Sylvia Plath was born in 1932 in Boston, Massachusetts. Her father, Otto Plath, died when she was eight but remained authoritarian and domineering in her memory. She published poetry for the first time in 1950. She began to struggle with her mental health as a young woman attending Smith College, an experience detailed in the autobiographical novel The Bell Jar.
Though her novel The Bell Jar has brought Sylvia Plath copious literary praise, her poetry might in fact be her crowning achievement. Her poems address such major themes as the preeminence of the patriarch, the sorrow of loss, the yearning for creative autonomy, a mother's love for her child, thoughts of suicide, and ruminations...
