The Cambridge Companion to Sylvia Plath

by Jo Gill (Editor)

The controversies that surround Sylvia Plath's life and work imply that her poems are more read and studied now than ever before. This Companion provides a comprehensive and authoritative overview of the place in twentieth-century culture of Sylvia Plath's poetry, prose, letters and journals. The newly commissioned essays by leading international scholars represent a spectrum of critical perspectives. They pay particular attention to key debates and to well-known texts such as The Bell Jar, while offering original and thought-provoking readings to new as well as more seasoned Plath readers.

Genres: Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, Poetry, Literature

212 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2006

About the author

Professor Jo Gill completed her first degree at the University of Leicester, her MA at York University and her PhD at the University of Gloucestershire. She worked in publishing for several years before commencing research for a PhD and taking up an academic career. She specialises in modern and contemporary literature with a particular interest in confessional and life writing, mid-century American poetry, the cultures of the American suburbs and literature and architecture. She is Chair of Governors at Richard Huish Sixth Form College, Taunton.

Reviews

[Anisha Inkspill · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a heroic effort to try and separate the craft of Sylvia Plath’s writing from her biography, especially the last days of her life.

Eleven essays written by eleven different contributors discuss how this could have happened. Most of the essays focus on the poetry. Some essayists feel more strongly than others of reading Plath’s writing as her biography. The ones who don’t say it gently, suggesting that the two are inexplicitly linked. What comes through is that this is an impossible task, but they all say in varying degrees by viewing Sylvia Plath and her writing through only her depression and suicide misses how strongly she felt about the current events that were going on around her. Between the eleven essays there is a lot of insight into Sylvia Plath’s life, her writing and the reception of her work.

The first time I read this book I did it without reading any biographies, Plath’s poetry and journal. This time I read two biographies, Plath’s abridged journal and looked through her poetry and also her letters, along with another read of the The Bell Jar. Without this, some of the essays would have been harder to follow, so this time I got a lot more out of this book, where it was easier to see why it will be impossible to separate Sylvia Plath’s craft from her life.

[belljareads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good; i recommend you read it if you are interested in Plath's work & are not much into biographies!

[sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thing after thing I read about Plath is more contradictory than the other, making her figure probably one of the most elusive of contemporary poetry. It is sad and infurating at times, magical and beautiful at others, like Plaths poetry is in itself. Jo Gill did an amazing work at encapsulating the many angles we can study Plaths works; this book is confrontative yet respectful, analytic yet deeply loving.

[jo 💫 · Rating 4 out of 5]

The context and history to Sylvia Plath’s lifetime of worth that I never knew I needed. Some essays are a bit harder to read in how academic they are, but all give interesting insight into Plath’s legacy.

[cami .✶ฺﾟ｡ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very insightful - learned a lot about Plath and Hughes' poetic careers and how they fed off of each other. There really was a passionate and vitriolic relationship between the two, even in their first meeting, and their marriage merely four months later really does illustrate to me that right from the start their relationship was quite utterly insane.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great selection of studies on Plath (especially on the influence of psychoanalysis in her work), helpful for anyone new to her writing and enjoyable for Plath enthusiasts. Better pick it up from the library and study selectively depending on specific (academic or reading) interests.