The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath Research Paper

Sylvia Plath:

A Biography

"Poetry, I feel, is a tyrannical discipline. You 've got to go so far, so fast in such a small space; you 've got to burn away all the peripherals." -Sylvia Plath

You 've probably heard that name before, Sylvia Plath. She was an American poet and a novelist, popular for her collections of poetry and for her book, The Bell Jar. She is a poetic icon . She is also a symbol of depression and the battle one may face with this illness, she is also known for her suicide. Sylvia was born in Jamaica Plain, Massachusettes on October 27, 1932. She was once married to the poet, Ted Hughes, they had two children together. Sylvia Plath may not be in everyone 's list of the top five most influencial poets, but she certaintly

Plath published her first poem at the age of eight. She was intelligent and determined from an early age. In 1950 she joined Smith College, in Massachusettes, on a scholarship. Before she began her college life she already had an impactful collection of publications, but while at Smith College she wrote over four hundred pieces. In 1953, Sylvia attempted to kill herself by taking sleeping pills, she was in college during this time. She later explains her experience during this moment in her novel, The Bell Jar. Sylvia 's father, Otto Plath, was a German biology professor at Boston University. Her mother, Aurelia Schober, was a master 's student in one of Professor Plath 's classes, this is how they met. They married January of 1932 and later had Sylvia that October, in 1935 they had a son named Warren. Otto Plath died from complications with his diabetes, Sylvia was eight years old at the time. It is believed that the death of her father was a traumatizing event for Sylvia, that later causes complications for her in her

Plath was more of a free verse kind of poet. Though the syntax of her poetry often did not rhyme, her words crashed together in a rhythmic flow. The lines of her poems danced together creating beautiful art. She had a confessional style to her poetry; her poems spoke the words of her soul. Her poetry was often about her father, her depression, death, and motherhood. She also heavily used nature in her work. She would use personification to bring things like flowers and trees to life, in the stories of her poems. Each of her poems are like a metaphor for certain thoughts or moments in her life. She uses nature as a figurative language, where something as simple as a flower can be code for something deeper within her. With all of her uses of her nature, her poems often have a mythical, almost spiritual, vibe about them. Her poems were also dismal and heavy. A poet with a highly similar style to Sylvia 's is Anne Sexton, who just so happens to have been a friend of Sylvia 's. The two met in 1958, while studying under the poet Robert Lowell. They found that they had many things in common, besides both of them being from Massachusettes. They both believed that death would set them free. They both struggled with depression all of their adult lives. Sylvia committed suicide in 1963 at the age of thirty. Anne committed suicide in 1974 at the age of forty-six. They are both well