Sylvia Plath: A Critical Guide

Sylvia Plath is the marmite poet. You either love her work or you loath it. This situation is made worse by certain commentators who cloud the issue further by speculating on her private life and more or less oblige the reader to take sides between her and her husband Ted Hughes.Tim Kendall is the antidote to all this nonsense. He is a very level-headed critic of her work with strong and clearly stated views. I am not a Plath expert so I do not know how mainstream these views are, but they certainly helped me get a better appreciation of her poetry, which is, let’s face it, not the easiest to understand.The first thing to note about his approach is that he goes to great pains to keep the poet’s biography in the background and avoids almost all speculation into her psychological state. The biography cannot be eliminated altogether, as certain details are necessary for the understanding of the poems – her age when her father died, her age when she attempted suicide and very nearly succeeded, her father’s interest in bees, the name of her son, etc.This approach allows the Sylvia versus Ted question to be neatly sidestepped, which in turn allows the poems to stand for themselves, which is, one hopes, what Sylvia herself would have wanted.Standing up for itself under Professor Kendall’s scrutiny is a pretty exposed situation to be in. One of the first things he does in the book is dismiss virtually all the poems written before Ariel as juvenilia. This means that the poems deemed worthy of serious consideration are largely limited to those written in the last year of her life. He then goes on to distinguish the true Ariel poems, mostly written in 1962, from the very late poems written in 1963 immediately before Plath’s successful suicide in February of that year.Kendall detects a very clear distinction in tone and style between the 1962 and 1963 poems. He seems to believe that, in early 1963, Plath was embarking on the next stage of her development as a poet. He doesn’t say it in so many words, but there is an implied criticism of Ted Hughes, who published a version of Ariel with some of the 1963 poems included.In his discussion of the true Ariel collection, Kendall gives fairly short shrift to the greatest hits that have given Plath her notoriety. Daddy, Lady Lazarus, Medusa and The Rival are dealt with in a chapter called “Autobiography and Adultery”, which discussed how her poems start in autobiography but seek out greater meaning from there. Other chapters deal with other themes: her treatment of landscape, the identities she developed for herself in her prose and poetry, her obsession with death and rebirth, her attitude to organised religion and her use of themes drawn from Christian theology, the bee poems, and her use of repetition and point of view. There’s a whole chapter on her treatment of history in the poem Getting There, which is one of my favourites of the Ariel poems.The final chapter covers the 1963 poems and the identification of the new direction her poetry was beginning to take. The last page deals with Edge, easily the most chilling of her poems. Then the book ends suddenly with no attempt at a final synthesis.This is an excellent work of criticism. You do not have to agree with Kendall’s arguments to get something from it. Kendall expresses his views strongly, inviting the reader to agree or put up their own alternative interpretation. I found myself agreeing with much of it, first and foremost being the decision to avoid getting bogged down in the biography.

Arrived in really good condition (bought, used-good). Suitable for A-Level English Literature students doing Sylvia Plath poetry coursework, also a great overview of the poet and her work.

Fast delivery, as ever from Better World. Book is fine: slightly on its last legs, I'd say, but acceptable. Very happy to recommend seller.

Looks good. I need more study time for a comprehensive review.

Fantastic book and fantastic help for degree level.

As described

I found this book to be an ideal way of becoming more familiar with Plath's Collected poems, as it considers every main stage of her work in a well rounded critical way. Although opinions on what certain aspects of her work mean inevitably differ, Tim Kendal has analysed the poetry without being relaint on the biographical background in which her marvelous work was written. If you are at all interested in the works of Sylvia Plath then this book is a brilliant introduction and further study to Plath. If you do not already have the Collected Poems I suggest you get hold of them as even though this Book provides quotes on it's subject matter, the context of the entire set poem is vital in getting the most out of this book.