Sylvia Plath: an American Poet

Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She was born in Boston Massachusetts on October 27th 1932. She struggled deeply with depression much of her adult life, stemming from the death of her father at age eight. Aside from her depression, Sylvia excelled academically at Smith College, and because of that went on to receive a Fulbright scholarship to the highly competitive Newham College in Cambridge. She continued actively writing poetry and publishing her work in the student newspaper Varsity. While at Newham College, Sylvia’s struggle with depression truly began. During the summer of her third year, Plath was awarded a coveted position as guest editor at Mademoiselle Magazine, during which she spent a month in New York City. The experience was not what she had hoped it would be, and it began a downward spiral. A few weeks later she was to slash her legs to see if she had enough courage to commit suicide. Following electro conclusive therapy for depression, Plath made her first medically documented suicide attempt in late August of 1953 by crawling under her house and taking her mother’s sleeping pills. She would spend the next 6 months in psychiatric care. Plath seemed to make a good recovery and returned to college and graduated with the highest honors.
After graduating, Sylvia would go on to travel to London and get inspiration for her poems. While in London, she met her husband Ted Hughes. The two wound up marrying in London in 1956 and after a year; decided to return to Boston, where Sylvia returned to her alma mater to begin teaching. Feeling the burden of not having enough time to write, she decided to leave Smith College not long after arriving and focused strictly on her writing. In October 1962, Plath experienced a burst of creativity and wrote most of her poems on which her reputation now rests. It was the same year that Sylvia found out her husband was carrying on an affair with a tenant in the flat in which they lived.

Cited: 1. Phillips, Robert. On Daddy. http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/plath/daddy.htm 2. Gilson, Bill. "Sylvia Plath." Sylvia Plath Homepage. 07 Dec. 2010. Web. 7 Dec. 2011. <http://www.sylviaplath.de/plath/bio.html>. 3. Plath, Sylvia. Collected Works.