Sylvia Plath in Context Literature in Context Series

Sylvia Plath in Context brings together an exciting combination of established and emerging thinkers from a range of disciplines. The book reveals Plath's responses to the writers she reads, her interventions in the literary techniques and forms she encounters, and the wide range of cultural, personal, artistic, political, historical and geographical influences that shaped her work. Many of these essays confront the specific challenges for reading Sylvia Plath today. Others evaluate her legacy to the writers who followed her. Reaching well beyond any simple equation in which biographical cause results in literary effect, all of them argue for a body of work that emerges from Plath's deep involvement in the world she inhabits. Situating Plath's writing within a wide frame of references that reach beyond any single notion of self, this book will be a vital resource for students, scholars, instructors and researchers of Sylvia Plath.

Part I. Literary Contexts: 1. Plath and the American poetry scene Jonathan Ellis; 2. The dominant trends in British poetry of the 1950s and early 1960s Eleanor Spencer; 3. Plath and the classics Holly Ranger; 4. Plath and the radio drama Andrew Walker; 5. 'Sincerely yours': Plath and The New Yorker Peter K. Steinberg; Part II. Literary Technique and Influence: 6. Plath in the context of Stevie Smith Noreen Masud; 7. Plath's whimsy Will May; 8. Sylvia Plath and you Tracy Brain; 9. Plath and the lyric Lucy Tunstall; 10. Plath and the pastoral Iain Twiddy; Part III. Cultural Contexts: 11. Plath and food Gerard Woodward; 12. Plath and fashion Rebecca C. Tuite; 13. Experimental bravery: Plath's poetry and auteur cinema Lynda Bundtzen; 14. Plath and television Nicola Presley; 15. Plath and art Jane Hedley; Part IV. Sexual and Gender Contexts: 16. 'Minor scandal': queer writing contexts for The Bell Jar Beatrice Hitchman; 17. 'Woman-haters were like gods': The Bell Jar and violence against women in 1950s America Kate Harding; 18. Sylvia Plath and the culture of hygiene Laura Perry; Part V. Political and Religious Contexts: 19. The Bell Jar, the Rosenbergs and the problem of the enemy within Robin Peel; 20. Religious contexts for Sylvia Plath's work Gail Crowther; 21. Plath and nature Richard Kerridge; 22. Plath and war Cornelia Pearsall; Part VI. Biographical Contexts: 23. Sylvia Plath's journals Sally Bayley; 24. Plath's teaching and the shaping of her work Amanda Golden; 25. Electroshock therapy and Plath's convulsive poetics Anita Helle; 26. Plath's scrapbooks Peter K. Steinberg; 27. Beyond letters home: Plath's unabridged correspondence Karen V. Kukil; Part VII. Plath and Place: 28. 'A certain minor light': Sylvia Plath in Brontë country Sarah Corbett; 29. Plath in London Elaine Feinstein; 30. Plath in Devon: growing words out of isolation Maeve O'Brien; Part VIII. The Creative Afterlife: 31. An alternative afterlife: Plath's experimental poetics Gareth Farmer; 32. British and American editions of Ariel and The Bell Jar Elena Rebollo-Cortés; 33. After Plath: the legacy of influence Fiona Sampson; 34. P(l)athography: Sylvia Plath and her biographers Heather Clark.

Tracy Brain is Reader in English Literature and Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, where she runs the Ph.D. in Creative Writing programme. She is the author of The Other Sylvia Plath (2001) and co-editor of Representing Sylvia Plath (Cambridge, 2011). She has published numerous essays on Plath's work. Her interests are wide-ranging – from an essay on sewing in Jane Eyre to a book about pregnancy and birth in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century novel.