Sylvia Plath

(1932-1963)

Her poetry overall shows a steady development of sense of her own voice. She spoke of subjects now considered appropriate before 1960s--macabre humor, anger, defiance, and understanding of women's various roles.

Reliance on metaphor, quick shifts from image to image, a frantic yet always controlled pace

mystic, mythic

"Peel off the napkin / O my enemy. / Do I terrify?--"

"What am I buying, wormy mahogany? / Is there any queen at all in it?"

"I stand in a column / Of winged, unmiraculous women, / Honey-drudgers. / I am no drudge / though for years I have eaten dust / And dried plates with my dense hair."

"They thought death was worth it, but I / Have a self to recover, a queen. / Is she dead, is she sleeping? / Where has she been, / With her lion-red body, her wings of glass?"