The Colossus and Other Poems (Masterplots II: Women’s Literature Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Sylvia Plath
- First Published: 1960
- Type of Work: Poetry
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: Parents and children, Folkloric or magical people, Suicide, Poetry or poets, Fathers, Death or dying, Symbolism, Gods or goddesses, Depression, mental, Life and death, Giants, Greece or Greek people, Rome, Statues
Form and Content
The poems of Sylvia Plath’s The Colossus and Other Poems are metrically free but stanzaically strict; only rarely does the poet choose the foot over the syllable. That the poems are nevertheless very rhythmic is attributable less to an adroit syllabic measure than to felicitous aural features such as internal rhyme and alliteration. If Plath’s line was only modestly fresh in 1960, her marriage of sound and sense in poetic diction was dramatically innovative and became a hallmark even of her most mature period. The free line is, however, joined almost...
[The entire page is 2220 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
See Also
