Information about Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath's life, and especially her death, have never been fully understood. An acclaimed poet and novelist, she was the golden girl, who had everything--beauty and brains; a great and recognized talent. She was married to the British poet Ted Hughes, whom she met while studying in England on a Fulbright Scholarship. It was apparently love at first sight. Plath wrote in her journal, "He kissed me bang smash on the mouth and ripped my hairband off ... and my favorite silver earrings ... I bit him long and hard on the cheek and when we came out of the room, blood was running down his face." They were married in less than a year. They were both obsessed with poetry and got up at dawn every day to write their poems. They'd been married a year when Hughes's first book of poetry, The Hawk in the Rain (1957), was published, and he became one of the most respected poets writing in English. While they were married Hughes was much more famous than Plath. In 1963, they separated after he fell in love with another woman. That winter, while living with their children, Plath committed suicide by sticking her head in the oven.
Adapted from The Writer's Almanac

Biography
General Information from A&E TV
Hughes breaks silence over Plath; with audio. BBC News, January 1998
The Willing Domesticity of Sylvia Plath: A Rebuttal of the "Feminist" Label, by Michelle Kinsey-Clinton
The real Sylvia Plath by Kate Moses Part 1 (six pages), Part 2 (5 pages). In this article Kate Moss supports a little-known theory about what drove Sylvia Plath to suicide.
Imagery in Syliva Plath's works
The real Sylvia Plath by Kate Moses: article from May 30, 2000, article from June 1, 01
'The Death Throes of Romanticism: The Poetry of Sylvia Plath' by Joyce Carol Oates, revised November 16, 1999.
Two Views of Plath's Life and Career by Linda Wagner-Martin and Anne Stevenson. From The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry in English. Copyright © 1994 by Oxford University Press.
Kate Moses wrote a fictionalized portrait of Sylvia Plath's last days before her 1963 suicide, called Wintering: A Novel of Sylvia Plath, 2003.
- Listen to Kate Moses talk with Michael Silverblatt about her novel. KCRW; May 29, 2003 (28:30)

Plath's daughter, Frieda Hughes, talks about Ariel: The Restored Edition and her mother's legacy.
Lynn Neary reports on the enduring interest in Plath.

A Tribute To Sylvia Plath And Ted Hughes (part 1 - 7:30, part 2 - 7:15)
Birthday Letters; A PBS online focus on Ted Hughes' new book of poetry in which he breaks his silence about Sylvia Plath, February 1998 (RealPlayer: 13:09) - read the transcript
Sylvia Plath's grave in Heptonstall Churchyard, Heptonstall, Yorkshire, England. 1988 (2:51)

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