The Colossus (Faber Poetry) - Softcover

Plath, Sylvia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571240089 ISBN 13: 9780571240081

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 2008

Synopsis

Originally published in 1960, The Colossus was the only volume of Sylvia Plath's poetry published before her death in 1963. Showing a scholarly dedication to the craft, the poems in this collection are brimming with originality and the startling imagery that would later confirm her status as one of the most important poets of the twentieth century.

'On every page, a poet is serving notice that she has earned her credentials and knows her trade.' Seamus Heaney

'She steers clear of feminine charm, deliciousness, gentility, supersensitivity and the act of being a poetess. She simply writes good poetry. And she does so with a seriousness that demands only that she be judged equally seriously . . . There is an admirable no-nonsense air about this; the language is bare but vivid and precise, with a concentration that implies a good deal of disturbance with proportionately little fuss.' A. Alvarez in the Observer

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

With this startling, exhilarating book of poems, which was first published in 1960, Sylvia Plath burst into literature with spectacular force. In such classics as "The Beekeeper's Daughter," "The Disquieting Muses," "I Want, I Want," and "Full Fathom Five," she writes about sows and skeletons, fathers and suicides, about the noisy imperatives of life and the chilly hunger for death. Graceful in their craftsmanship, wonderfully original in their imagery, and presenting layer after layer of meaning, the forty poems in The Colossus are early artifacts of genius that still possess the power to move, delight, and shock.
From the Trade Paperback edition.

About the Author:

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and studied at Smith College. In 1955 she went to Cambridge University on a Fulbright scholarship, where she met and later married Ted Hughes. She published one collection of poems in her lifetime, The Colossus (1960), and a novel, The Bell Jar (1963); Ariel was published posthumously in 1965. Her Collected Poems, which contains her poetry written from 1956 until her death, was published in 1981 and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0571240089
• ISBN 13: 9780571240081
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 96