The Colossus and Other Poems - Softcover

Plath, Sylvia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0394704665 ISBN 13: 9780394704661

Publisher: Vintage, 1968

Synopsis

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.

About this title

From the Back Cover

"Although her work has appeared widely on both sides of the Atlantic, The Colossus, which appeared earlier in England to unusual acclaim [was] her first volume to be published in America. Certainly the Praise bestowed on her by British critics is warranted; Sylvia Plath is indeed a rare talent and a consummate craftsman ... her powerful poems crackle and smoulder with energy ... Miss Plath is not averse to using traditional forms -- she is drawn to various modifications of terza rima, for example -- but her rhymes are mint-new, so often 'slanted' as to be nearly disguised. And like Dylan Thomas, whom she resembles in other ways, she is not afraid of pushing alliteration and assonance to the breaking point."

-- Guy Owen, Books Abroad, University of Oklahoma Press

"Sylvia Plath's eye is sharp ... and her wits responsive to what she sees. She prefers, though, to make you hear what she sees, the texture of her language affording a kind of analog for the experience she presents."

-- Richard Howard, Poetry

"She steers clear of feminine charm,deliciousness, gentility, supersensitivity and the act of being a poet. She simply writes good poetry."

-- A. Alvarez, (London) Observer

About the Author

Sylvia Plath was born in 1932 in Massachusetts. She began publishing poems and stories
as a teenager and by the time she entered Smith College had won several poetry prizes.
She was a Fulbright Scholar in Cambridge, England, and married British poet Ted Hughes
in London in 1956. The young couple moved to the States, where Plath became an
instructor at Smith College, and had two children. Later, they moved back to England,
where Plath continued writing poetry and wrote The Bell Jar, which was first published
under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas in England in 1963. On February 11, 1963, Plath
committed suicide. The Bell Jar was first published under her own name in the United
States by Harper & Row in 1971, despite the protests of Plath's family. Plath's
Collected Poems, published posthumously in 1981, won the Pulitzer Prize.

Edition details

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 1968
• ISBN 10: 0394704665
• ISBN 13: 9780394704661
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 84