She evokes a culture in transition in the mid-twentieth century, in the shadow of the atom bomb and the Holocaust, as she explores Sylvia's world - her early relationships and determination not to become a conventional woman and wife her conflicted ties to her well-meaning, widowed mother her troubles at the hands of an unenlightened mental-health industry and her Cambridge years and thunderclap meeting with Ted Hughes, a true marriage of minds that would change the course of poetry in English.Ĭlark's clear-eyed sympathy for Hughes, his lover Assia Wevill, and other demonized players in the arena of Plath's suicide promotes a deeper understanding of her final days, with their outpouring of first-rate poems. *WINNER OF THE SLIGHTLY FOXED PRIZE 2021* *A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE DAILY TELEGRAPH AND THE TIMES*ĭetermined not to read Plath's work as if her every act, from childhood on, was a harbinger of her tragic fate, Clark presents new materials about Plath's scientist father, her juvenile writings, and her psychiatric treatment. The first biography of this great and tragic poet that takes advantage of a wealth of new material, this is an unusually balanced, comprehensive and definitive life of Sylvia Plath.
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