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Sylvia Plath

“Cinderella”. “Two Lovers And A Beachcomber By The Real Sea”. “Contusion”. “Mad Girl’s Love Song”. Sylvia Plath. A Sullivan and Costa Production. Who is Sylvia Plath?. Born on October 27 th , 1932 in Boston, MA Published her first poem when she was eight-years-old

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Sylvia Plath

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  1. “Cinderella” “Two Lovers And A Beachcomber By The Real Sea” “Contusion” “Mad Girl’s Love Song” Sylvia Plath A Sullivan and Costa Production

  2. Who is Sylvia Plath? • Born on October 27th, 1932 in Boston, MA • Published her first poem when she was eight-years-old • Attended Smith College and graduated summa cum laude • Moved to Cambridge, England on a scholarship and met her husband Tom Hughes • Had 2 children Frieda and Nicholas • Wrote The Bell Jar • Two suicide attempts • Depressed for most of adult life • Family history of depression and suicide • Death by Suicide February 11th, 1963

  3. Poetic Style • Confessional • Lyrical • Symbolic

  4. Common Themes • Depression • Relationships • Anger

  5. Video Clips • Sylvia Plath Interviewed • Documentary

  6. Poems • Two Lovers and a Beachcomber by the Real Sea • Cold and final, the imaginationShuts down its fabled summer house;Blue views are boarded up; our sweet vacationDwindles in the hour-glass. • Thoughts that found a maze of mermaid hairTangling in the tide's green fallNow fold their wings like bats and disappearInto the attic of the skull. • We are not what we might be; what we areOutlaws all extrapolationBeyond the interval of now and here:White whales are gone with the white ocean. • A lone beachcomber squats among the wrackOf kaleidoscope shellsProbing fractured Venus with a stickUnder a tent of taunting gulls. • No sea-change decks the sunken shank of boneThat chucks in backtrack of the wave;Though the mind like an oyster labors on and on,A grain of sand is all we have. • Water will run by; the actual sunWill scrupulously rise and set;No little man lives in the exacting moonAnd that is that, is that, is that.

  7. Poems • Mad Girl’s Love Song • "I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;I lift my lids and all is born again.(I think I made you up inside my head.)The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,And arbitrary blackness gallops in:I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.I dreamed that you bewitched me into bedAnd sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.(I think I made you up inside my head.) • God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:Exit seraphim and Satan's men:I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.I fancied you'd return the way you said,But I grow old and I forget your name.(I think I made you up inside my head.)I should have loved a thunderbird instead;At least when spring comes they roar back again.I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

  8. Poems • Cinderella • The prince leans to the girl in scarlet heels,Her green eyes slant, hair flaring in a fanOf silver as the rondo slows; now reelsBegin on tilted violins to spanThe whole revolving tall glass palace hallWhere guests slide gliding into light like wine;Rose candles flicker on the lilac wallReflecting in a million flagons' shine,And glided couples all in whirling tranceFollow holiday revel begun long since,Until near twelve the strange girl all at onceGuilt-stricken halts, pales, clings to the princeAs amid the hectic music and cocktail talkShe hears the caustic ticking of the clock.

  9. Poems • Contusion • The rest of the body is all washed out,The color of pearl. • In a pit of rockThe sea sucks obsessively,One hollow the whole sea’s pivot. • The size of a fly,The doom markCrawls down the wall. • The heart shuts,The sea slides back,The mirrors are sheeted.

  10. Discussion Questions • 1. By the way Sylvia comes across in the interview, is it surprising that she suffers from depression? • 2. After reading her poems and learning about her life, how does this affect you? • 3. If Sylvia hadn’t had so much sadness in her life, do you think she would have become as successful as she was? As popular as she was?

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