Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath: "From Great Pain Comes Great Art" 

Sylvia Plath is considered one of the most notable poets of our time. She produced a bountiful number of works that are considered fundamental to her generation’s literary repertoire before her untimely death. From The Bell Jar, Plath’s Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiography to “Lady Lazarus,” Plath’s literary influence upon the art of poetry is profound. Often reflections into the tragic life of this poised poet, her poetry is usually filled with pain and images of death. She epitomized the mantra: “from great pain comes great art.”

Life 

Born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1932, Plath began writing poetry from a very young age. She published her first poem at age eight and continued to win literary contests and sell poems throughout her education. She graduated summa cum laude from Smith College then continued to Newnham College in Cambridge, England. Despite the success she found in college, Plath was greatly affected by severe depression, a condition with which she struggled throughout her life. Her first attempted suicide took place in 1953 which resulted in her hospitalization. Themes of hospitalization and self-destruction are often evident in her literature. 

Plath married another notable poet, Ted Hughes, who undoubtedly served as an influence for Plath’s writing. Together, they taught English for two years at Smith College before returning to England. It began the most prolific literary period of her life, in which she produced The Colossus, a collection of her poems, The Bell Jar, and several of her most famous poems such as “Daddy.” Affected by depression, Plath committed suicide in 1963 when she was only 31-years-old by putting her head in an oven in her London apartment.

Influences

During an interview, Plath credited Dylan Thomas, W. B. Yeats, W. H. Auden, and  Shakespeare as influences for her writing. However, arguably the most influential qualities stem from her own experiences. Her poetry truly employs imagery that is directly from Plath’s own mind, reflecting on things perceived distinctly in her own, unstable way. 

Themes and Works

Plath’s contributions to not only the literary world, but humanity cannot be truly measured by prizes and awards. However, she did receive many honoring her eloquent literature. She won many literary contests throughout her youth, including the Mademoiselle magazine fiction contest in 1952. Probably her most notable accomplishment, however, was being the first posthumous recipient of a Pulitzer Prize in 1982. Aside from her awards, interest surrounds her life almost as much as her poetry. She became a cult figure for feminism, and even a movie was made about her life in 2003.

Many of her works surround themes similar to those occurring in her life, making much of her poetry autobiographical. For example, “Lady Lazarus,” a exploration of her attempted suicides and sadistic interest in death foreshadowed her own death which would a occur just a few months later. It also is a prime example of Plath’s use of religious motifs through both Judaism, the Holocaust, and the Biblical figure Lazarus. Occurring in both “Lady Lazarus” and many other of her poems including “Daddy” in the theme of victimization. “Daddy” in particular explores the relationship she had with her father, Otto Plath, before his death. There is evidence that many of the themes expressed in “Daddy” were contributing factors to Plath’s suicide. Another motif that is often coupled with the formerly mentioned themes is nature. This is evident in Plath's "Tulips," a lyric poem serving as a recount of a hospital stay.

All of the said concepts contribute to a general theme of life and its cycle- birth, life, fertility, family, and most notably, death and resurrection. Her obsession with death and suicide most likely caused her to contemplate life itself and it's values, and her contemplations are expressed through the only way she truly knew- poetry.    

Mad Girl's Love Song

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

Further reading:
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/plath/twoviews.htm

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/sylvia-plath

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/1998/05/hugh-m28.html

Works Cited
"A 1962 Sylvia Plath Interview with Peter Orr." Modern American Poetry. N.p.,
     n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2015. <http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/
     plath/orrinterview.htm>.

"Sylvia Plath." Britannica School. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 2015. Web. 17
     Mar. 2015. <http://school.eb.com/levels/high/article/60354>.

Eder, Doris L. "Plath, Sylvia (1932–1963)." Encyclopedia Americana. Grolier Online, 2015. Web. 31 Mar. 2015.

Pictures Courtesy of:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2190158/FBI-files-Sylvia-Plaths-father-investigated-World-War-I-pro-German-sympathies.html

http://www.brainpickings.org/2013/07/09/sylvia-plath-spoken-word-tulips-bbc/

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/aug/17/sylvia-plath-otto-father-files

https://www.pinterest.com/courtney1882/tulips/

http://www.sylviaplathforum.com/10.html

Amy Lowell

Amy Lowell was a vivacious and outspoken American poet known for her role in the Imagist movement along with her various works in the early 20^th century. In Brookline, Massachusetts on February 9, 1874, Amy Lowell was born to a family at the top of the Boston society. She was inspired to follow an intellectual path from an early age, as her two older brothers, Abbot Lawrence and Percival, were renowned scholars. Amy Lowell spent her early years being tutored at home, and later she was sent to various private schools. Her family thought it improper for a girl to go to college therefore she did not attend. Although her education never ventured far from her home, her family’s temporary stays in Europe granted her worldliness and a cosmopolitan environment. When she was seventeen, she immersed herself in her seven thousand-book library at her family’s estate in Brookline. Lowell’s seclusion in her studies supports rumors that she was social outcast with a loud and opinionated character. She once stated, “God made me a business woman and I made myself a poet.” Her determination and confidence led her to stand out as a professional in a time when women’s abilities were overlooked.

One of the most significant influences on Amy Lowell’s work was the Imagist movement. Lowell stated that this Anglo-American movement, led by Ezra Pound, believed that, “concentration is the very essence of poetry.” The members of this movement, in Lowell’s words, attempted to “produce poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred nor indefinite.” Lowell used these principles in her work and increased its popularity. Her attraction to Imagism led her to editing and contributing to an anthology of Imagist poets in 1915. Polyphonic prose was another of Lowell’s influences. In this kind of poetry, there is a mixture of formal verse and free forms. Formal verse poems follow specific rules of poetry, such as rhyming patterns and stanza length, while free verse is more relaxed. Lowell also became intrigued by Chinese and Japanese poetry. She even collaborated with the translator, Florence Ayscough, in 1921 to create a collection in Chinese, Fir-Flower Tablets. Lowell was unafraid of breaking boundaries, which enabled her to create a wide range of poems. Her boldness contributed to her success.

Amy Lowell worked with her mother and sister in 1887 to write and publish Dream Drops or Stories From Fairy Land by a Dreamer. She made her first published poem, Fixed Idea, in 1910, when she was thirty-six years old. Two years later, her first collection, A Dome of Many Colored Glass, was published. In a fifteen-year career, Lowell was able to published more than 650 poems. In 1925, she published a lengthy biography of Keats, a poet whom she believed to be the forbearer of Imagism. Much of her work includes influences of his writing style. In the same year, Lowell won the Pulitzer Prize for her collection What’s O’Clock. Lowell’s achievements can be attributed to her fearless and charismatic attitude, which allowed her to explore the unknown world of poetry.

A Lady                                        

By Amy Lowell

You are beautiful and faded 

Like an old opera tune 

Played upon a harpsichord; 

Or like the sun-flooded silks 

Of an eighteenth-century boudoir. 

In your eyes 

Smoulder the fallen roses of outlived minutes, 

And the perfume of your soul 

Is vague and suffusing, 

With the pungence of sealed spice-jars. 

Your half-tones delight me, 

And I grow mad with gazing 

At your blent colors. 

My vigor is a new-minted penny, 

Which I cast at your feet. 

Gather it up from the dust, 

That its sparkle may amuse you.

Links:

Info on Abbot Lawrence

Info on Percival Lowell

Ezra Pound Poems

What's O'Clock

Works Cited

"Amy Lowell." The Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2015. <http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/amy-lowell>.

"Amy Lowell." Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2015. <http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/amy-lowell>.

"Amy Lowell." Wikipedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2015. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Lowell>.

"A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass." Forgotten Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Apr. 2015.

     <http://www.forgottenbooks.com/books/

     A_Dome_of_Many-Coloured_Glass_1000649523>.

"Figurative Language Poem 7." EReading Worksheets. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2015. <http://www.ereadingworksheets.com/figurative-language-worksheets/figurative-language-poem-7-a-lady-by-amy-lowell-answers.html>.

"Free Vs. Formal Verse Poetry: A List of Types of Poems." Writer's Relief. Writer's Relief, n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2015. <http://writersrelief.com/blog/2008/03/free-vs-formal-verse-poetry-a-list-of-types-of-poems/>.

"Later Ezra Pound." Open Letters Monthly. WordPress, n.d. Web. 2 Apr. 2015.

     <http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/

     attainted-the-life-and-afterlife-of-ezra-pound-in-italy/>.

Biography and Poem Analysis