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Sylvia Plath Research Paper

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Did you ever think that a student who excelled in school and appeared fine on the surface would have severe depression and not only end up dying from that cause, but also one of her main inspirations behind her successful poems? Sylvia Plath was one of the most admired poets of the twentieth century. As a young girl she did great in school, although she did repeat fifth grade to be the same age as her fellow classmates, Plath had gotten straight A’s and excelled in English, specifically creative writing. She was first introduced into poetry at the young age of eight where she wrote poem and it appeared in “The Boston Herald. As Plath grew up she tried to find ways to improve her poetry, she mainly relied on the Thesaurus, she also focussed …show more content…

Plath’s main influences were behind other important people in her life and major events that affected her life. Towards the ending portion of Plath's career her poems became more about her personal life, especially nature and also a huge negative experience that impacted her life such as her divorce to another poet Ted Hughes. Nature played a big part of her inspiration in her poems especially after she married her husband Ted Hughes and moved to New York. New York is where she wrote most of her nature inspired poems such as “Dark Wood, Dark Water” . In “Dark Wood, Dark Water” Plath vividly describes nature with many uses of imagery such as a lake thick with fish”. Another event that had a influence was her divorce. She had first met her husband, fellow poet Ted Hughes at a party, since then they hit it off, he helped her gain most of her poetic voice and they both influenced each others poems. So when they divorced it mainly played a part in her late career of poetry and also a key of tone in her poems. In her poem “Ariel” Plath describes some of her feeling and depression she had after she got a divorce to her husband Ted Hughes. For example some lines that described her depression were “And I Am the arrow, the dew that flies, suicidal, at one with the drive into the red eye.” Not only did these events influence her but also other key people were part of her inspiration of Plath’s

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