Revising Life - (Gender and American Culture) by Susan R Van Dyne (Paperback)
About this item
Highlights
- 'Provides a compelling argument for Plath's revision of the painful parts of her life -- the failed marriage, her anxiety for success, and her ambivalence towards her mother. . . .
- About the Author: Susan R. Van Dyne, professor of English and women's studies at Smith College, is coeditor of "Women's Place in the Academy: Transforming the Liberal Arts Curriculum.
- 224 Pages
- Poetry, American
- Series Name: Gender and American Culture
Description
About the Book
Revising Life: Sylvia Plath's Ariel PoemsBook Synopsis
'Provides a compelling argument for Plath's revision of the painful parts of her life -- the failed marriage, her anxiety for success, and her ambivalence towards her mother. . . . The reader will feel the tension in the poetry and the life.'CHOICE '[Examines] Plath's twin goals of becoming a famous poet and a perfect mother. . . . This book's main points are clearly and forcefully argued: that both poems and babies require 'struggle, pain, endless labor, and . . . fears of monstrous offspring' and that, in the end, Plath ran out of the resources necessary to produce both. Often maligned as a self-indulgent confessional poet, Plath is here retrieved as a passionate theorist.' -- Library Journal Susan Van Dyne's reading of twenty-five of Sylvia Plath's Ariel poems considers three contexts: Plath's journal entries from 1957 to 1959 (especially as they reveal her conflicts over what it meant to be a middle-class wife and mother and an aspiring writer in 1950s America); the interpretive strategies of feminist theory; and Plath's multiple revisions of the poems.From the Back Cover
'Providing a compelling argument for Plath's revision of the painful parts of her life-the failed marriage, her anxiety for success and her ambivalence towards her mother. The reader will feel tension in the poetry and life.' -ChoiceReview Quotes
[An] important, provocative, and often brilliant book.
Steven Gould Axelrod, author of "Sylvia Plath: The Wound and the Cure of Words"
[A] book that is meticulously researched, clearly and gracefully written, carefully argued, and beautifully presented.
"New England Quarterly"
Plath scholars will welcome intriguing accounts of the poet's composition and revising processes.
"American Literature"
This is criticism at its best, melding a quantity of factual information with Van Dyne's superb readings.
Linda Wagner-Martin, author of "Sylvia Plath: A Biography"
ÝAn¨ important, provocative, and often brilliant book.
Steven Gould Axelrod, author of "Sylvia Plath: The Wound and the Cure of Words"
ÝA¨ book that is meticulously researched, clearly and gracefully written, carefully argued, and beautifully presented.
"New England Quarterly"
"[An] important, provocative, and often brilliant book.
Steven Gould Axelrod, author of "Sylvia Plath: The Wound and the Cure of Words""
"[A] book that is meticulously researched, clearly and gracefully written, carefully argued, and beautifully presented.
"New England Quarterly""
"Revising Life" is a major contribution to Plath scholarship.
"New England Quarterly"
"This is criticism at its best, melding a quantity of factual information with Van Dyne's superb readings.
Linda Wagner-Martin, author of "Sylvia Plath: A Biography""
About the Author
Susan R. Van Dyne, professor of English and women's studies at Smith College, is coeditor of "Women's Place in the Academy: Transforming the Liberal Arts Curriculum."
