Sylvia Plath: A Poet

Sylvia Plath was born on October 27, 1932 in Boston, Massachusetts. Plath’s mom met her soul mate while she was a master’s student at Boston University. Sylvia’s mom’s name was Aurelia Schober, and her dad’s name was Otto Plath. When Sylvia was only 8 years old, her father died from problems with diabetes. Her father was very strict and mean. Sylvia’s father’s death and strict authority was the reason for all her poems and stories. She specifically wrote a poem about her father, “Daddy”.

Sylvia was always driven to succeed in life even in her early years as a child. Plath had kept a journal from the age 11 and wrote poems and stories. She would publish them in regional magazines and newspapers. Sylvia’s first national publication was in the Christian Science Monitor in 1950. Plath had just graduated from high school. The year 1950, Sylvia went to college at Smith College. Plath was an alright student, not the best. Plath had a lot of problems when she was in college. In 1953 she was considered to be depressed and actually tried to kill herself. She ended up transferring to Summa Cum Laude and graduated in 1955.

After Sylvia graduated, she then moved to Cambridge, England. She moved with a Fulbright Scholarship. The early part of 1956, Plath was invited to a party and met her soon to be husband, the English poet, Ted Hughes. They were later on married on June 16, 1956.

Sylvia later returned back to Massachusetts in 1957. She was studying with Robert Lowell. Plath’s first collection of poems, Colossus, was published in 1960, in England. Then, published two years later in the United States. Sylvia returned back to England, so she could give birth to her and her husband’s two children. Their names were Frieda and Nicholas Hugh...

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...portant to her. She comes and goes.

Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.

In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.”

This poem has so much meaning to it, you can see the insecurities in her heart. Being left for another woman would make any woman insane.

Works Cited

Ferretter, Luke. Sylvia Plath's Fiction : A Critical Study. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 28 Feb. 2014.

Butscher, Edward. Sylvia Plath : Method And Madness. Tucson, Ariz: Schaffner Press, 2003. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 28 Feb. 2014.

Spivack, Kathleen. With Robert Lowell And His Circle : Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Elizabeth Bishop, Stanley Kunitz, And Others. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2012. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 28 Feb. 2014.