Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath was born in the suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts on October 27th, 1932. Her mother was a secretary and her father a professor of entomology. He died abruptly from preventable complications of diabetes when she was eight years old. Plath enjoyed writing and drawing as a child, and she would go on to study English literature and Studio Art at Smith College from 1950 to 1955.

In August of 1953, Plath attempted suicide and spent the fall at McLean hospital, where she met 30-year-old psychiatrist-in-residence Ruth Beuscher. The two kept in touch for the rest of Plath’s life. Plath returned to Smith in January, 1954 for the spring semester, and graduated in June, 1955, with a degree in English Language and Literature. She went on to study at Cambridge University for two years on a Fulbright scholarship, in part due to a stellar letter of recommendation from Dr. Beuscher. At Cambridge, she met the poet Ted Hughes, and the two got married in London in June, 1956.

She returned to the United States with Ted in 1957, where she taught at Smith College for a year, but found teaching to be draining on her creativity. She moved to Boston with Ted, and at the end of 1959 they went back to England where they moved into a flat in Chalcot Square.

Plath gave birth to her daughter, Frieda, in April of 1960, and to a son, Nicholas, in January of 1962. A few months after the birth of Nicholas, Plath realized that Ted was having an affair. She tried numerous times to mend her marriage, but no matter how hard she tried, Ted refused to abandon his affair. Though her marriage was in ruins, her poetic output was not. She produced her most famous poems in this time, including “Daddy” and “Lady Lazarus.”

Plath planned to divorce Ted, and bought a separate flat on Fitzroy Road. Part of what drew her to this flat was that it once belonged to the poet W.B. Yeats. Tragically, on February 11th, 1963, just one week after she wrote her last letter to Dr. Beuscher, Plath took her own life.

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