Basic introduction Chinese name: sylvia plath mbth: sylvia plath nationality: American date of birth: 1932. 10.27 date of death: 1963.02. 165438 occupation: representative works of poets: introduction, life, works, temperament, etc. of giant poems. 1955, Plath graduated with honors from the famous Smith Women's College, and then won a Fulbright scholarship to go to Cambridge University in England for further study. There, she met ted hughes (1930-1998), who later became a poet laureate, and they got married in June 1956. After having a son and a daughter with Hughes, their marriage broke down and they separated in September 1962. Plath raised two children alone. 1963 February 1 1, she committed suicide in her apartment in London. Before Plath's tomb-robbing works, Plath had only published two works, one was a collection of poems, The Colossus and Other Poems, and the other was an autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar (the Chinese version was published by Yilin Publishing House this year, and the electronic version was published by the translation project Gutenberg on February 26th, 20 13+65438). Ted hughes edited several poems of Plath after his death, which established Plath's position as an important poet, including Poems of Ai Lier, Crossing the Water, Trees in Winter and Plath's Complete Poems. The latter won the Pulitzer Prize with 1982. The translated works of this short edition are from Johnny Panic and Bible of Dreams, published by 1977 and edited by Hughes. This is a collection of short stories, essays and notes. Plath's novels have very prominent autobiographical characteristics, and almost every one can find a shadow from the author's own life experience. Plath, as a poet, has also devoted herself to the study of painting, and these characteristics are clearly reflected in these short stories selected in this short series: meticulous feelings, good and accurate words and colorful scenery descriptions, thus giving her a unique reading method. The Green Stone is a disturbing memory of childhood. Superman and Paula Brown's New Winter Clothes tells the story of growing up. Widow Man Gadatsch is based on the author's experience of going to Spain for a holiday after marriage, which shows her extraordinary observation ability. "A Successful Day" records the life of a couple who are absorbed in writing and the subtle psychological activities of their wives. It is emotional to think of Plath himself. Some of her famous poems are: Letter in November; Sheep in the fog; Postman; Elm as the fantasy light of confession; Language; Ariel edge; Morning song; A person dressed in black; Words; Trees in winter; Crossing the lake; Opponents; Colossus; Munich female model; You are; Poppies in October; Wait a minute. Temperament artists are always different. They have a mysterious quality. From a distance, they are dazzling and colorful, resulting in the extraordinary quality of their works. But endowing their works with strange spiritual elements also affects their spiritual ambiguity. Artists are born. Because, in their spirit, there is a quality that ordinary people don't have (what word should I choose): madness, psychedelic, extreme depression or pain, uncontrollable * * *, self-focus, claustrophobia or mania. Opening an art history, it is sad to see those first-class writers and artists feel that they have reached the edge of mental breakdown; Others go straight to the abyss of mental breakdown. Psychoanalysts can find a large number of cases to study and easily claim that psychopathy is the root of their extraordinary works. But, unfortunately, this is not your choice-live a normal life or do art? Withered London. 1963 February 1 1 is extremely cold in winter. Sylvia hid in a small room, the children were crying, the fireplace was wet, it was snowing outside the window, and poems were scattered on the table and on the ground. Her hair is shining, and she looks nervous ... This is a scene from the movie Sylvia in My Imagination. That year, she was only thirty-one years old. Flower of life, just a gorgeous opening moment, suddenly withered. Like a dark cloud casting a mirror, it slowly reflects itself/disappears at the mercy of the wind. She used to imply this in her poems. Death, or rather suicide, is beautified in her mind as an elegant dance, a kind of self-flying, and a kind of rapid melting after the holy blooming of snowflakes. Sylvia Plath Sylvia Plath (1932— 1963) is an American confessional poetess and a famous American confessional poetess and novelist. Her parents were both teachers, and her father died at the age of eight. This is her first contact with death, and it is also a turning point in her life. When the mother told her father about her death, she said decisively, "I will never talk to God again." . Since then, she has been praising death in her poems and tried to commit suicide many times: "Death is an art/like anything else/I am particularly good at it". I did it again/every ten years/I want to tidy it up. Look, darkness is oozing from the burst/I can't catch these, I can't catch my life. From the ashes/my red hair rises/devours men like breathing air. I can die nine times like a cat. This woman has reached perfection/her body is smiling with achievement. When she was in college, she did well in her studies, excelled in every subject and won many scholarships. In my sophomore year, I was selected by new york fashion magazine "Miss" and was invited as a guest editor of the magazine because of my excellent writing ability. A month's life in new york is like a dream, with luxurious banquets, beautiful fashions and works by admired writers. But the good times didn't last long, and soon she fell into the torment of schizophrenia until she entered McLean Mental Hospital for electrotherapy. Her autobiographical novel The Bell Jar describes this experience. This novel, like her poems, is her spiritual autobiography. There are few clear scenes in the novel, mainly the changing, fragmented, dreamy and realistic scenes she saw through her own eyes, just like the flashback scenery in her inner monologue. The novel is surrounded by rich self-feelings: adolescent worries, inexplicable yearning for passion, eager impulse, expectation of being seduced by men, restless longing for the future and hesitant choice, psychology of trying to avoid everything, frantically taking risks and trying to suppress ... just like sweeping every corner of the heart with a quick lens, the diversity of contradictory sets is like pouring intoxicating fantasies into a glass and stirring them with reality. While expressing her feelings with changing scenes, she wrote down her confused thoughts in strict sentences. What a masterpiece! Her extreme sensitivity forms her easily frustrated psychology; Being infatuated with inner life makes it easy for her to face reality; Being too competitive makes her tired and weak; The perfect follow-up of things prompted her to complain too much about herself; Mental depression actually comes from the excitement of the mind; The seriousness of life pushed her into the nothingness of life; Pursuing the depth of poetry is full of pain. All this can be authenticated in turn. Cause and effect are integrated in her mind. Vertigo and purity, illusion and clarity, fear and joy, darkness and tranquility, anger and pity, kindness and humility, death and rebirth are intertwined in her poems, which have also become the source of images and atmosphere elements in the bell jar, just like raindrops wet punctuation marks in the book. Sylvia plath and ted hughes studied in Britain1956 In February, sylvia plath won a scholarship and was allowed to study in Cambridge, England. There, she met the handsome English poet ted hughes (1930- 1998), and they fell in love at first sight and got married by lightning. At that time, Plath called Hughes "the only man in the world who can compete with me." But unfortunately, there was a rift in their marriage. Some people blame Hughes' love affair; Perhaps the more hidden reason is Plath's uncontrollable madness. 1962 Plath separated from Hughes, and she lived in London alone with her children. In the same year, Hughes lived with Assia Wavell. The great changes in Plath's life in a few months and the pressure brought by poverty have just been published, but the response is mediocre. The great mental pain she suffered in the divorce procedure with Hughes prompted her to choose suicide again. But this time, God helped her. It was exactly six years from her arrival in England to her death. In the eyes of the world, it was this marriage that led to her suicide. Hughes became an inescapable sinner. Her novels and poems are also well received. It was not until more than twenty years after her death that Hughes published his collection of poems "Birthday Letters" for Plath. The publication of poetry immediately attracted people's attention, rekindled people's enthusiasm for Plath, and at the same time changed the world's view that Hughes was a sinner to varying degrees. Accordingly, Britain and the United States have just finished filming Plath's biographical film to commemorate the 40th anniversary of her death. Plath's outstanding achievements cannot be imitated. She reached the depths of her works directly with a spiritual intuition. She tapped rich self and emotional factors and worked with all her vitality until an illusion appeared in her mind. I can't tell whether it is because of madness that extraordinary works are formed, or because of such a creative way that they are crazy. Lowell, another confessional poet, followed Plath's footsteps and entered McLean mental hospital. Dupre, the cellist, fell down madly. Woolf finally couldn't help but feel depressed, stuffed his pockets with pebbles and walked into the river ... They are all too sensitive people, often unable to get rid of their inner fantasies, and they are artists who create with spiritual intuition. Alas, life is a hymn and an elegy, as Plath said in The Bell Jar: "The date engraved on the trophy is like the date on the tombstone". Plath's poetry anthology "Poppies in July" (translated by Peng Yu) Little Poppies, Little Fire of Hell,
Don't you hurt people? You're flashing, I can't touch you,
I put my hand into the fire and nothing burned. I think when I look at you flashing.
Weak, wrinkled and bright red, just like human lips, lips that have just flowed through blood.
Bloody little skirt! I don't smell smoke,
Where are your opium and disgusting containers? I wish I could bleed or sleep! ──
I wish my lips could marry such a wound!
Or your juice seeps into my body, in this glass container,
It makes people dull, calm, but colorless. Applicant (translated by Zhao Yiheng) First of all, are you one of us?
Do you wear it or not?
Glass eyes? Dentures? A crutch?
Bandage? Hook?
Eraser * * *? Rubber crotch? Or is it just mending, not mending the defects? No? No?
Then can we give you one?
Don't cry,
Open your hand.
Empty? Empty. This is a hand,
Just in time. It is willing to
Bring the teacup and wipe off the headache.
It will do anything you want.
Will you marry it?
Warranty, warranty, it will turn your eyelids when you die,
Resolve grief.
We use salt to make new products.
I noticed that you were naked,
What do you think of this suit? It's black and a little stiff, but it suits me well.
Will you marry it?
Waterproof and unbreakable,
Fire prevention, prevent bombs from penetrating the roof,
Don't worry, you must wear this dress when you are buried. Now look at your head, please forgive me, it is empty.
I have a ticket for you to choose from.
Come on, honey, get out of the closet,
what do you think?
At first, nothing was like a piece of paper.
Twenty-five years into the silver age,
Fifty years of gold.
A living doll, whatever you think.
Can sew, can cook,
Talk, talk, talk Very useful, no mistakes.
You have a wound, you're dressing it,
You have an eye, and it is an image.
Young man, this is the last resort.
Will you marry it? Marry it. Marry it. Edge (translated by Zhao Qiong and Shimazi) is a perfect woman.
Her smiling body,
A Greek tragic ending appeared in the pleats of her long skirt.
Her feet seem to be telling.
We come from far away, and now we are at the station. Every dead child curled up like a nest of white snakes.
Everyone has a small empty milk can.
It holds them in its arms like roses.
Close the petals, freeze in the garden, the light of death
Spilled fragrance from the sweet deep throat. The moon is no longer sad,
A blood clot was expelled from her bone. It is used to this kind of thing.
The long black dress dragged slowly and rattled. Giant Idol (translated by Zhang Fenling and Chen Li) I can't piece you together anymore.
Repair, bonding and moderate bonding.
Donkeys, pigs and obscene crackles
From your huge lips.
This is worse than the clearing next to the barn. Maybe you promised yourself with a sacred metaphor,
The spokesman of the dead or god or so-and-so
I have been working hard for 30 years.
Clear the mud from your throat.
I'm not that smart. Climb up the steps with the furnace and disinfectant.
I crawled like an ant in Dai Xiao.
On your thick forehead
Repair the huge metal skull and clean it.
Your naked white eyes are like an ancient tomb. The blue sky comes from Oretia.
Arch over our heads. Oh, father, you are lonely.
As rich and ancient as the Roman market.
I opened my lunch at the top of the black cypress tree.
The bones in your ditch, the hair of buttercup, are facing the horizon and scattered in an ancient place without * * *.
That needs a stronger blow than lightning.
Create such ruins.
Many nights, I curled up in your left ear.
Abundant horn, away from the wind. Counting red and purple stars.
The sun rises under your tongue.
I've spent my whole life in the shadows.
I stopped listening to the creaking of the keel.
On the empty stone at the dock. Ariel (1) (translated by Dai Jue) stopped in the dark.
Then there is blue without quality.
The flow of mountains and distances. The lioness of God,
We have become so integrated,
The fulcrum of heel and knee! The ditch is cracked and I can't.
Grab the neck
Similar to brown arc, black eyes.
Berries are dark.
Hook-full of black and sweet blood,
Shadows.
Something else dragged me through the air-
Double strands, hair;
The broken skin of my heel. white
Godiva, I skinned it-
Dead man's hand, cruel death. Now I
The wheat waves rolled and the waves splashed.
The child's crying disappeared into the wall.
but I ...
It was arrows and spray that destroyed themselves.
Dew, with the same momentum.
Fly into the red eyes, the cauldron of dawn. note:
(1) Ariel may refer to the horse that the author often rides. In Shakespeare's The Tempest, an elf named Ariel was saved by a magician and became his slave. After completing a series of tasks assigned by the magician, he was finally free. In addition, in Hebrew, Ai Lier means "lion of God", so some scholars think that this word may also symbolize Jerusalem like Isaiah in the Bible.
(2) godiva refers to 1 1 century, an English lady. According to legend, in order to help people in Coventry reduce the heavy tax levied by her husband, Count Mercia, she rode naked through the local streets. Elm (Forgetting and Translation)
Give it to Ruth Venrath (1), she said. I know it has thick straight roots:
This is what you are afraid of.
I am not afraid: I have been there. What you hear in my heart is the sea,
Extremely dissatisfied?
Or the voice of nothingness, is it your madness? Love is a shadow.
You're lying, crying and chasing you.
Listen: Its hooves. It ran away like a horse. I'll run like this all night,
Until your head turns to stone and your pillow becomes a runway,
Echo. Echo. Or should I bring you the sound of poison?
Now it's rain, this great silence.
This is its fruit: tin white, like arsenic. I have experienced the atrocities of sunset.
My red silk
Burn to the root, burn, stand up, a tightrope hand Now, I break into pieces and fly out like a stick.
Such a violent wind
Will not tolerate watching: I want to scream. The moon is also heartless: she will hold me back,
Cruel because she can't have children.
Her radiation burned me. Maybe, I won't let her go. I let her go. I let her go,
Shrinking, shriveled, like a complete operation.
Your nightmare occupied me and gave it to me. I was fascinated by a cry.
It appears every night,
Looking for something to love with your claws. This dark thing sleeps inside me,
Scared me out of my wits;
I feel its gentle rotation like a feather all day, its viciousness. Clouds drift by, and they disperse.
Are those pale faces that are gone forever the faces of love?
I'm upset. Is it because of all this? No amount of knowledge can bear me.
What is this? This is full of traps.
What is a face caught by a branch? ── The sour hiss of its poisonous snake.
It rigidifies the will. These isolated and slow defects
It will be fatal, fatal, fatal. note:
(1) Ruth Venrath (193 1-) is an American-born poetess and translator who lives mainly in Britain. She is the wife of British novelist Allen Slito and a good friend of Plath for more than a year. A Probe into the Theme of Death in Plath's Poems-Author/Ada, Chen Lei 1. Feminism and Plath concluded that feminism was a movement that rose widely in the 20th century to resist male chauvinism and strive for women's freedom in politics, literature, art and other fields. Long-term depression makes the majority of women struggle to find their own voice and identity in this movement, and gradually change the situation of gender weakness. The rise of this movement is accompanied by the rise and prosperity of female literature. A large number of literary giants have emerged. On the one hand, Beauvoir, Friedan and other literary theorists have been brilliant in the history of literature. On the other hand, a large number of female writers and their literary works also make people know, understand and even change women's living conditions more deeply. Plath's poetry belongs to the confessional poetry series, which is a postmodern poetry school that rose in the 1950s and 1960s. 1960 When Plath published his first book of poetry, The Colossus and Others, the response of readers and critics was not very enthusiastic. It was not until 1965 that Ai Lier, a collection of poems published in the third year after her suicide, began to win her fame. Later, her husband ted hughes, the English poet laureate, edited and published her two volumes of poems, Lakes and Trees in Winter, which pushed Plath's reputation as a confessional poet to the highest point. Today, she is still famous, especially Hughes' suicide note "Birthday Letter" in 1998, which once again aroused people's deep memory of Plath. Her poetic skills are inseparable from the tragedy of life. Plath not only became the representative of the post-modernist confessional school, but also became the cornerstone of feminist literature because of her efforts as a female writer and her rebellious spirit against the patriarchal society in her poems. 2. "Death as a Struggle" Sylvia Plath inherited Whitman's tradition in the form of poetry: concise, generous, free, without traces of carving, as if flowing naturally, but with unique content and little scruples, all broken limbs, dirty corners and scary wards can borrow human poems. Because the poet is a woman, his perspective is more unique and the images he chooses are more acute. Especially after Plath broke up with her husband, she was at a loss, "the light no longer exists", and her poems became more bitter and profound. In Plath's many nightmares, her father cast a heavy shadow like a huge statue, which made her feel guilty and miserable all her life. Plath once regarded her father as her idol to escape loneliness, but later this idol became the biggest threat to her personal life, and all her life beliefs collapsed. Feminism believes that the social mechanism centered on patriarchy is the root of women's oppression, so resisting patriarchy or patriarchy has become its unremitting motivation and goal. In many women writers' works, regaining the right to speak, regaining women's consciousness and resetting their lost identities are all means of struggle. Under the guidance of his violent heart, Plath wrote a lot of poems with death as the image. Although on the one hand, critics unanimously take her personal life experience as the reason to explain the black art in her works, on the other hand, we can't deny that this poetess has resisted the patriarchal society from her female perspective. The poem "Dad" is full of strong depressive atmosphere. She wrote: "You are a black leather shoe/I have lived here like a foot for thirty years/I am poor and sad/I only dare to breathe and sob." The poet compared her father to fascism, the devil, etc. The poet himself profoundly reveals the depressed state of his growing environment with Jewish metaphor. Feminists believe that after human beings entered the patriarchal society, women have always been in a subordinate position in social and family relations, and their gender power is lower than that of men, which has long been bound by the patriarchal society. In Plath's poems, this state of oppression and bondage is reflected in women's unique experiences, such as childbirth, fear of identity change, closeness and rejection of newborns, complex feelings for fathers, love-hate interweaving with husbands and so on. However, in addition to the dignified sense of oppression, readers can still appreciate the poet's love and attachment to his father. Plath compared his father to a fascist, but wrote, "Every woman worships fascists." "That man (referring to his father) bit my lovely red heart in half. When I was ten, they buried you. At the age of twenty, I had a plan to die/go back, go back, and come back to you, even if you have become a bone. " The poet even merged with her father. "If I kill one person, it means killing two people." From these poems, Plath's attachment to his father is clearly discernible. Combined with the poet's experience, critics also believe that her complicated feelings for her father are also a portrayal of her feelings for her betrayed husband. It is this feeling of love and hate, dependence and complaint that makes the poetess feel more and more miserable mentally. Finally, she goes to the heartbreaking cry, "Dad, I'm going to kill you,/You died before I could do it-/A terrible statue is as heavy as marble." In the poem, she also compares her father to the devil, fascism and Hitler, showing complex emotions of ridicule, disgust and pity. In the poem "Dad", apart from expressing some disillusionment of hope, it may not be simply understood as the literal father, but it is abstractly extended to symbolize disappointment, alienation, evil, mystery, resentment and gender opposition. Plath also used a few words "black" in this poem, "You are standing in front of the blackboard, … you are a black leather shoe/… a person in black clothes/… that black phone has been uprooted/… you have a stake in your fat black heart/so the villagers don't like you." Of course, these black characters are related to her habit of using black as an artistic background. While seeing Plath's despair and hard-to-get-rid resentment, people can also see her complete denial of sublime and masculine beauty. Finally, the poet ended this mental torture with the wish of death. "Dad, dad, you * * *, I'm finished." From this, we can see that the poet struggled with death to show his efforts to resist oppression and patriarchy. 3. As a compromise, Plath's poems obviously have a manic temperament similar to madness. They not only have many abrupt, unexpected and radiant images and meanings, endless symbols and metaphors, but also the language of poetry often breaks the order of logic and time and space, gallops freely in two completely different worlds with consciousness, and becomes a spiritual carrier beyond rational bondage and psychological barrier. When her consciousness is on the edge of madness, it can often directly penetrate into the core of life, and nonsense has become the most dazzling poem, just like in the Female Nazareth, where genius and madness are tragically unified, which is amazing and regrettable. Compared with Dad, the poem Female Nazareth discusses death in a more straightforward way. "Death is an art, just like anything else." From the last sentence of the poem, "I have red hair/I am reborn from the fire/I eat people like breathing air", which expresses a strong sense of resistance. After experiencing the oppression of male chauvinism, the poet longed to get rid of this pain through death, and made the strongest resistance to "eating people like breathing air". Combined with the poet's previous narrative, the poet's desire can only be his ultimate fantasy. The first thing presented to readers is the poet's obsession with death, "I tried again,/I tried once every ten years-",from which I read the poet's suicide attempt. Then "I am a smiling woman,/I am only thirty years old,/I have nine lives like a cat, and this is the third rule/I have to be eliminated once every ten years/a loser!" " This further proves the poet's aversion to life. After that, Plath once again mentioned his previous suicide experience. "It happened for the first time at the age of ten, which was an accident. /The second time, it was my intention to make a name for myself. /I don't want to look back at all. "In poetry, images of death abound, such as Nazi lampshades, paperweights, exquisite Jewish linen, napkins and so on. However, from the words "I did it to make myself feel dead is hell/I did it to make myself feel really dead,/I guess you would say that I have some kind of mission", I feel that the poet is vaguely impressed by some kind of power. Death is horrible and real. The poet knows, but she still speculates that the world knows her conjecture after death, which seems to bring her some satisfaction and "some mission". Read the poem carefully, and this power that impresses the poet comes from "my enemy" and "Mr. enemy" referred to in the poem. "My Enemy" made the poet give up hope for life and go to "some kind of mission". Combined with the poet's own life experience, Plath attempted suicide several times in order to get rid of his love and hate with his father. After her husband betrayed her for a new love, Plath tried to commit suicide again and for the last time, and finally passed away. The poet tried to get rid of the oppression of patriarchy and fight against death, but in the end it became a way to compromise with the enemy? "My Enemy" strengthens the opposition between men and women, and also makes people see the poet's compromise. Fourth, the end of death, endless speculation Plath's poetry shuttled between "confession, self and suicide", which pushed the poetic style initiated by Robert Lowell to a climax and realized W·B· Ye Zhi's long-cherished wish that poetry in the 20th century was "a cry from the heart". She is a "poet with a violent heart". She is writing poetry with her life and forging black art with her death. In a sense, she will accuse men of hurting women in marriage, family and society through poetry. According to Plath's understanding, women are gradually distorted by men's oppressive psychology, and their original complete personality becomes fragmented. By exploring the theme of death in the two poems "Dad" and "Female Nazareth", Plath can analyze whether he used death as a weapon to fight against the patriarchal society or to compromise with it. In the end, the poet ended his young life by suicide, which also made people constantly guess whether the poet's death was a struggle or a compromise.