Poetry and Co-dependency: Poetry of Sylvia Plath

Readers and critics have been exploring Plath’s work for half a century. Is there anything new to be said? The publication of Plath’s complete journals in 2000 and the release of her personal papers in various archives as well as those of her estranged husband, the poet Ted Hughes, and the publication of his Birthday Letters (1998) and correspondence (Letters of Ted Hughes, 2009) provided material for persuasive research about Plath and Hughes’s shared creative processes. Plath’s despair and suicide influence our reading of her poetry. To what extent should we be influenced by the creative co-dependency of her poetic relationship with Hughes and his poetry?

This is a free public lecture by Belinda Jack, Gresham Professor of Rhetoric.

There is no need to book in advance for this lecture. It runs on a first come first served basis.