Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath was born in 1932 as the daughter of the eminent biology professor Otto Plath. She grew up in a small seaside town near Boston. Her childhood was tragically affected by the death of her father, who died in 1940 of an embolism due to untreated diabetes. Sylvia had just celebrated her eighth birthday a few days before. After her father's death, she reportedly declared that she would never speak to God again, withdrew into herself, did not communicate much with those around her, and began keeping a diary.

Sylvia published her first poem at the age of eight, in the children's supplement of the Boston Herald. She attended high school in Wellesley, the part of Boston where her family moved after her father died. In August 1950, she published a short story, "Summer Will Never Come Again," in Seventeen magazine, and that same year won a scholarship to Smith College, the largest all-girls college in Northampton. Here, too, she wrote poems and short stories, some of which won prizes in literary competitions. The summer and autumn of 1953, which she spent there, are depicted in the novel The Bell Jar.

During a month-long internship in New York at the fashion magazine Mademoiselle's, where she worked as a guest editor, she began to fall into severe depression. In August 1953, after visiting her father's grave, she attempted suicide for the first time. It was not until three days later that Sylvia, who had swallowed sleeping pills, was found by her brother in the cellar of the house. She was taken to hospital and then to a psychiatric ward, where she underwent shock therapy. Here she also met physician Ruth Tiffany Barnhouse Beuscher (Dr. Nolan from the novel The Bell Jar), who became her long-term therapist. In February 1954, Sylvia returned to Smith College on the recommendation of her physician.

After returning from rehab, Sylvia transformed into a talkative extrovert. Her life began to revolve primarily around men, and she often maintained relationships with several men at once. She graduated from Smith College in June 1955 with honours, and that same year won the prestigious Glascock Prize with her poem Lovers and a Beach Lounger by the Real Sea.

From 1956 she went on to study at Cambridge, where she gained an MA. Even there she continued to write poetry and occasionally published it in Varosity magazine. Here she gave the impression of an optimistic, spirited American, but in reality she began to fall into emotional and physical problems again. After leaving America, she no longer attended regular therapy sessions with Dr Beuscher, so she eventually decided to see a university psychiatrist in Cambridge to make sure she had someone to turn to if she had problems.

However, soon afterwards she met the poet Ted Hughes and did not contact the psychiatrist again. About six months later she married Ted and describes this period as the happiest of her life. For a time the young couple lived together in Cambridge, then in 1957 Sylvia was hired as an English teacher at Smith College, and they moved to the USA. Sylvia hoped that during their few years in Boston they would earn enough money to go to Italy and Spain for a year and just have time to write. However, after her first semester, she resigned from Smith College because she longed to write and the rigorous preparations for classes made it quite impossible. She attended Robert Lowell's seminars during that time and they were a great inspiration for her own literary work.

In the first half of 1959 she faced a consistent rejection of her work, which led her into states of anxiety, compounded by the fact that her marriage to Ted was still childless. In the autumn of 1959, Sylvia and Ted settled in the art community of Yaddo, New York. In December, however, they returned to England, apparently because of Ted's dislike of America, but also because of Sylvia's advanced pregnancy. They lived with Ted's parents for a time, but Sylvia found this hard to bear. Eventually they moved to a small flat in London, and there their daughter Frieda was born. Between November 1959 and June 1960 Sylvia again suffered from anxiety and wrote a single poem (You're). In 1960 she published her first collection of poems, Colossus, and the following year the Hugheses moved to Devon.

In February 1961 Sylvia miscarried spontaneously, a fact reflected in their poems. That same year she received a grant to write a novel. A year later she gave birth to a son, Nicholas, and in May she published her collection Colossus for the first time in the USA.

In the summer of that year, she discovered that her husband was unfaithful. She then moved alone with her children to London, to the house where the poet W. B. Yeats had once lived. In 1963, she published her only novel, The Bell Jar, which chronicled the period around her first suicide attempt. Because of its strong autobiographical nature, she first published it under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas. During this period, Sylvia experienced bitterness towards Ted, which turned into despair and hopelessness. Nevertheless, she was still actively writing, giving interviews, and recording poetry for the BBC. In January 1963, she visited Dr. Horder's district physician, who noted suicidal thoughts, prescribed antidepressants, and arranged for her to see a psychiatrist on an outpatient basis. A few days before the appointment, however, Sylvia committed suicide. According to her friends, Sylvia was overworked before her death, and was troubled by the breakdown of her marriage, which she attributed primarily to Ted's infidelity. She suffered from insomnia, waking up early in the morning, taking hypnotics to be able to sleep at all. On the day of the gas poisoning, she was still preparing breakfast for her two children, and a note was found with a phone number and the text "Call Dr. Horder." After some time, a caregiver came to the apartment to help Sylvia with the children as usual. They were found safe, as Sylvia had opened a window in their room and carefully sealed the door with wet towels and rags. While Sylvia Plath published a single collection and novel during her lifetime, a collection of collected poems, letters to her mother and brother, diaries and short stories were published posthumously. Her posthumous fame was mainly due to her poetry collection Ariel. Ted Hughes reflected on his marriage to Sylvia Plath in the poetry collection Birthday Letters. For his son Nicholas, Hughes wrote the well-known book The Iron Man.

Daughter Frieda lives in London and, like her mother, writes poetry. Son Nicholas became a marine biologist. On 16 March 2009 he also ended his life by suicide. He was 47 years old.