She herself is alchemizing life into art-in The Bell Jar of course, very obviously, and also in the poetry itself. But when you think about the relationship between art and life in Plath’s case, it’s very hard to take a purist view and pretend that the biography doesn’t matter. Is part of that defending her against the ‘biographical industry’ you mention?Īlmost from the start, fascination with Plath’s biography has tended to obscure the artistry of the work itself. I’d go to the stake defending Plath’s poetry. She has always seemed to me first and foremost a landscape poet (which is also a convenient way for me to duck away from the biographical industry surrounding her work). What I loved most about her poetry were her landscapes. I distinctly remember the revelation that came after getting hold of the Faber Selected Poems around the age of 15 or 16. She’s one of the finest lyric poets of the last century. Quite apart from the image everyone has of her in the popular imagination, the biographical sensation, why should we read Sylvia Plath? It seems silly to start off with the question ‘Who was Sylvia Plath?’ given the sheer level of her fame, so I’ll ask a slightly different one.
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