The Occult Sylvia Plath: The Hidden Spiritual Life of the Visionary Poet

By:

Sign Up Now! Already a Member? Log In
You must be logged into Bookshare to access this title. Learn about membership options, or view our freely available titles.

Synopsis
• Decodes the alchemical, Qabalistic, hermetic, spiritual, and Tarot-related references in many of Plath&’s poems• Based on more than 15 years of research, including analysis of Plath&’s unpublished personal writings from the Plath archives at Indiana University• Examines the influences of Plath&’s parents, her early interests in Hermeticism, and her and husband Ted Hughes&’s explorations in the supernatural and the occultSharing her more than 15 years of compelling research—including analysis of Sylvia Plath&’s unpublished calendars, notebooks, scrapbooks, book annotations, and underlinings as well as published memoirs, biographies, letters, journals, and interviews with Plath and her husband, friends, and family—Plath scholar Julia Gordon-Bramer reveals Sylvia Plath&’s enduring interest and active practice in mysticism and the occult from childhood until her tragic death in 1963. She examines Plath&’s early years growing up in a transcendentalist Unitarian church under a brilliant, if stern, Freemason father and a mother who wrote her master&’s dissertation on the famous alchemist Paracelsus. She reveals Plath&’s early knowledge of Hermeticism, how she devoured books on the occult throughout her life, and how, since adolescence, Plath regularly wrote of premonitory dreams. Examining Plath&’s tumultuous marriage with poet Ted Hughes, she looks at their explorations in the supernatural and Hughes&’s mentoring of Plath in meditation, crystal-gazing, astrology, Qabalah, tarot, automatic writing, magical workings, and use of the Ouija board.Looking at Plath&’s writing and her evolution as a person through mystical, political, personal, and historical lenses, Gordon-Bramer shows how Plath&’s poems take on radically new, surprising, and universal meanings—explaining why Hughes perpetually denied that Plath was a &“confessional poet.&” Contrasting the versions in Letters Home with those held in the Plath archives at Indiana University, the author also shows how all occult influences have been rigorously excised from the letters approved for publication by the Plath and Hughes estates. Revealing previously undiscovered meanings deeply rooted in her mystical and occult endeavors, the author shows how Plath&’s writings are much broader than the narrow lens of her tragic autobiography.
Copyright:
2024

Book Details

Book Quality:
Publisher Quality
Book Size:
416 Pages
ISBN-13:
9781644118634
Related ISBNs:
9781644118627
Publisher:
Inner Traditions/Bear & Company
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
Julia Gordon-Bramer
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
Nonfiction, Health, Mind and Body, Literature and Fiction, Social Studies, Language Arts
Submitted By:
Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.

Reviews

No Rating Yet