"The Munich Mannequins" is a poem by Sylvia Plath which recounts Plath's experience of insomnia on a trip to the title German city. The poem is famous for its opening line and for referring to conservative Munich as the "morgue between Paris and Rome."
The poem is written in 13 couplets, ending with a single one-line stanza, and follows no rhyme scheme.
In the early 1960s, the fashion models were often referred to as "mannequins," [1] and those from Germany enjoyed special popularity. "The Munich Mannequins" was written in little over a month before her suicide, making it one of her Ariel poems.
In "The Munich Mannequins" Plath refers to the lives of women and how they are seen by others, specifically with regard to how biological functions related to childbearing are perceived to define them. The first line of the poem, "Perfection is terrible, it cannot have children," refers both to the appearance of the culturally ubiquitous live German models and that of inanimate mannequins. Just as mannequins cannot procreate, nor can their live counterparts risk their "perfection" by becoming pregnant. Plath suggests that perfection itself "tamps the womb," and goes on to describe the emotions she associates with menstruation, the cycles of menstruation symbolized by the moon. [2]
Literary critic Pamela J. Annas argues "The Munich Mannequins" describes "particularly well the social landscape within which the "I" of Sylvia Plath's poems is trapped". [2] She supports this ultimately through highlighting the domination of the artificial (mannequins) over the real (women) and the male society's transformation of women into puppets, and unnatural figures, representing their "disgust with" and "fear of women". [2] She goes on to say that the winter setting in Plath's nature-themed poems represent a period of hibernation before spring and rebirth, while in the context of this city poem, a harsher, social, male-dominated setting, the winter setting represents death instead. [2]
Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist, and short-story writer. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for two of her published collections, The Colossus and Other Poems and Ariel, as well as The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical novel published shortly before her death. In 1981 The Collected Poems were published, including many previously unpublished works. For this collection Plath was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 1982, making her the first to receive this honour posthumously.
Edward James Hughes was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation, and one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1984 and held the office until his death. In 2008 The Times ranked Hughes fourth on their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".
The Bell Jar is the only novel written by the American writer and poet Sylvia Plath. Originally published under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas" in 1963, the novel is semi-autobiographical, with the names of places and people changed. The book is often regarded as a roman à clef because the protagonist's descent into mental illness parallels Plath's own experiences with what may have been clinical depression or bipolar II disorder. Plath died by suicide a month after its first UK publication. The novel was published under Plath's name for the first time in 1967 and was not published in the United States until 1971, in accordance with the wishes of both Plath's husband, Ted Hughes, and her mother. The novel has been translated into nearly a dozen languages.
Sylvia is a 2003 British biographical drama film directed by Christine Jeffs and starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Daniel Craig, Jared Harris, and Michael Gambon. It tells a story based on the real-life romance between prominent poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. The film begins with their meeting at Cambridge in 1956 and ends with Sylvia Plath's suicide in 1963.
Ariel was the second book of Sylvia Plath's poetry to be published. It was originally published in 1965, two years after her death by suicide. The poems in the 1965 edition of Ariel, with their free flowing images and characteristically menacing psychic landscapes, marked a dramatic turn from Plath's earlier Colossus poems.
Mademoiselle was a women's magazine first published in 1935 by Street and Smith and later acquired by Condé Nast Publications.
"Daddy" is a poem written by American Confessional poet Sylvia Plath. The poem was written on October 12, 1962, four months before her death and one month after her separation from Ted Hughes. It was published posthumously in Ariel during 1965 alongside many other of her poems leading up to her death such as "Tulips” and "Lady Lazarus."
"A Prayer for my Daughter" is a poem by William Butler Yeats written in 1919 and published in 1921 as part of Yeats' collection Michael Robartes and the Dancer. It is written to Anne, his daughter with Georgie Hyde Lees, whom Yeats married after his last marriage proposal to Maud Gonne was rejected in 1916. Yeats wrote the poem while staying in a tower at Thoor Ballylee during the Anglo-Irish War, two days after Anne's birth on February 26, 1919. The poem reflects Yeats's complicated views on Irish Nationalism, sexuality, and is considered an important work of Modernist poetry.
"Lady Lazarus" is a poem written by Sylvia Plath, originally included in Ariel which was published in 1965, two years after her death by suicide. This poem is commonly used as an example of her writing style. It is considered one of Plath's best poems and has been subject to a plethora of literary criticism since its publication. It is commonly interpreted as an expression of Plath's suicidal attempts and thoughts.
"Mad Girl's Love Song" is a poem written by Sylvia Plath in villanelle form that was published in 1953, ten years before her death by suicide. She wrote this poem while attending Smith College and described it as being one of her favorite poems that she had written. "Mad Girl's Love Song" was originally published in Mademoiselle, a New York based magazine geared toward young women.This poem was first formally published during the same month of her first suicide attempt.
"Tulips" is a poem by American poet Sylvia Plath. The poem was written in 1961 and included in the collection Ariel published in 1965.The poem is written in nine stanzas in sixty three lines
In Neo-Freudian psychology, the Electra complex, as proposed by Carl Jung in his Theory of Psychoanalysis, is a girl's psychosexual competition with her mother for possession of her father. In the course of her psychosexual development, the complex is the girl's phallic stage; a boy's analogous experience is the Oedipus complex. The Electra complex occurs in the third—phallic stage —of five psychosexual development stages: (i) the Oral, (ii) the Anal, (iii) the Phallic, (iv) the Latent, and (v) the Genital—in which the source of libido pleasure is in a different erogenous zone of the infant's body.
The following bibliography of Sylvia Plath is a list of articles, poems, and books written by the American confessional poet Sylvia Plath (1932–1963). Plath was primarily known for her poetry but has earned her greatest reputation for her semi-autobiographical novel The Bell Jar, published pseudonymously weeks before her death.
"Ariel" is a poem written by the American poet Sylvia Plath. It was written on her thirtieth birthday, October 27, 1962, and published posthumously in the collection Ariel in 1965, of which it is the namesake. Despite its ambiguity, it is literally understood to describe an early morning horse-ride towards the rising sun. Scholars and literary critics have applied various methods of interpretation to "Ariel".
The Colossus and Other Poems is a poetry collection by American poet Sylvia Plath, first published by Heinemann, in 1960. It is the only volume of poetry by Plath that was published before her death in 1963.
Feminist revisionist mythology is feminist literature informed by feminist literary criticism, or by the politics of feminism more broadly and that engages with mythology, fairy tales, religion, or other areas.
Winter Trees is a 1971 posthumous collection of poetry by Sylvia Plath, published by her husband Ted Hughes. Along with Crossing the Water it provides the remainder of the poems that Plath had written during her state of elevated creativity prior to her suicide.
"Sylvia’s Death" is a poem by American writer and poet Anne Sexton (1928–1974) written in 1963. "Sylvia's Death" was first seen within Sexton's short memoir “The Barfly Ought to Sing” for TriQuarterly magazine. The poem was also then included in her 1966 Pulitzer Prize winning collection of poems "Live or Die". The poem is highly confessional in tone, focusing on the suicide of friend and fellow poet Sylvia Plath in 1963, as well as Sexton’s own yearning for death. Due to the fact that Sexton wrote the poem only days after Plath’s passing within February of 1963, "Sylvia’s Death" is often seen as an elegy for Plath. The poem is also thought to have underlying themes of female suppression, suffering, and death due to the confines of domesticity subsequent of the patriarchy.
Nikita Gill is a poet and writer. She has written and curated six volumes of poetry. She uses social media to engage her audience and she has 559,000 followers on Instagram with just over 300 posts. She has been described as one of the most successful Instapoets, and 'one of the most exciting young writers working today'.
"The Applicant" is a poem written by American confessional poet Sylvia Plath on October 11, 1962. It was first published on January 17, 1963 in The London Magazine and was later republished in 1965 in Ariel alongside poems such as "Daddy" and "Lady Lazarus" two years after her death.