The figure of Sylvia Plath manages
retain an almost cultish power over forty years after her suicide.  A Hollywood
movie, Sylvia, about her life and relationship with poet Ted Hughes was
released in 2003, although without much critical or box-office success.  Her
autobiographical novel The Bell Jar is still one of the essential works
of the modern age chronicling the depression and acute social observation of a
highly intelligent young woman.  Few if any other twentieth century poets have
had so many biographies written of them, and the disagreements over her
personality and her place in the history of twentieth century poetry are some
of the most notorious disputes within modern literature.  For many feminists,
she shines as an example of the oppression of female creativity by patriarchal
forces, and also of the power of women’s artistry despite that oppression.  Yet
for all that, her fame is mostly among those immersed in high culture, and her
name is not mentioned much in the mass media.  Most of my students don’t know
who she is. 

Rough Magic, Paul
Alexander’s biography of Plath is an appealing work because it is sympathetic toward
the poet and doesn’t assume expertise about her poetry.  It chronicles her life
methodically, without a great deal of comment on people’s actions or
speculations about hidden motives.  Her family background childhood is covered
in a relatively short 68 pages, leaving the remaining 300 or so pages to record
the time from her arrival at college to her suicide at the age of 30 and its
immediate aftermath.  That still leaves an average of only about 25 pages to
document each year of those twelve eventful years.  Those familiar with The
Bell Jar, which depicts just a year or so of her life, may well feel that
the biography provides no more than a sketch of highlights in comparison to the
detail of the first-person account.  Indeed, the task of biography is a
challenge: deciding which episodes to list, and which to omit, and choosing
what commentary or framework to give those episodes.  Alexander tends towards a
minimal approach at least in his editorializing, leaving the reader to draw his
or her own conclusions or speculations. 

Alexander’s restraint is apparent,
for example, in his depiction of Plath’s mental health and her understanding of
her depression.  In the summer of 1953, at the age of twenty, she was becoming
increasingly depressed, and she would eventually commit an almost-successful
act of suicide.  She entertained ideas of killing herself for a considerable
period, and was treated with electro-shock, but this did not seem to help.  She
was unable to sleep, and this was surely a factor in her worsening mental
state.  She was uncommunicative about her feelings and took great efforts to
hide herself so she would not be discovered when she took her overdose. 
Alexander explains all this and more, but nevertheless her action remains
mysterious.  We get very little sense what this episode in her life meant to
her from his account, despite the fact that she refers to her first suicide
attempt several times in her poems.  Alexander is similarly reticent is his
portrayal of Path’s marriage to Ted Hughes and her previous relationships, and
indeed, her relationship with her poetry.  He provides plenty of information,
but it is largely left to the reader to interpret. 

This feature of the biography is
not necessarily a deficit, and might even be seen as an asset by some readers,
especially in light of the more obviously partisan accounts by other
biographers.  Given the refusal of those in control of the Plath estate to
allow him to quote from her poetry and other writing, his ability to integrate
her life with her work is severely curtailed, and the overall effect is to
leave the reader with a narrative of the bare facts without much to hold them
together.  Rough Magic is an excellent biography, but it may well leave
one wanting to get other perspectives.

Links:

·       
Review
of The Bell Jar

·       
Review
of Sylvia Plath: Voice of the Poet

·       
Review
of Sylvia Plath Reads

© 2004 Christian Perring. All
rights reserved.

Christian
Perring, Ph.D., is Academic Chair of the Arts & Humanities
Division and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Dowling College, Long Island.
He is also editor of Metapsychology Online Review.  His main
research is on philosophical issues in medicine, psychiatry and psychology.

Categories: Memoirs