63, one of the coldest in centuries, Sylvia lived in a small flat in London, with her two children, ill with the flu and nearly broke. The difficulties in her life seened to reinforce her need to write and she often worked between four and eight a.m., before the children awoke. She would sometimes finish a poem a day. In her last works it seems as though some deeper and more powerful self had grabbed control of her. In those poems death is given a cruel, physical allure and psychic pain becomes almost tactile.

	On February 11, 1963, Sylvia Plath succeeded in killing herself with cooking gas at the age of thirty. Two years after her death, Ariel , a collection of some her last poems was published, that was followed by Crossing the Water and Winter Trees in 1971 and in 1981 The Collected Poems was published, edited by none other than Ted Hughes.

Bipolar disorder, Committed suicide, Confessionalism, Modernism

YearsCountryPoetInteraction
1865-1939
IRL
William Butler Yeats
→ influenced Sylvia Plath
1887-1972
USA
Marianne Moore
→ influenced Sylvia Plath
1908-1963
USA
Theodore Roethke
→ (introspective) influenced Sylvia Plath
1914-1953
WAL
Dylan Thomas
→ influenced Sylvia Plath
1917-1977
USA
Robert Lowell
→ influenced Sylvia Plath
1930-1998
ENG
Ted Hughes
→ married to Sylvia Plath
1928-1974
USA
Anne Sexton
← friend of Sylvia Plath


WorkLangRating
Mirror
eng
178
Cinderella
eng
48
Daddy
eng
46
Lady Lazarus
eng
44
Mad Girl`s Love Song
eng
32
Insomniac
eng
31
Tulips
eng
30
Soliloquy Of The Solipsist
eng
22
A Birthday Present
eng
21
Childless Woman
eng
19
Cut
eng
15
Edge
eng
15
Ouija
eng
14
Admonition
eng
12
Ariel
eng
11
Denouement Villanelle
eng
11
Love Is A Parallax
eng
11
Poppies In July
eng
11
Suicide Off Egg Rock
eng
11
Witch Burning
eng
11
A Life
eng
9
Mary`s Song
eng
8
The Thin People
eng
8
Bitter Strawberries
eng
7
Getting There
eng
7
Child
eng
6
Conversation Among The Ruins
eng
6
Gold Mouths Cry
eng
6
On Looking Into The Eyes Of A Demon Lover
eng
6
Thalidomide
eng
6
Words Heard, By Accident, Over The Phone
eng
6
A Sorcerer Bids Farewell To Seem
eng
5
Apprehensions
eng
5
Face Lift
eng
5
Metaphors
eng
5
A Better Resurrection
eng
4
An Appearance
eng
4
Elm
eng
4
Love Letter
eng
4
The Applicant
eng
4
The Dead
eng
4
The Moon And The Yew Tree
eng
4
The Rabbit Catcher
eng
4
Winter Landscape, With Rooks
eng
4
"Célibataire"
fre
3
Aftermath
eng
3
Alicante Lullaby
eng
3
Among The Narcissi
eng
3
Black Rook In Rainy Weather
eng
3
Blackberrying
eng
3
I Am Vertical
eng
3
Morning Song
eng
3
Mushrooms
eng
3
Never Try To Trick Me With A Kiss
eng
3
Old Ladies` Home
eng
3
The Jailer
eng
3
Two Lovers And A Beachcomber By The Real Sea
eng
3
Waking In Winter
eng
3
Winter Trees
eng
3
You`re
eng
3
A Lesson In Vengeance
eng
2
A Winter Ship
eng
2
All The Dead Dears
eng
2
Aquatic Nocturne
eng
2
Balloons
eng
2
Barren Woman
eng
2
Bucolics
eng
2
Circus In Three Rings
eng
2
Doomsday
eng
2
Event
eng
2
Frog Autumn
eng
2
Lesbos
eng
2
Lyonnesse
eng
2
Medusa
eng
2
Mystic
eng
2
Nick And The Candlestick
eng
2
Night Shift
eng
2
Poppies In October
eng
2
Prospect
eng
2
Pursuit
eng
2
Resolve
eng
2
Sheep In Fog
eng
2
Snakecharmer
eng
2
Southern Sunrise
eng
2
Stillborn
eng
2
Stings
eng
2
The Colossus
eng
2
The Hermit At Outermost House
eng
2
The Munich Mannequins
eng
2
The Rival
eng
2
Vanity Fair
eng
2
Virgin In A Tree
eng
2
Wuthering Heights
eng
2
Years
eng
2
A Secret
eng
1
Above The Oxbow
eng
1
April 18
eng
1
Berck-Plage
eng
1
By Candlelight
eng
1
Contusion
eng
1
Crossing The Water
eng
1
Dialogue Between Ghost And Priest
eng
1
Epitaph In Three Parts
eng
1
Faun
eng
1
Fever 103°
eng
1
Fiesta Melons
eng
1
Finisterre
eng
1
For A Fatherless Son
eng
1
Heavy Woman
eng
1
Jilted
eng
1
Kindness
eng
1
Lament
eng
1
Letter In November
eng
1
Man In Black
eng
1
Maudlin
eng
1
Monologue At 3 AM
eng
1
Morning In The Hospital Solarium
eng
1
Notes To A Neophyte
eng
1
Paralytic
eng
1
Perseus
eng
1
Poems, Potatoes
eng
1
Polly`s Tree
eng
1
Rhyme
eng
1
Sculptor
eng
1
Sonnet : To Eva
eng
1
Sonnet To Satan
eng
1
Spider
eng
1
Spinster
eng
1
Strumpet Song
eng
1
Tale Of A Tub
eng
1
The Arrival Of The Bee Box
eng
1
The Disquieting Muses
eng
1
The Eye-Mote
eng
1
The Hanging Man
eng
1
The Night Dances
eng
1
The Other
eng
1
The Princess And The Goblins
eng
1
Totem
eng
1
Trio Of Love Songs
eng
1
Two Campers In Cloud Country
eng
1
Two Sisters Of Persephone
eng
1
Two Views Of A Cadaver Room
eng
1
Words
eng
1
Wreath For A Bridal
eng
1
A Winter`s Tale
eng
0
Aerialist
eng
0
Amnesiac
eng
0
April Aubade
eng
0
Battle-Scene From the Comic Operatic Fantasy The Seafarer
eng
0
Black Pine Tree In An Orange Light
eng
0
Blue Moles
eng
0
Bluebeard
eng
0
Brasilia
eng
0
Burning The Letters
eng
0
Candles
eng
0
Channel Crossing
eng
0
Child`s Park Stones
eng
0
Crystal Gazer
eng
0
Danse Macabre
eng
0
Dark House
eng
0
Dark Wood, Dark Water
eng
0
Death & Co.
eng
0
Departure
eng
0
Dialogue En Route
eng
0
Dirge For A Joker
eng
0
Doom Of Exiles
eng
0
Dream With Clam-Diggers
eng
0
Eavesdropper
eng
0
Electra On Azalea Path
eng
0
Ella Mason And Her Eleven Cats
eng
0
Epitaph For Fire And Flower
eng
0
Fable Of The Rhododendron Stealers
eng
0
Family Reunion
eng
0
Female Author
eng
0
Firesong
eng
0
Flute Notes From A Reedy Pond
eng
0
Full Fathom Five
eng
0
Gigolo
eng
0
Go Get The Goodly Squab
eng
0
Goatsucker
eng
0
Green Rock, Winthrop Bay
eng
0
Gulliver
eng
0
Hardcastle Crags
eng
0
I Want, I Want
eng
0
In Midas` Country
eng
0
In Plaster
eng
0
Incommunicad
eng
0
Insolent Storm Strikes At The Skull
eng
0
Landowners
eng
0
Last Words
eng
0
Leaving Early
eng
0
Letter To A Purist
eng
0
Little Fugue
eng
0
Lorelei
eng
0
Maenad
eng
0
Magi
eng
0
Magnolia Shoals
eng
0
Medallion
eng
0
Memoirs Of A Spinach-Picker
eng
0
Metamorphoses Of The Moon
eng
0
Midsummer Mobile
eng
0
Miss Drake Proceeds To Supper
eng
0
Moonrise
eng
0
Moonsong At Morning
eng
0
Mussel Hunter At Rock Harbor
eng
0
Natural History
eng
0
New Year On Dartmoor
eng
0
Ode For Ted
eng
0
On Deck
eng
0
On The Decline Of Oracles
eng
0
On The Difficulty Of Conjuring Up A Dryad
eng
0
On The Plethora Of Dryads
eng
0
Owl
eng
0
Parliament Hill Fields
eng
0
Pheasant
eng
0
Point Shirley
eng
0
Private Ground
eng
0
Prologue To Spring
eng
0
Purdah
eng
0
Recantation
eng
0
Sleep In The Mojave Desert
eng
0
Song For A Revolutionary Love
eng
0
Song For A Summer`s Day
eng
0
Sonnet: To Time
eng
0
Sow
eng
0
Stars Over The Dordogne
eng
0
Stopped Dead
eng
0
Street Song
eng
0
Temper Of Time
eng
0
Terminal
eng
0
The Babysitters
eng
0
The Beast
eng
0
The Bee Meeting
eng
0
The Beekeeper`s Daughter
eng
0
The Beggars
eng
0
The Bull Of Bendylaw
eng
0
The Burnt-Out Spa
eng
0
The Companionabl
eng
0
The Courage Of Shutting-Up
eng
0
The Couriers
eng
0
The Death Of Myth-Making
eng
0
The Detective
eng
0
The Dispossessed
eng
0
The Dream
eng
0
The Everlasting Monday
eng
0
The Fearful
eng
0
The Ghost`s Leavetaking
eng
0
The Glutton
eng
0
The Goring
eng
0
The Great Carbuncle
eng
0
The Lady And The Earthenware Head
eng
0
The Manor Garden
eng
0
The Net-Menders
eng
0
The Other Two
eng
0
The Queen`s Complaint
eng
0
The Ravaged Face
eng
0
The Shrike
eng
0
The Sleepers
eng
0
The Snowman on the Moor
eng
0
The Stones
eng
0
The Surgeon At 2 A.M.
eng
0
The Swarm
eng
0
The Times Are Tidy
eng
0
The Tour
eng
0
The Trial Of A Man
eng
0
Three Women
eng
0
Tinker Jack And The Tidy Wives
eng
0
To A Jilted Lover
eng
0
To Eva Descending The Stair
eng
0
Touch-And-Go
eng
0
Two Views Of Withens
eng
0
Verbal Calisthenics
eng
0
Watercolor Of Grantchester Meadows
eng
0
Whiteness I Remember
eng
0
Whitsun
eng
0
Who
eng
0
Widow
eng
0
Wintering
eng
0
WordsFor A Nursery
eng
0
Yaddo : The Grand Manor
eng
0
Yadwigha, On A Red Couch, Among Lillies
eng
0
Zoo-Keeper`s Wife
eng
0

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