Red Comet
Subtitle: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Published: 2020
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Format: ebook
Number of pages: 1184
ISBN-13: 9780307961174
Copyright date: 2020
Subjects: Plath, sylvia, 1932-1963; Poets, biography; Women poets
Description: With a wealth of never-before-accessed materials, Heather Clark brings to life the brilliant Sylvia Plath, who had precocious poetic ambition and was an accomplished published writer even before she became a star at Smith College. Refusing to read Plath’s work as if her every act was a harbinger of her tragic fate, Clark considers the sociopolitical context as she thoroughly explores Plath’s world: her early relationships and determination not to become a conventional woman and wife; her troubles with an unenlightened mental health industry; her Cambridge years and thunderclap meeting with Ted Hughes; and much more.

Clark’s clear-eyed portraits of Hughes, his lover Assia Wevill, and other demonized players in the arena of Plath’s suicide promote a deeper understanding of her final days. 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.
Table of contents: title: Prologue; title: The beekeeper's daughter : Prussia, Austria, America, 1850-1932; title: Do not mourn : Winthrop, 1932-1940; title: The shadow : Wellesley, 1940-1945; title: My thoughts to shining fame aspire : Wellesley, 1946-1947; title: The voice within : Wellesley, 1947-1948; title: Summer will not come again : Wellesley, 1948-1950; title: The white queen : Wellesley and Smith College, 1950-1951; title: Love is a parallax : Swampscott, Smith College, Cape Cod, 1951-1952; title: The ninth kingdom : Smith College, September 1952-May 1953; title: My mind will split open : Manhattan, June 1953; title: The hanging man : Wellesley, July-August 1953; title: Waking in the blue : McLean Hospital, September 1953-January 1954; title: The lady or the tiger : Smith College and Harvard summer school, January-August 1954; title: O Icarus : Smith College and Wellesley, September 1954-August 1955; title: Channel crossing : Cambridge University, September 1955-February 1956; title: Pursuit : Cambridge and Europe, February-June 1956; title: Like fury : Spain, Paris, Yorkshire, Cambridge, July-October 1956; title: Itched and kindled : Cambridge University, October 1956-June 1957; title: In Midas' country : Cape Cod and Smith College, June 1957-June 1958; title: Life studies : Northampton and Boston, June 1958-March 1959; title: The development of personality : Boston, America, Yaddo, April-December 1959; title: The dread of recognition : London, 1960; title: Nobody can tell what I lack : London, January-March 1961; title: The moment of the fulcrum : London, March-August 1961; title: The late, grim heart of autumn : Devon, September-December 1961; title: Mothers : Devon, January-May 1962; title: Error : Devon, May-June 1962; title: I feel all I feel : Devon and London, June-August 1962; title: But not the end : Devon and Ireland, August-September 1962; title: The problem of him : Devon and London, October 1962; title: Castles in air : Devon and London, October-November 1962; title: Yeats's house : London, December 1962-January 1963; title: What is the remedy? : London, January-February 1963; title: The dark ceiling : London, February 1963; title: Epilogue : Your wife is dead; title: Postscript: A poet's epitaph