Sylvia Plath1932-1963, Boston, MASylvia Plath was born on October 27, 1932, in Boston, Massachusetts. Her mother was Aurelia Schober, and her father was Otto Plath. He was a professor at Boston University, where he taught both German and biology, with a focus on the study of bees.In 1940, when Plath was eight years old, her father died as a result of complications from diabetes. He had been a strict father, and both his authoritarian attitudes and his death drastically defined her relationships and her poems-most notably in her elegaic and infamous poem "Daddy".Sylvia kept a journal from the age of eleven and published her poems in regional magazines and newspapers. Her first natio ...view middle of the document...
Plath's poetry is often associated with the Confessional movement, and compared to the work of poets such as Lowell and fellow student Anne Sexton. Often, her work is singled out for the intense coupling of its violent or disturbed imagery and its playful use of alliteration and rhyme.She was the first poet to posthumously win a Pulitzer Prize (1982).Words (February 1963)Axes after whose stroke the wood rings, And the echoes! Echoes travelling Off from the centre like horses.The sap Wells like tears, like the Water striving To re-establish its mirror Over the rockThat drops and turns, A white skull, Eaten by weedy greens. Years later I Encounter them on the road______Words dry and riderless, The indefatigable hoof-taps. While From the bottom of the pool, fixed stars Govern a life.Mad Girl's Love Song"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my lids and all is born again. (I think I made you up inside my head.) The stars go waltzing out in blue and red, And arbitrary blackness gallops in: I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane. (I think I made you up inside my head.) God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade: Exit seraphim and Satan's men: I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. I fancied you'd return the way you said, But I grow old and I forget your name. (I think I made you up inside my head.) I should have loved a thunderbird instead; At least when spring comes they roar back again. I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. (I think I made you up inside my head.)"CutFor Susan O'Neill RoeWhat a thrill ----My thumb instead of an onion.The top quite goneExcept for a sort of a hingeOf skin,A flap like a hat,Dead white.Then that red plush.Little pilgrim,The Indian's axed your scalp.Your turkey wattleCarpet rollsStraight from the heart.I step on it,Clutching my bottleOf pink fizz. A celebration, this is.Out of a gapA million soldiers run,Redcoats, every one.Whose side are they on?O myHomunculus, I am ill.I have taken a pill to killThe thinPapery feeling.Saboteur,Kamikaze man ---The stain on yourGauze Ku Klux KlanBabushkaDarkens and tarnishes and whenThe balledPulp of your heartConfronts its smallMill of silenceHow you jump----Trepanned veteran,Dirty girl,Thumb stump.24.10.62ANALYSESWORDS: This is one of the last poems she wrote before her death and reflects the inner turmoil of one desperately seeking help.Axes are sharp and cutting their purpose to bite into wood. Words when released for consumption can be sharp and cutting. They can move from the centre of the person especially if they have been well thought out… and like horses travel. Once released they can travel far and forever perhaps.Plath's words were always part of her very being (the sap in the wood) and when released it is impossible for her to recover completely perhaps, or at least settle back to where she was before. In this poem we have the intensity of...
