Annotated Bibliography
Alexander, Paul. Rough Magic: A Biography of Sylvia Plath. Cambidge, MA: De Capo Press, 1999.
Written as a very intimate narrative that makes it seem like the reader is watching Plath's life unfold before them. Alexander does this by no directly citing sources in the text.
Butscher, Edward. Sylvia Plath: Method and Madness. Tucson, Ariz: Schaffner Press, 2003.
Butscher's most long lasting contribution is his use of the phrase "bitch goddess" to reconcile the disparate aspects of Plath's personality.
Conners, Kathleen, and Sally Bayley. Eye Rhymes: Sylvia Plath's Art of the Visual. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007.
Sylvia Plath also created visual images such as collages and drawings. This book would be a great addition to the journals and letters since they provide a visual option for students who struggle with text.
DiLorenzo, Robert. "Teaching Advanced Placement United States History in the Urban, Minority High School: Successful Strategies." The History Teacher. Vol. 32, No. 2 (February 1999), pp. 207-211.
DiLorenzo is an Advanced Placement United States History teacher in New York who came up with the teaching strategy of the "document shuffle" used to teach the Document Based Question essay on the exam.
Gill, Jo. The Cambridge Companion to Sylvia Plath. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007.
This book is immensely useful for both an instructor's overview of Plath's life, work, and biographical study.
Hamilton, Nigel. How to do Biography: A Primer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2008.
Hamilton's book, written more for a professional biographer, provides useful organizational advice for writing biography.
Helle, Anita, ed. the Unraveling Archive: essays on Sylvia Plath. Ann Arbor, Mich: University of Michigan Press, 2007.
This book deconstructs both Plath's work and the work about Plath. For this unit, Janet Badia's "The 'Priestess' and Her 'Cult': Plath's Confessional Poetics and the Mythology of Women Readers" examines how "Plath readers" have become a symbol for a certain kind of woman.
Hughes, Ted. Birthday Letters. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1998.
This book of poetry, written by Plath's husband Ted Hughes, serves as a primary source to represent Hughes's perspective on the death and defining of Sylvia Plath.
Kirk, Connie Anne. Sylvia Plath: A Biography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004.
This book is a very readable, concise biography that can be used in comparison to the more dramatic and controversial examples by Alexander, Butscher, and Stevenson.
Malcolm, Janet. The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. New York: Vintage Books, 1993.
Malcolm's critical review of Plath biographies illustrates the complicated nature of the genre and challenges the readers and writers of biography to a higher level of awareness.
Orr, Peter. The Poet Speaks: Interviews with Contemporary Poets Conducted by Hilary Morrish [and Others] Pref. By Frank Kermode. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1966.
The interview of Plath in this collection focuses on her work but provides insight into how she describes her poetry and its influences.
Plath, Sylvia. Ariel: the Restored Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 2004.
These poems, originally published in 1965 and edited by Ted Hughes, are dark and confessional and are excellent primary sources used to understanding Plath just before her suicide.
Plath, Sylvia. The Colossus Poems. London: Heinemann, 1960.
This was Plath's first published book of poetry and provide a comparison to her later poems in Ariel.
Plath, Sylvia. The Bell Jar. New York: Harper Perennial, 2006.
Just how autobiographical this novel is remains up for debate but it serves as a useful primary source for both Plath's writing and her possible strained relationship with her mother. The American publishing of this book led Aurelia Plath to publish Letters Home.
Plath, Sylvia and Aurelia Schober Plath. Letters Home: Correspondence 1950-1963. New York: Harper and Row, 1975.
This collection offers a wealth of options for the teacher to use in the classroom. The letters stretch from Plath's high school years to just before her death. Her mother's perspective is presented in the introductions to the sections.
Plath, Sylvia and Karen V. Kukil. The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, 1950-1962. London: faber and faber, 2000.
With more time it would be interesting to compare both published versions of Plath's journals. Like Ariel, the first version was edited by Hughes. This version was published much later and offers a more objective presentation.
Percoco, James A. A Passion for the Past: Creative Teaching of U.S. History. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1998.
This book, though somewhat dated, offers many ideas for making a history classroom more relevant and engaging. The idea of the historical head comes from this text.
Stevenson, Anne. Bitter Fame: A Life of Sylvia Plath. New York: Penguin Books, 1998.
Stevenson, more than the preceding biographers, takes all of Sylvia Plath into account. This book is seen by some as unnecessarily critical of Plath and by others as a refreshingly honest account.
Sylvia. Dir. Christine Jeffs. Perf. Gwineth Paltrow and Daniel Craig. Focus Features, 2004. DVD.
This film begins with Plath in Cambridge, England on a Fulbright Scholarship and ends with her suicide. It is biographical and takes a clear position on the influence of Hughes and Plath's mother on her life.
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