Eye Rhymes: Sylvia Plath's Art of the Visual

by Kathleen Connors (Editor), Sally Bayley (Editor)

Here is the first book to bring long-overdue attention to Sylvia Plath's surprisingly accomplished visual art and to place that art in relation to her literary career. Plath trained as a studio artist before her sophomore year at Smith and her work in tempera and watercolor paintings, pastels, ink, crayon and pencil drawings, and other media reveals a talent that both complements and illuminates her genius as a writer.
Eye Rhymes brings together essays by six Plath scholars-including renowned authors Diane Middlebrook, Landgon Hammer and Christiana Britzolakis, book editors Kathleen Connors and Sally Bayley, and Fan Jinghua-and contextualizes approximately sixty of Plath's visual works within her writing oeuvre, starting with juvenilia that reveal the extensive play between her two disciplines. Special attention is given to Plath's unpublished teen diaries and book reports containing drawings and early textual experiments, created years before her famous "I am I" diary notes of age seventeen, when critical examination of her writing usually begins. The book offers new critical approaches to the artist's multidimensional output, including writing that appropriates sophisticated visual and color effects years after painting and drawing became her hobby and writing her chosen profession. The essays gathered here also relate Plath's visual art interests to her early identity as a writer in Cambridge, her teen artwork and writing on war, mid-career "art poems" on the works of de Chirico, her representations of womanhood within mid-century commercial culture, and her visual aesthetics in poetry.
Filled with stunning reproductions of her art and fresh readings of many of her most important poems, Eye Rhymes offers readers a new way of understanding the full range of Plath's creative expression.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Poetry, Literary Criticism, Biography

288 pages, Hardcover

First published December 7, 2007

Reviews

[Anisha Inkspill · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was produced to celebrate Sylvia Plath’s 75th anniversary.

It was wonderful to get to know Plath beyond being a writer and poet. Through essays referencing Plath’s art (also included in book), I was taken on a journey of how her creativity develops, which would also facilitate her writing.

I found the essays fascinating in how they discuss Plath’s art; the analysis mixes Plath’s biography and writings, including journals and letters. It also highlights influences and artistic choices.

Until I found this second book early this year, I’ve only known Plath as a writer, so reading this was refreshing because for a while now I’ve had this inkling that there is more to Sylvia Plath than meets the eye.

To me this is a brilliant, brilliant way to remember and celebrate the life of Sylvia Plath.




This year I’ve lined up 7 Sylvia Plath books, with this one read, I have two left.

[ANNA fayard · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Poet-Artist: an inexorable force
"Underlying the two arts forms is a common principle rooted in the mimetic aesthetic in the West, as is epitomized in Horace's dictum 'ut pictura poesis' ('as is painting so is poetry')"

[Ilze · Rating 3 out of 5]

A thesis I wrote a few years ago looked into the symbolism and unconscious aspects of Plath's poetry. Now, although I investigated some of her techniques, I didn't pick up on her "painter's eye". Plath was quite an artist and this is the first time that I've seen her paintings in print (a pen sketch or two have appeared elsewhere, but I didn't make much of them). The essays in this volume analyse not only her sketches and paintings, but look at how she applied these techniques in her poetry by "painting a poem". She was a master at the technique and merely needed to apply to "Ariel" what she'd practiced in "The Colossus". What I really appreciated about these authors is that they didn't go into her emotional turmoil the way many writers (e.g. Anne Stevenson) do. Mention is made of the emotion and how it is written about; or painted. To the extent that one wonders if Plath didn't just sit back once a poem was written and say: "There. Let's see what the Drama Queens make of this one". I feel that many academics go overboard when they try to analyse her depressive episodes, forgetting that by expressing these things in her art, she was coping. It was once she stopped being artistic that suicide took over. This book gives you a Plath determined to make a name for herself, a strong woman that was not necessarily disabled by her psychiatric problems.
On the negative side, there a few repetitions in the book. Since Plath seemed to have left her paintbrushes and pencils behind once she decided to focus exclusively on poetry, there is only a small scope of artwork to analyse. The result is that several essayists return to the same themes/pictures and poetry and repetitions set in. As a matter of fact, focussing on her juvenilia to the extent it is done in this volume makes one wonder if all of us don't have a Plath inside us! Taking scribbles from her 7th year and analysing them is, er, taking things a tad too far (wouldn't you like to dig out a Mother's Day card you made as pre-teen and see what the experts have to say about your artistic flair!).

PS It seems her work is on sale now: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/...

[Carmelo Valone · Rating 5 out of 5]

A highly underrated work on Plath and her visual aesthetics and visual work, and it influenced and shaped her literary life and works.

[Fiona Pape · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gifted to me by a friend for Christmas last year, I have only dipped in a little so far. It's a book to savour! We were talking about art and my friend said my artwork reminded him of Sylvia Plath. I confessed I had never spent much time with her and, when I have, found her work a little dark and heavy. I had no idea she was also an artist! Being a Plath fan, he decided I needed to be enlightened and sent me this book. Thank goodness for generous friends who help open your eyes to new things. So far, it's a fascinating and delightful read...

[Julia’s Bento · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you love Sylvia Plath, this book is a wonderful insight into her creative mind, not only as a writer, but the visual artist. The biography goes into depth about her life events, interests, family, and how they shaped her artistic visions in both the written word and her visual sketches/creations.

Imagine... she was so proficient in both practices as a child and young adult that had she received more awards/accolades in art rather than in her writings during her school years, we may have heard of her in a much different light than we know of her today. She was a very economical decision maker at that time...

As an artist, I can now understand how she had such a grip on the visceral effect of her words. She had the painter's eye for details that spilled into her writing and I must say her visual pieces were fairly accomplished as well.

[Myranda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gift from Robby & Katie

[Kris Underwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book because it showed a side of Plath that nobody has talked about: her art.

[Dee]

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.ph...