num_pages: 1154
description: 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.*A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE DAILY TELEGRAPH AND THE TIMES* Determined 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 and 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. Clark'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. Along with illuminating readings of the poems themselves Clark's meticulous compassionate research brings us closer than ever to the spirited woman and visionary artist who blazed a trail that still lights the way for women poets the world over.
language: English
title: Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath
publisher: Vintage Digital