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You may have seen the book covers that adorn one of the corridors of our school. They talk of a writer and her work, of a woman and her personal demons, of someone who left too early, but who had the time to leave her mark on English-speaking poetry. Her name was Sylvia. Sylvia Plath.
50 years ago, on 11 February, 1963, Sylvia killed herself. A month before, she had published her only novel, entitled 'The Bell Jar', one of her most remarkable works, whose covers are the main subject of the exhibition "Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar: 50 years in covers". Elena Rebollo, a teacher in the English Department, is currently working on her PhD thesis, where she analyses the different editions currently existing of Sylvia Plath's works in Britain and in the USA, marking the fiftieth anniversary of her death.
As we are celebrating the month of the book and our love of reading, it is just the perfect occasion to celebrate Sylvia Plath's life and work, beyond feminist debates, controversies and simplifications of her as a person and as a poet and author. Let's just get this chance to learn something about her.
First, a short bio:
Early Life
Poet and novelist Sylvia Plath was born on October 27, 1932, in Boston,
Massachusetts. Sylvia Plath was a gifted and troubled poet, known for the
confessional style of her work. Her interest in writing emerged at an early age,
and she started out by keeping a journal. After publishing a number of works,
Plath won a scholarship to Smith College in 1950.
While she was a student, Sylvia Plath spent time in New York City during the
summer of 1953 working for Mademoiselle magazine as a guest editor. Soon
after, Plath tried to kill herself by taking sleeping pills. She eventually
recovered, having received treatment during a stay in a mental health facility.
Plath returned to Smith and finished her degree in 1955.
Relationship and Published Poetry
A Fulbright Fellowship brought Sylvia Plath to Cambridge University in
England. While studying at the university's Newnham College, she met the poet Ted Hughes. The two married in 1956 and
had a stormy relationship. In 1957, Plath spent time in Massachusetts to study
with poet Robert Lowell and met fellow
poet and student Ann Sexton. She also taught English at Smith College around
that same time. Plath returned to England in 1959.
A poet on the rise, Sylvia Plath had her first collection of poetry, The
Colossus, published in England in 1960. That same year, she gave birth to
her first child, a daughter named Freida. Two years later, Plath and Hughes
welcomed a second child, a son named Nicholas. Unfortunately, the couple's
marriage was failing apart.
Legacy
Much to the dismay of some admirers of Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes became her literary executor
after her death. While there has been some speculation about how he handled her
papers and her image, he did edit what is considered by many to her greatest
work, Ariel. It featured several of her most well-known poems, including
"Daddy" and "Lady Lazarus." He continued to produce new collections of Plath's
works. Sylvia Plath won the Pulitzer Prize in 1982 for Collected Poems.
She is still a highly regarded and much studied poet to this day.
The story of Sylvia Plath—her troubled life and tragic death—was the basis
for the 2003 biopic Sylvia starring Gwyneth Paltrow in the title
role.
Here's one of her poems for you to read and to listen to, read by Plath herself.
Daddy |
||
| by Sylvia Plath | ||
You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.
Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time--
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal
And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.
In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend
Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.
It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene
An engine, an engine
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.
The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.
I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You--
Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.
You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who
Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.
But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look
And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.
If I've killed one man, I've killed two--
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.
There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.
12 October 1962 | ||
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The Bell Jar is, as we said before, the subject or Elena Rebollo's exhibition and Plath's only novel. It was originally under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas" in 1963. The novel is semi-autobiographical with the names of
places and people changed. The book is often regarded as a roman à clef, with the
protagonist's descent into mental illness paralleling Plath's own experiences
with what may have been clinical depression. Plath committed
suicide a month after its first UK publication. The novel was published under
Plath's name for the first time in 1967 and was not published in the United
States until 1971, pursuant to the wishes of Plath's mother and her husband Ted Hughes. The novel has been
translated into nearly a dozen languages.
(source: wikipedia)
Here you have some of the covers you will find at the exhibition:
Don't miss the chance to have a look at the covers at the LIBRARY CORRIDOR of our school to find out how much meaning and how much work there is behind a carefully planned and designed book cover.
A film was made in 2003 about Sylvia Plath and her relationship with Ted Hughes, which didn't have the approval of their children. Interesting to see anyway, though. Starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Daniel Craig.
Here's SYLVIA.
Here's SYLVIA.
For more info, don't miss:
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