ENG 4936/English Honors Seminar

Sylvia Plath’s Legacy/Section 9097
W 6-8 (12:50-3:50)
Associate Professor Stephanie A. Smith
Office: 4348 Turlington Hall
Office Hours: Mondays 1-4 and by appointment

Sylvia Plath had, in some respects, a relatively short career, when she was alive. Indeed, she died before the impact of her writing on a mass audience was apparent. Yet, since her suicide, Plath has become an American icon of sorts, not only because of her memoir/novel, The Bell Jar, and her collections of poetry, but also because she did commit suicide, at such a young age, and at an historical moment that would prove to fuel a public frenzy.

This honors seminar will re-examine Plath, and her legacy, in depth using both primary and secondary sources, as well as the internet. We will re-examine her writing from both critical and historical perspectives, and examine how and why this poet has remains vital to us today.

LET THE BUYER BEWARE: This is an honors course. Therefore, you should expect it to be, let’s say, taxing. You should bring to this class the knowledge that you shall be reading A LOT: a lot of poetry. And this poetry is demanding. The poets expect you to know ancient mythology, for example; they were deeply familiar with other poets, particularly Yeats; with Shakespeare, with Freud, and Jung. Consequently, I will expect you to look up what you don’t understand, to be pro-active with respect to your knowledge, and the understanding you bring into class discussions. Because Plath has been understood as a “confessional” poet, many people assume all they have to know is the rather appalling story of her life. But as critic Susan Van Dyne has said the evolution of the poetry tells us “more about the identity she intended to will for herself through the self-conscious act of poetic expression than about the immediate historical circumstances she may have wished to disguise or deny.”

Required Reading:
Plath, Sylvia,The Bell Jar
—Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams (August 25)
_Collected Poems
Rose, Jacqueline, The Haunting of Sylvia Plath
Hughes, Ted, Birthday Letters

And additional readings, provided by the instructor, or made available online.

Recommended Reading:
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, ed. Kukil
Wintering Kate Moses
Her Husband: Hughes and Plath—A Marriage, Diane Middlebrook
Bitter Fame: A Life of Sylvia Plath, Stevenson, Anne
Revising Life: Sylvia Plath’s Ariel Poems, Susan Van Dyne
Giving Up: The Last Days of Sylvia Plath, Jillian Becker
The White Goddess Robert Graves

Additional Reading:
God's Lionesse
The Separative Self


Requirements
Presentations
mid-term project
final paper