Visitors will be able to consider the ways in which Plath shaped her public and private identity as she came of age as a writer in the 1950s.Īlthough Plath’s identity as a writer is well known, less attention has been paid to how she crafted her identity visually through her own artwork and through photographs. In the summer of 2017 the National Portrait Gallery will present Plath’s biography visually with a “One Life” exhibition, the first exploration of her life in the context of an art and history museum. Writing for the New York Times on May 31, 2013, Liesl Shillinger claimed, “In the United States, she is undergoing a kind of resurrection and image overhaul, spearheaded by young women and by poets, male and female.” I can’t help but wonder whether it is Plath who captivates or the idea of Plath? A look at Plath’s online presence reveals that her popularity crosses age, race, class, and gender lines. In fact, Plath can be found in virtually every social media outlet from Tumblr to Pinterest to fashion blogs. Contemporary musicians draw on her words as source material, and visual artists use her life and poetry as fodder for conceptual work.Her name is tossed around in pop-culture circles to the point that contemporary celebrities like Lena Dunham tweet about her in relation to Taylor Swift. Fictionalized versions of Plath’s life have been made into films, plays, novels, and an opera. More than fifty full- length critical monographs have been written, and between 20 five new biographies were published.Īpproximately 550 journal articles have been written about Plath, and more than 150 books contain essays about her. Her poems and stories have been translated into thirty languages. In the years since Plath’s death, interest in her has been extraordinary and continues to evolve. Sylvia Plath, February 25, 1956, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia PlathĪmerican poet and novelist Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) retains a fierce hold on the global popular imagination. It is that synthesizing spirit, that “shaping” force, which prolifically sprouts and makes up its own worlds with more inventiveness than God which I desire. When the sky outside is merely pink, and the rooftops merely black: that photographic mind which paradoxically tells the truth, but the worthless truth, about the world. What I fear most, I think, is the death of the imagination.
If this piques your interest, look out for the Portrait Gallery’s future exhibition “One Life: Sylvia Plath,” opening in the summer of 201 In honor of National Poetry Month, Associate Curator of Painting and Sculpture Dorothy Moss writes on captivating poet and novelist Sylvia Plath. Sylvia Plath / Rollie McKenna / Gelatin silver print, 1959 (printed later) / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution gift of Rollie McKenna, © Rosalie Thorne McKenna Foundation, courtesy Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona Foundation
0 kommentar(er)
