SHEEP IN FOG

SHEEP IN FOG

Sylvia Plath 

Sylvia Plath’s poetry is stunning ,and students  respond to it with fascination , as much to her life as  with the voice in her writing and the subject matte of the poems .the poetry is often angry; paradoxically, it is vibrant

, seeming to celebrate life even though the poem are often about depression, despair and death. Another dominant theme explored in her poetry is the tension between one’s life and private life.

Sylvia Plath was born in Boston, Massachusetts on October 27 1932. Her father, Otto , was a university lecturer and entomologist whose major interest was bees. Her mother Aurelia gave up her teaching job look after the family. Particularly her father, until he died suddenly as a result of the complication of diabetes when Plath was eight. The family moved to Wellesley, enduring financial hardship alongside the grief of loos. Who did not display emotions for the sake of the children .

In 1950, on graduating from high school, Plath won a scholarship to smith collage, an exclusive college for women. She published her first short story in seventeen magazine and a poem in the Christian science monitor. When she was twenty-one she was a guest editor on a New York magazine then returned home exhausted . Depressed she attempted suicide and spent six months in a private hospital. Her autobiographical novel the bell jar draws on these experiences. Plath won many prize while at smith and graduated summa cum laude in 1955. She went to Cambridge university on a Fulbright scholarship, where she met poet ted Hughes. They were married in London in 1956 and spent some years writing intensely and supporting each other in their artistic life. They lived in America then in England .

Their daughter Frieda was born in 1960 ,Plath had a miscarriage , then appendicitis and then n 1962 son Nicholas was born the family moved to Devon where Plath seemed to enjoy  motherhood .when Hughes had n affair with another woman, after a period of great tension. Plath separated from Hughes and moved to a flat in London with the children .She continued to write during the severe winter ,cold and ill . IN February  1963 Plath gassed herself ,there are many theories offered about  her death ; that she was seeking attention and never intended to kill herself ; that she suffered a brief dark despair ,that she was gambling with death .Ted Hughes destroyed  her last Journals . Her final poems show a fascination with de3ath and pain . ‘ Edge .her final poem opens :

The woman is perfected

Her dead

Body wears the smile of accomplishment

Many of Plath’s poems contain references to death, but not necessarily her own and not necessarily focusing on . ‘Lady Lazarus ‘ ( see collected poems ) uses the myth of the phoenix . ending with the image of rebirth :

Out of the ash

I rise with my red hair

And I eat men like air .

The context in which Plath lived ,wrote and died has fascinated readers ; she is to some a feminist and martyr , to others a tragic but  genius .There s a bitter debate between the pro - Hughes camp and the Pro-Plath  camp. It would be pertinent to reflect with students on whether it is necessary to read Plath’s  poetry alongside her life . Like  all artists she drew on her own experiences , creating  personae to explore ideas and conflicts in language rich in unusual metaphors. However ,the poems stand alone ; they speak to the twenty - first century reader as an insight  into our own world as well Plath’s .

The text set, Selected Poems ,contains a small selection of Plath’s poetry and omits many of her most well known poems . However , Plath’s unique voice rings clear - direct , sometimes angry ,sometimes tender, sometimes questioning , sometimes despairing ,These poems show that she had the courage to write about feelings of powerlessness and nihilism , alongside  those of optimism and love .