Plath, Sylvia

(1932-1963)

   Claimed by both England and America, she was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the daughter of a German immigrant professor and entomologist. She graduated with honors from Smith College, Massachusetts, in 1955, then studied at Newnham College, Cambridge, on a Fulbright fellowship. She married the English poet Ted Hughes (see entry) in 1956 and the couple moved America for two years, where Plath taught English at Smith College. In 1959 they returned to London, where she had two children, Frieda (1960) and Nicholas (1962). Soon afterward she and Hughes separated and she moved with the children to a small flat. Plath had suffered from depression for years, resulting in being hospitalized. On 11 February 1963 she gassed herself in the flat. Her strongly autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, was published in 1963 under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas." Many of her poems are concerned with the dark side of life. Her poetry publications: The Colossus, 1960. Crossing the Water, 1971. Winter Trees, 1971. Some of her poems: "Blackberrying," "The Applicant," "The Arrival of the Bee Box," "The Bed Book," "The Bee Meeting," "Winter Trees."

   Sources: Anthology of Modern American Poetry. Cary Nelson, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Poems for Young Children. Caroline Royds, ed. Doubleday, 1986. The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath. Ted Hughes, ed. HarperCollins, 1981. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Harvard Book of Contemporary American Poetry. Helen Vendler, ed. Belknap Press, 1985. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.