Sylvia Plath Research Paper

“Is there no way out of the mind?” (“Sylvia Plath Quotes”) Sylvia Plath found her love of poetry at a very young age and later in life found it easy to write about things that related to her such as mental illnesses because she suffered from depression. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Collected Poems after her death and is well known for her unique writings. “Tulips” is one of her most famous poems and is described as the acceptance of life. Plath related much of her poetry, including “Tulips”, to major events that happened in her lifetime which also helped support the feminist movement in the Contemporary Era. Plath was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on October 27, 1932. Her father had emigrated to America at the age of 16 and her mother was

When she was eight, she had her first poem published in the Boston Sunday Herald. This helped spark her love for writing poetry. In 1950, after publishing a number of her works, she won a scholarship to Smith College (“Sylvia Plath Biography”). Plath was a student in Robert Lowell’s writing workshop class when she met Anne Sexton, one of her biggest influences on her writing. Plath admired both Lowell’s and Sexton’s liberating verse, with the subjects mainly being about mental illnesses, suicide, and family relationships with candor and intensity (“Poetry of Liberation”). Plath suffered from depression and other mental illnesses, so she found it easy for her to write about these subjects. While at college, Plath tried killing herself by taking sleeping pills. She eventually recovered by having treatment at a mental hospital. Plath returned to Smith College and finished her

The poems Plath wrote did not match the Contemporary Era whatsoever. Many of the pieces of literature wrote during the Contemporary Era reflected much of the anxiety brought on by the wars (“Contemporary Literature…” 1093). Plath instead wrote about the anxiety brought on by her life. All of her poems were based on major life events that happened to her. Much of the literature during the Contemporary Era was either short stories or novels. However, she was one of the very few who wrote poems during this time as well. One technique that was used by both people of the Contemporary Era and Plath was how the character in their literature pieces were on the quest for identity. Another element used by writers and Sylvia was Expressionism (“Contemporary American Literature: Authors and Major Works”). Plath suffered from depression and other mental illnesses, so she found it hard for her to fit in and she expressed it through her poetry when she