Sylvia Plath’s Lyrical Responses to Works of Art

No doubt, people who have an artistic bent often realize their full creative potential in more than one field of the arts. Musicians are not only musicians, painters are not only painters and poets are not just poets. Throughout her short life, Sylvia Plath was similarly interested in a variety of pursuits, including drawing, for which she had a quite re-markable gift. This book attempts to trace her development as both poet and artist through a close examination of her letters, journal entries, and last but not least poems related to art. Indeed, if, through a painting, an artist such as Henri Rousseau expresses his innermost feelings, then Sylvia Plath likewise reveals her inner life, her artistic preoccupations and concerns, in these early meditations on art. This book takes a closer look at Sylvia Plaths artistic career, gives an introduction to the ekphrastic theory and finally discusses various poems and their respective paintings through the eyes of the artist(s).