1. “Out of the Ash”: Sylvia Plath HUM 2213: British and American Literature II Spring 2015 Dr. Perdigao March 16, 2015

3. Nine Female Figures Two Women Reading

4. From Modern to Contemporary “literary hegemony of the fifties” (Breslin 59) “Contemporary poems contain cracks, even fissures; they are heterogeneous. If they include disjunctions, interruptions, digressions, it is to show how they remain open, in process, rather than creating a perfectly ordered enclosure” (Breslin 61). Ideas of regeneration Confessional poetry as “mythologizing of the self,” Plath’s transformation into “The fine, white flying myth” of Ariel (Breslin 104)

5. Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) Parents Otto and Aurelia Schoeber Plath; father taught German and zoology at Boston University; died when she was eight Aurelia moved family to Wellesley to teach at Boston University Published poetry, fiction, and journalism before attending Smith College (Heath E 2836) English major Depression, breakdown in 1953 after serving as Mademoiselle College Board editor; electroconvulsive shock treatments led to suicide attempt that summer; psychiatric care before returning to Smith June 1955 graduated summa cum laude; M.A. on Fulbright Fellowship at Cambridge, England Married Ted Hughes, later Poet Laureate of England, on June 16, 1956 1957 returned to the states; Plath taught at Smith

6. Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) Lived in Boston for a year, returned to England in 1959 Published The Colossus and Other Poems (1960), The Bell Jar (1963), Ariel (1965); The Collected Poems (1981), The Journals of Sylvia Plath (1982) Collected Poems won Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1982 Had two children; separated from Hughes Committed suicide in her flat, Yeats’ house in London, after The Bell Jar was published Ariel contained last poems Late poems as most well received; final poems with change in tone