SYLVIA PLATH

1932-1963

SYLVIA PLATHBorn to middle class parents in Massachusetts;

Published her first poem when she was eight;

Sensitive, intelligent, compelled toward perfection.

SYLVIA PLATH

She was, on the surface, a model daughter, popular in school, earning straight A's, winning the best prizes.

By the time she entered Smith College, a prestigious all-girls school in Massachusetts, on a scholarship in 1950 she already had an impressive list of publications;

While at Smith she wrote over four hundred poems.

SYLVIA PLATH

In 1953, her short story, "Sunday

at the Mintons" won first prize in a

Mademoiselle contest.

She also won a Guest Editorship

at Mademoiselle in New York City.

SYLVIA PLATH

After returning home, Sylvia nearly succeeded in killing herself by swallowing sleeping pills.

She later described this experience in an autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, published in 1963.

SYLVIA PLATH

After a period of recovery involving electroshock and psychotherapy Sylvia resumed her pursuit of academic and literary success, graduating from Smith summa cum laude in 1955 and winning a Fulbright scholarship to study at Cambridge, England.

SYLVIA PLATH

In 1956 she married Ted Hughes;

The Collosus, her first book, a collection of poems, was published in England, where she had moved after her marriage; she was 28 years old.

SYLVIA PLATH

Sylvia’s marriage fell apart less than two years after the birth of her first child;

During the winter of 1962-63, one of the coldest in centuries, Sylvia was living in a small London apartment with two small children.

She was sick with the flu and low on money.

SYLVIA PLATH

The hardness of her life seemed to increase her need to write;

The harshness was also reflected in her poetry.

In these last poems death is given a cruel physical appeal and psychic pain becomes almost concrete.

SYLVIA PLATH

On February 11, 1963, Sylvia Plath killed herself with cooking gas at the age of 30.

As with the first attempt – there was plenty of drama.

Sylvia Plath's gravesite in England is now visited by hundreds of people each year.

Sylvia’s son, Nicholas Hughes, committed suicide on March 16, 2009, at the age of 47. He had long suffered from depression.

His sister, Frieda, lives in Australia and is a poet and painter.

ENDURING UNDERSTANDINGS

• Literature is influenced by the events of its time period;

• Literature explores the changing dynamics of the nuclear family;

• Literature assists in our struggle to find meaning in a world that is constantly changing;

• Literature serves as an outlet for individuals to process the world around them.

“DADDY” – FACTS TO REMEMBER

Plath’s father died when she was eight years old.

It is widely believed she never recovered from losing her father at any early age and that this led to her depression.

“Daddy” was written in 1965, almost 30 years after his death.

FACTS TO REMEMBER

He had emigrated from Grabow, Germany, located in the Polish Corridor.

Stereotypically, Germans are considered harsh; even the language is heavy-sounding.

CREDITS

http://www.sylviaplath.de/

http://www.sylviaplath.info/biography.html#mlle

http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/eu.htm