Many people have remarked on the genius of Sylvia Plath’s poetry. However, it has come to my attention that Plath has been grossly misunderstood by her critics, such as the famous critic, Harold Bloom who left Plath out of his book The Western Canon: “Well, what can I do? They are not good writers, they are ideologues. Miss Plath was not an ideologue, she was merely a hysteric” (Mead 41). Perhaps out of a desire to understand Plath’s personal psychology, these critics and commentators contentedly placed Plath among the Confessional poets – and shut the book. When in reality, Plath was an artist of a much higher order. It is my personal belief that good poets enter into conversations with all sorts of things, but great poets enter into conversations with other great poets and I believe that this is what Plath was doing.
It appears that Plath at least had an interest in The Divine Comedy written by the 13th century Italian poet, Dante Alighieri. We know that Plath read The Divine Comedy by Dante, specifically the Carlyle-Wicksteed translation. Both it and the book The Figure of Beatrice, by Charles Williams were read for a Medieval Literature course taken by Plath at Smith College during the 1952-1953 school year (“Legacy Library: Sylvia Plath”). Plath also possessed a personal copy of The Divine Comedy, which is now held at the Lilly Library at Indiana University. Her copy of the book contains “extensive manuscript annotations” (“Legacy Library: Sylvia Plath”).
Laura Chérau
Plath Profiles: Volume 5 (2012)
Abstract
Many people have remarked on the genius of Sylvia Plath’s poetry. However, it has come to my attention that Plath has been grossly misunderstood by her critics, such as the famous critic, Harold Bloom who left Plath out of his book The Western Canon: “Well, what can I do? They are not good writers, they are ideologues. Miss Plath was not an ideologue, she was merely a hysteric” (Mead 41). Perhaps out of a desire to understand Plath’s personal psychology, these critics and commentators contentedly placed Plath among the Confessional poets – and shut the book. When in reality, Plath was an artist of a much higher order. It is my personal belief that good poets enter into conversations with all sorts of things, but great poets enter into conversations with other great poets and I believe that this is what Plath was doing.
It appears that Plath at least had an interest in The Divine Comedy written by the 13th century Italian poet, Dante Alighieri. We know that Plath read The Divine Comedy by Dante, specifically the Carlyle-Wicksteed translation. Both it and the book The Figure of Beatrice, by Charles Williams were read for a Medieval Literature course taken by Plath at Smith College during the 1952-1953 school year (“Legacy Library: Sylvia Plath”). Plath also possessed a personal copy of The Divine Comedy, which is now held at the Lilly Library at Indiana University. Her copy of the book contains “extensive manuscript annotations” (“Legacy Library: Sylvia Plath”).
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