The Oxford Companion to English Literature | Plath, Sylvia
Plath, Sylvia
(
1932
–
63
), poet and novelist, born in Boston, Massachusetts, the daughter of a German immigrant professor and entomologist, who died when she was 8. She was educated at Smith College, Massachusetts, and Newnham College, Cambridge. She married
Ted
Hughes
in
1956
. After teaching for a while in America, she and Hughes returned to England in
1959
, where they lived in London before moving to Devon in
1961
. Her first volume of poetry, The Colossus, appeared in
1960
, and in
1963
her only novel
The Bell Jar
. Less than a month after its publication, in the coldest February for many years, she committed suicide in London. In
1965
appeared her best-known collection, Ariel, which established her reputation with its courageous and controlled treatment of extreme and painful states of mind. Much of her symbolism was deeply rooted in actuality; the poems on bee-keeping (‘The Bee...
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