Bitter Fame: Life of Sylvia Plath

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Overview

In a book that The New Yorker's Janet Malcolm called "by far the most intelligent and the only aesthetically satisfying" Plath biography, the poet Anne Stevenson narrates and illuminates the ways in which Sylvia Plath created her own legend in life and in poetry, one at odds with the posthumous myth that has grown up around her since her suicide in 1963.

"A vivid and, to me, moving portrait of a young woman who, carrying the full mixed cultural load of Americans born in 1932, as well as personal ...

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Overview

In a book that The New Yorker's Janet Malcolm called "by far the most intelligent and the only aesthetically satisfying" Plath biography, the poet Anne Stevenson narrates and illuminates the ways in which Sylvia Plath created her own legend in life and in poetry, one at odds with the posthumous myth that has grown up around her since her suicide in 1963.

"A vivid and, to me, moving portrait of a young woman who, carrying the full mixed cultural load of Americans born in 1932, as well as personal distresses and limitations peculiar to herself, (became) in ten driven years . . . the most ruthlessly original poet of her generation."--John Updike.

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Editorial Reviews

Washington Post
In this authoritative and controversial biography, Stevenson charts the ways in which Sylvia Plath created her own legend--one at odds with the posthumous myth that has grown up around her. It is "the most genuinely feminist account of Plath's life yet: one in which Plath herself is held to be responsible for her own life, her own death" --Washington Post Book World.
Janet Malcolm

"By far the most intelligent and the only authentically satisfying of the five biographies of Plath."--Janet Malcolm, The New Yorker In this authoritative and controversial biography, Stevenson charts the ways in which Sylvia Plath created her own legend--one at odds with the posthumous myth that has grown up around her. It is "the most genuinely feminist account of Plath's life yet: one in which Plath herself is held to be responsible for her own life, her own death" (Washington Post Book World). (A Mariner Reissue

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
The best critical biography of Plath yet, poet Stevenson's ( The Fiction Makers ) volume offers a convincing reinterpretation of a complex and controversial life. The author's objectivity and her success in assembling new sources pay off richly: bombarded by a superbly orchestrated array of opinions, quotations, details and anecdotes from Plath and those who knew her (Ted Hughes, Plath's husband, provided background information and reviewed the manuscript for factual accuracy), we are enabled, with Stevenson's guidance, to draw fresh conclusions about the late poet's conflicts between her fierce drive to succeed and keen appetite for self-destruction. Of particular significance is Stevenson's effort to present needed balance in portraying the marriage of Hughes and Plath; no longer cast as a victim of her husband's alleged infidelities (largely imagined, the book asserts), Plath emerges as the forger of her own fate leading to her 1963 suicide. Essays written in remembrance of Plath by Lucas Myers, Dido Merwin and Richard Murphy provide striking, invaluable firsthand views. Photos not seen by PW. (Aug.)
Library Journal
In her preface to this new biography of Sylvia Plath, Stevenson states that she intends to create ``an objective account of how this exceptionally gifted girl was hurled into poetry by a combination of biographical accident and inflexible ideals and ambitions.'' Yet how can one be objective when one's aim is to explain ``inflexible ideals and ambitions''? It is the very subjectivity that ultimately informs this book that is its weakest aspect. However, several previously unpublished memoirs by people who knew Plath are included as appendixes, and while they are not sufficient to make this a definitive biography (for which we will likely have to wait a number of years), they are interesting and make for a lively, if not altogether trustworthy, account of her life.-- Jessica Grim, NYPL
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780395453742
  • Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
  • Publication date: 8/10/1989
  • Series: A Peter Davidson Bk.
  • Pages: 384

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