"A nuanced, passionate exploration of the life and work of one of the most misunderstood writers of the twentieth century. Sylvia Plath is an object of enduring cultural fascination--the troubled patron saint of confessional poetry, a writer whose genius is buried under the weight of her status as the quintessential literary sad girl. Emily Van Duyne--a superfan and scholar--radically reimagines the last years of Plath's life, confronts her suicide...

The author shows how Plath's remarkable lyric dramas define a private ritual process. The book deals with the emotional material from which Plath's poetry arises and the specific ritual transformations she dramatizes. It covers all phases of Plath's poetry, closely following the development of image and idea from the apprentice work through the last lyrics of Ariel. The critical method stays close to the language of the poems and defines Plath's struggle...

The life and work of Sylvia Plath has taken on the proportions of legend. Educated at Smith, Plath had a conflicted relationship with her mother. She married the poet Ted Hughes and plunged into the sturm und drang of literary celebrity. Her poems were fought over, rejected--and ultimately embraced by readers everywhere. At age thirty she committed suicide. Ariel, a collection of poems she wrote at white-hot speed during her final months, became...

In this incisive introduction, leading Plath scholar Heather Clark explores the intersections between Plath's life and work while discussing key themes in Plath's poetry collections 'The Colossus' and 'Ariel', her novel 'The Bell Jar', and her short stories.