Plath, Sylvia

Plath, Sylvia (1932–63), poet and novelist, born in Boston, Massachusetts. She married Ted Hughes in 1956. After teaching in America she and Hughes returned to England in 1959. 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 she committed suicide in London. Her best-known collection, Ariel (1965), 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 Meeting’, ‘The Arrival of the Bee Box’, etc.), and other poems—‘Elm’, ‘The Moon and the Yew Tree’—describe the physical surroundings of her house in Devon. Other poems refer directly to her own experiences: ‘Lady Lazarus’ is based on her two previous suicide attempts, ‘Daddy’ on the early loss of her father. Other posthumous volumes include Crossing the Water and Winter Trees (both 1971); Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams (1977, collected prose pieces); and Collected Poems (1981, with an introduction by T. Hughes). Although her best poems deal with suffering and death, others are exhilarating and affectionate, and her tone is frequently witty as well as disturbing.