‘If My Mouth Could Marry a Hurt like That!’: Reading Auto-Mutilation, Auto-Biography in the Work of Christopher Bollas and Sylvia Plath

2012 ◽  
pp. 139-157
Author(s):  
Michael Szollosy
Keyword(s):  
Sylvia Plath ◽  
Christopher Bollas

Sylvia Plath

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Wagner-Martin
Keyword(s):  
Sylvia Plath

Drowning in negativism, self-hate, doubt, madness: Linguistic insights into Sylvia Plath’s experience of depression

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zsófia Demjén
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Medical Humanities ◽  
Sylvia Plath ◽  
Individual Experience ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Linguistic Methods ◽  
Linguistic Approach

This paper demonstrates how a range of linguistic methods can be harnessed in pursuit of a deeper understanding of the ‘lived experience’ of psychological disorders. It argues that such methods should be applied more in medical contexts, especially in medical humanities. Key extracts from The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath are examined, as a case study of the experience of depression. Combinations of qualitative and quantitative linguistic methods, and inter- and intra-textual comparisons are used to consider distinctive patterns in the use of metaphor, personal pronouns and (the semantics of) verbs, as well as other relevant aspects of language. Qualitative techniques provide in-depth insights, while quantitative corpus methods make the analyses more robust and ensure the breadth necessary to gain insights into the individual experience. Depression emerges as a highly complex and sometimes potentially contradictory experience for Plath, involving both a sense of apathy and inner turmoil. It involves a sense of a split self, trapped in a state that one cannot overcome, and intense self-focus, a turning in on oneself and a view of the world that is both more negative and more polarized than the norm. It is argued that a linguistic approach is useful beyond this specific case.

The Ideological Apprenticeship of Sylvia Plath

2004 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 59-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Peel
Keyword(s):  
Sylvia Plath

Aribert Reimann : Six Poems by Sylvia Plath

Anglophonia ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-88
Author(s):  
Barbara Dobretsberger
Keyword(s):  
Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath and the Failure of Emotional Self-Repair Through Poetry

1986 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin A. Silverman ◽  
Norman P. Will
Keyword(s):  
Sylvia Plath ◽  
Self Repair

Sylvia Plath and White Ignorance

Janus Head ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-155
Author(s):  
Ellen M. Miller ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
White Woman ◽  
White Women ◽  
Phenomenological Study ◽  
Sylvia Plath ◽  
Color Terms ◽  
Women Writing ◽  
White Ignorance

Sylvia Plath wrote in the midst of growing racial tensions in 1950s and 1960s America. Her work demonstrates ambivalence towards her role as a middle-class white woman. In this paper, I examine the racial implications in Plath's color terms. I disagree with Renee Curry's reading in White Women Writing White that Plath only considers her whiteness insofar as it affects herself. Through a phenomenological study of how whiteness shifts meaning in this poem, I hope to show that Curry's negative estimation is only partly right. I suggest that embodiment is a problem for Plath in general, and this contributes to her inability to fully examine other bodies.

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