Plath is widely known as the deeply disturbed, articulate and psychotic poet. Attempted suicide, successful suicide, a stint in a sanitarium and a famous poet husband (Ted Hughes) whose sociopathic mind games contributed to Plath’s destructive daddy issues: these were enough to fuel her prolific poetic career. The fascinating thing about Plath’s life is that…
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The events that transpired over the last days of poet Sylvia Plath’s life is a delicate subject, and has been the subject of much speculation for the last 50 years. Australian playwright Barry Dickins has attempted to tackle this difficult topic in his one-woman show, A Kind of Fabulous Hatred. The performance is set on…
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**Trigger Warning: Discussion of suicide** Earlier this month, Vice, known for their gratuitous photo shoots and “daring” content, published a spread entitled “Last Words” in which models posed as literary heroines. Seems fairly innocuous, right? Except that they were literary heroines in the moments prior to their suicides, accompanied by a description of their deaths and…
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One of the most well-known literary couples is Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. Hughes, who died in 1998, was a poet and children’s writer, named Britain’s Poet Laureate in 1984. Plath met him in Cambridge during her tenure as a Fulbright scholar, she herself building a successful literary career as a poet and author before…
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Sylvia Plath is a bit of a feminist icon. In her book The Bell Jar, there are plenty of hints as to why that might be. Set in the 1950s, Esther Greenwood, the narrator, is an ambitious character, smart and well-educated. She professes to never wanting to marry because she didn’t much like the idea…
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