Quest for Expression: The Ekphrastic Poetry and Artistic Creation of Sylvia Plath

Abstract

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) is widely praised for her mastery of poetic form and language. Recently, Plath scholars have uncovered another dimension to this already complex literary figure. In addition to poetry, Plath also had a strong passion for art. In 2006 Plath scholars uncovered her impressive art portfolio buried in the bowels of the Lilly Library at Indiana University at Bloomington and the Mortimer Rare Book Room at Smith College. The art spans two decades from childhood to adulthood, pencil sketches to tempera canvases, and innocent doodles to haunting social commentaries. In the recently published collaborative book Eye Rhymes, Plath scholars introduce and interpret the poet's previously unknown artistic skill. The essays by Kathleen Connors, Sally Bayley, and Fan Jinghua are particularly fascinating in how they use Plath's art to perform enlightened readings of her visual poetry. Although her art was only recently uncovered, her visual nature was not confined to the canvas. Her writing conveys a mastery of language and image that combines in what Plath calls, in her journal, "kaleidoscopic writing" ( qtd. in Connors 2). Plath uses writing to merge the word and the image into a powerful visual language. Plath's short period of artistic production transformed her approach to literary expression. Her art, though diverse, includes recurring themes and techniques: bright colors, somber moods, psychological studies, and alienating landscapes. These traits are not isolated to her art, but reappear in her poems. Plath believed words could recreate a visual moment. The goal of her poetry was not only to create interesting textual pieces, but to "achieve visuality" (Jinghua 207). She manipulates literary tools such as word choice, rhyme scheme, meter, and form to construct a visual scene. Understanding Plath as a self-described "word-artist" adds a new dimension to her poetry (Plath UJ 276). Plath selects words based on "the visual appearance and sounds of words" (Plath UJ 88). Words relate to a sound or visual memory, acquiring immense power on the page. Her poetic career includes a clear demarcation: early ekphrastic poems depend on the specific visual image, while mature ekphrastic poems are often independent from the specific image. [From Chapter 2]