1. Sylvia Plath A Sullivan and Costa Production “Two Lovers And A Beachcomber By The Real Sea” “Mad Girl’s Love Song” “Cinderella” “Contusion”

2. Who is Sylvia Plath?  Born on October 27 th, 1932 in Boston, MA  Published her first poem when she was eight-years-oldeight-years-old  Attended Smith College and graduated summa cum laude  Moved to Cambridge, England on a scholarship and met her husband Tom Hughes  Had 2 children Frieda and Nicholas  Wrote The Bell Jar  Two suicide attempts  Depressed for most of adult life  Family history of depression and suicide  Death by Suicide February 11 th, 1963

3. Poetic Style  Confessional  Lyrical  Symbolic

4. Common Themes  Depression  Relationships  Anger

5. Video Clips  Sylvia Plath Interviewed Sylvia Plath Interviewed  Documentary Documentary

6. Poems  Two Lovers and a Beachcomber by the Real Sea  Cold and final, the imagination Shuts down its fabled summer house; Blue views are boarded up; our sweet vacation Dwindles in the hour-glass.  Thoughts that found a maze of mermaid hair Tangling in the tide's green fall Now fold their wings like bats and disappear Into the attic of the skull.  We are not what we might be; what we are Outlaws all extrapolation Beyond the interval of now and here: White whales are gone with the white ocean.  A lone beachcomber squats among the wrack Of kaleidoscope shells Probing fractured Venus with a stick Under a tent of taunting gulls.  No sea-change decks the sunken shank of bone That chucks in backtrack of the wave; Though the mind like an oyster labors on and on, A grain of sand is all we have.  Water will run by; the actual sun Will scrupulously rise and set; No little man lives in the exacting moon And that is that, is that, is that.

7. Poems  Mad Girl’s Love Song Mad Girl’s Love Song  "I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my lids and all is born again. (I think I made you up inside my head.) The stars go waltzing out in blue and red, And arbitrary blackness gallops in: I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane. (I think I made you up inside my head.)  God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade: Exit seraphim and Satan's men: I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. I fancied you'd return the way you said, But I grow old and I forget your name. (I think I made you up inside my head.) I should have loved a thunderbird instead; At least when spring comes they roar back again. I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. (I think I made you up inside my head.)"

8. Poems  Cinderella  The prince leans to the girl in scarlet heels, Her green eyes slant, hair flaring in a fan Of silver as the rondo slows; now reels Begin on tilted violins to span The whole revolving tall glass palace hall Where guests slide gliding into light like wine; Rose candles flicker on the lilac wall Reflecting in a million flagons' shine, And glided couples all in whirling trance Follow holiday revel begun long since, Until near twelve the strange girl all at once Guilt-stricken halts, pales, clings to the prince As amid the hectic music and cocktail talk She hears the caustic ticking of the clock.

9. Poems  Contusion  The rest of the body is all washed out, The color of pearl.  In a pit of rock The sea sucks obsessively, One hollow the whole sea’s pivot.  The size of a fly, The doom mark Crawls down the wall.  The heart shuts, The sea slides back, The mirrors are sheeted.

10. Discussion Questions  1. By the way Sylvia comes across in the interview, is it surprising that she suffers from depression?  2. After reading her poems and learning about her life, how does this affect you?  3. If Sylvia hadn’t had so much sadness in her life, do you think she would have become as successful as she was? As popular as she was?