The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath: Transcripts from the Original Manuscripts at Smith College

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I find it particularly interesting to note Plath’s thoughts and emotions as these events occur, although they are not pointedly mentioned! It is true that that the facts of her death are what finally propelled Sylvia Plath into literary eminence—she published little during her lifetime and was largely unknown outside of poetic circles. It is also true that her own fascination with psychoanalysis, alongside a tumultuous relationship with husband and would-be Poet Laureate Ted Hughes, marks her as a subject of much intrigue. However, I find it perverse how she is seen primarily through her tragedy; her person interchangeable with a sense of macabre victimhood. I love Plath, but it is her life that I'm drawn to rather than her death.

i94033596 |b1070003377510 |dflgmn |g- |m231117 |h16 |x1 |t1 |i5 |j18 |k150516 |n10-31-2022 22:26 |o- |aPS3566.L27 |rZ471 2000 It is easier to read a biography than this. There is so much missing. The advantage of this is that you hear Plath’s own words. Next in line for me is to look at the couple’s marriage from Ted Hughes’ perspective. I have already begun Her Husband: Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath - A Marriage. My admiration for Plath and her oeuvre is therefore often accompanied by a sense of unease, given the degree to which her life and works are obscured by her oft-mythologised struggle with mental illness and eventual suicide. Reading her has time and again led me to see her a kindred soul, to believe that I can commune with her and that she gets me—although I am but one among the millions of women who feel the same. What is that if not the mark of a superior writer? Sylvia Plath photographed with typewriter in Yorkshire, September 1956 In her journals, Plath is vivacious, multidimensional, and intensely human, passionately recording her life and observations lest they slip away, coaxing herself to write more and do more and be more. Hers is an obsession with living, with creativity and success, and it is this that makes her such an irresistible figure.The first half of this book is absolutely remarkable. Especially for being just a journal. After she married, however, I think her tone changed. Her journaling was permanently altered. She made herself so little when compared to the “great Ted Hughes”. She refrained from “nagging” him, but he could nag her, because of his “superior seat”. Out of the pair he was always the better, bigger and smarter in her eyes. Her feminist words of before were somehow not put into action, and she became rather submissive and accepting too much of his behavior and betrayals. I understand her position and era of misogyny, but after being so entirely compelled by this woman’s words, I can’t lie here and say her submission didn’t bother me. It is because of this confusion between the two, that the Unabridged Journals bear the burden of illumination. They are a significant contribution to our understanding of Plath and Plath scholarship. Sylvia Plath (1932 –1963) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and studied at Smith College. In 1955 she went to Cambridge University on a Fulbright scholarship, where she met and later married Ted Hughes. Plath published one collection of poems in her lifetime, The Colossus(1960), and a novel, The Bell Jar(1963). Her Collected Poems, which contains her poetry written from 1956 until her death, was published in 1981 and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. The complete, uncensored journals of Sylvia Plath—essential reading for anyone who has been moved and fascinated by the poet’s life and work. forever decayin یا در زوالی ابدی..جهانی که هر چه زمان,این پارامتر نا مشخص زندگی انسان,بر ان میگذشت..بی توجه به وقایع باز هم راه خود را به سوی خودنابودی میافت..در نهایت همراه شدن با سیلویا پلات تجربه ای تلخ بود اما من رو به نوشتن تشویق کرد,نوشتن انچه در ذهن من و بر من می گذرد..

I don’t believe in God as a kind father in the sky. I don’t believe that the meek will inherit the earth. The meek get ignored and trampled. They decompose in the bloody soil of war, of business, of art, and they rot into the warm ground under the spring rains.” This is the dilemma of the soul. It is the dilemma of the artist in his or her calling, and that spiritual pull between the real world and the state of imagining which becomes, through physical and mental exertion, its own state.

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aPlath, Sylvia. |0https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n79032880 |vDiaries. |0https://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh99001602 The journal entries included in this volume are dated as early as July 1950, when Plath is an eighteen year old just about to begin college, and reveal a refined style and outlook that seems way ahead of her time. An all-American girl on the surface, she craves both independence and sexual freedom, and has ambitious in an age when success for women was defined as being wives and mothers. Thus, although often preoccupied with dating and husband-hunting she is calculating in romance, knowing the precarity of women in the 1950s. Unable to see herself in the hallowed image of a domestic subservient, she wants equality; she negotiates her femininity vis-a-vis the 'masculinity' of her aspirations and often mentions her envy for the ease of male living. wow, I guess I really took my time to finish this book. no, I mean... I reaAAAlly took my time – Goodreads is telling me I started reading it in April 2018, and have only managed to finish it in August 2020; and what a ride this has been!! A literary event… The book has a raw immediacy that will only add to Plath’s iconic reputation.”— Harpers & Queens i127252940 |b1110003597179 |dmrlaq |g- |m |h8 |x1 |t0 |i0 |j300 |k191011 |n04-02-2022 20:30 |o- |a818.5403 Pla