Midwest Modern Language Association

"The Same, Identical Woman": Sylvia Plath in the Media Author(s): Georgiana Banita Source: The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association, Vol. 40, No. 2, Special Convention Issue: High & Low / Culture (Fall, 2007), pp. 38-60 Published by: Midwest Modern Language Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20464231 . Accessed: 05/08/2011 17:37
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"The Same, Identical Woman": Sylvia Plath in the Media

Georgiana Banita
In recent years,authorshave been subjected to increased media scruti ny inkeeping withwhat has been called the modern "frenzy thevisible" of (Comolli 122) and have become a cultural text,an "event"at theborder linebetween culturalnostalgia (which tends,forexample, to romanticize and a fetishistic pathological creativity) interestinpersonalityimagesof all kinds.A paradoxicalsituationarises in thecase of SylviaPlath: however as flickering culturalsignifiers, representations thepoet correspondto of in similar patternsof self-fashioning herwork, creatinga unique interplay Our familiarity between imageand self-image. with such literary figures followsupon thedrastic expansion of television, cinema, the advertising industry, and the Internet, resultingin a wealth of images making up an iconosphere that comprises a whole series of free-floating signifiers, includingthosepertainingto starauthors. In Slavoj Zizek's words,what we witness is a "plagueof fantasies"(Zizek 1). Authors have beenmemorialized in amultitude ofwritten texts (such as biographicalnovels on SylviaPlath,1 and EmilyDickin Henry James,2 son3), inpoems too numerous to be listedhere (one of themundressing thebelle ofAmherst4),and inbiographicalfeature films(on just about all writersofAmerica from Poe toCharles Bukowski5). canonical Mainstream American authorssuch as Dickinson and Hollywood productionsreference Salingeron a regularbasis,6while popularmusicians have often reverted to the tormentedlives of thepoets inmelodramatic attempts to recast own troublesinto their well-knownplots and cash inon the fameof liter icons: pop songs have been written on Salinger,Sexton, and Plath.7 ary Several books deal with Dickinson's gardens,8 while in 2005 a computer Dickinson as aWindows officeassistant. gamewas conceived featuring Literarytourismis blooming;photo albums ofAmerican authors, within orwithout their homes, abound.9Posters can be orderedofAnne Sexton in a revealing, low-cut dresswhich she used as a readingoutfit,10 fashion houses such as Donna Karan display mannequins clad as SylviaPlath and to with typewriters match. The young Mancunian band Dorothy Parker, Nine BlackAlps, notedmostly fortheirsuicide fixations and self-loathing have takentheir name from Plath's poem "TheCouriers" published texts, in the Ariel collection, or which is eithera signof genuine interest, proof thatinvoking Plath is a sure and handy oneselfonto the way of smuggling levelofhighbrow art.
38 "The Same, IdenticalWoman"

Popular Ethics and the While the mechanisms of literary means of exploitingit celebrity are certainly worth lookinginto,Iwill restrict myselfhere to an analysisof theculturalsemioticsinvolvedinportraying what we have come to identi fyas SylviaPlath.Herself an elitistpoetwho neverthelessoftenengaged and Plath straddlestheboundaries with lowbrow artforms self-promotion, between the serious and the trivial,thereby claiming a rightto dwell in both realms.Her achievement in bridgingthisculturaldistinctiongoes of ethical thrust herwork and the increas back, I believe, to thedistinctly of ingtendency popular "structures feeling"(using of Raymond Williams's term)to rely empathy on and identification, the responsibility other on to ness, in response to the mounting disruptionof subjectivity selfhood and for which postmodernism been perpetrating thepast decades. Plath's has work-which includes the workingsof hermediated personae-, with its focuson victimizationand a uncannilycoherentpatternof despondency, in manner suggestedby such lends itselfto ethical re-impersonation the influentialthinkersas Judith Butler,Emmanuel Levinas, and Jean-Luc Nancy, all ofwhom struggle to promote an ethics of proximityto the other:Plath's reception,and to a great extenther own work, coalesces of around that pointwhich she aptlytermedthe"birthday otherness,"i.e., world in theafter an event which allows fora breach in the selfand the math ofwhich onemust readjust to a doubleness, a separation,a figura tivedeath. ShaneWeller argues in an insightful analysisofPlath's suicidal her poetics thatthepoet's unethical literalsuicide limits work by denying the ethical figurativesuicide performed in the best of her poems-in Plath's ownwords, "forget and giveblood to creation" (Journals self 473) which succeed in separating theirselves fromthe self-destructive poet withoutwhose annihilating instincts could not arise." Reading Plath, they of and re-living in terms popular culture,entails a subtle form wit her of nessing,whereby thepoet is inscribedintoethical categories and helps constructselves by eradicatingher own, becoming in theprocess some other than what Richard Wilbur flippantly dismisses as "free, thing help less, and unjust" (68). StephanieHemphill's 2007 poetrycollectionYour Portrait SylviaPlath (Knopo, closelymodeled on Own, Sylvia:A Verse of Plath's own verse and vertriloquizingthepoet or thepeople in her life, a meant to attractteen fansof confessional offers biographicalapproach The young readersof thisbookwould most likelyrespond to the poetry. dramaof Plath's lifeon an emotional,visceral level,revealingthe surpris ingfactthat Plath'swork can be educational to an extentthather pseudo rebelliousattitude might belie. From theconceptof ownershipimpliedin of Hemphill's title,criticalreception Plath should steer towardsthe field of of emotionalpedagogy, culturalethics and the fondpoetics of endear ment which definepopular responses toPlath and call intoquestion her

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"sealed offlikea ship in status as a poet's poet, a reclusiveself-dramatist, white flying a bottle-beautiful, inaccessible,obsolete, a fine, myth" (to ownwords from "Ocean 1212-W") (Johnny use Plath's Panic). In 1951 at age 19, Plath noted inher journal:"It is sad to be able only tomouth otherpoets. Iwant someone tomouth me" (journals 92). Over the followingfivedecades, not only has Plath been "mouthed" by other poets, but she has performeda most unusual act of self-impersonation. invention and fabrications SylviaPlath as such does not exist: it is through thatshe comes alive; she is perpetually mouthing a self thatshe no longer of resembles and the (per)versions her own image. But how do we preyon imagesof thepoet and how do they preyon us? W J.T.Mitchell's recent want as opposed to question as towhat pictures also in the sense ofwhat theylackand absorb what theyare or represent, fromtheir viewers, seems very relevanthere. Paradoxically,in the era of what Mitchell calls biocyberneticreproduction,thevirtual,high-speed reproducibility Plath's representations of does not preclude her images from wanting to be "kissed," touched; in otherwords, thevisual surface must be touched first-to speakwith Nancy and Derrida, our eyes first the touchbefore theytake in and interpret; act of seeing is haptic in its essence (Derrida 11). There is no depthwithout this surface,no poetic no without itsdemarcatingembodiment, literary without spirit territory its corporeal limit, access to thepoetry no without a physical threshold Plath's images radiate and reflectlibidinal and (almost sexual) entry. to not least through theirtendency eroticize theauthor whose end fields, on less reproduction imageand fantasy as seems to rely a close encounter and sensorialas it with theviewer.Superficial may be, thehaptic element of Plath's ownwork, haunted by physicalsensationsof the most extreme kind and a perpetualsense of physical the wounding,prefigures commodi of fication thepoet herselfas an object thatcan be touched,thatalleviates likea balm or instillsrepulsionand fear. My analysis in the following, which includesnot onlyvisual portrayals of Plath, but also two of musical interpretations thepoet and some sam of ples of online fanpoetry,takes its cue fromthe ethical import Plath's work and extrapolatesfromit todiscuss popular reception thepoet as a of processof sensibilization otherness,above and beyond the seemingtriv to ializationof her persona at theborderbetween pre-feminist rebellion in late victimization thehands of an incip at the turbulent 50s and corporeal ient era ofmedical therapy. Plath's drama has exceeded its academic appeal and is now consumed as popular entertainment,as a poem by Plath's daughterabout the filmSylvia (2003) resentfully suggests: "Now want tomake a film For anyone lackingtheability To imaginethe they / / Then / It can be rewound/ So body,head in oven, /Orphaning children. theycanwatch her die / Right fromthebeginningagain" (F.Hughes).12

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What FriedaHughes laments is the lackof sympathy with hermother's fateand respect forher achievements,although assisting thepublic in "imagining body,"Iwould argue,can only intensify sensorialeffect the the of a "body"ofwork ontowhose author we are now extending belated our care. This relief pain through of empathyresonates with otherdiscoursesof recovery in late twentieth-century America, which Shoshana Felman referred as an age of traumas to and concurrently that one promptedtheo riesof traumaas well (1). Plath's speakerstendto identify wounded with ness, in others and in themselves,casting thedilemma of pain broadly enough to include the Holocaust whose pain she sacrilized in a way that refutes notions of Plath as heartless chronicler suffering, of often forthe sake of suffering itself. Much more thanPlath herself, her readers today are likely to indulge in gratuitous ordeals in a late-twentieth-century America whichMark Seltzer described as a "wound culture" marked by "the public fascination with tornand open bodies and tornand opened around shock,trauma, persons,a collective and the wound" (1). gathering The ethical fascination with Plath in the media and popular cultureoscil latesbetween an emotionalauthenticity which itself emergedas an effect of an increasingly mediatedworld plagued by virtualcloseness on theone hand, andwhat FredericJameson inPostmodernism TheCultural or, Logicof LateCapitalism(1991) diagnosed as "waningof affect" theotherhand. on Between the two extremes, the overabundance of empathy with Plath sometimessensitizes the readerto thepoet's own ethical impersonations and sacrifices, more often it failsto produce any affective but responseat the all. It also reflects mounting tensionbetween thepublic and thepri vate that Plath's poetrydisplays through veiled, semi-autobiographical her involvement with political issues,andwhich is only today becominga full fledged,sometimes tasteless dilemma in thewords of Plath's admirers who appropriate publicpersona to alleviatetheir her personalneeds. I propose thiscategorization effective stultifying of vs. empatheticrep resentations an alternativeto a classical evaluationofmedia responses as to Plath, since the images and texts Iwill discuss below seem tome to reside in a realm thatrequiresa different analytical apparatus thanfiction or poetry. Poems about Plath, forinstance-beingalreadyresponsesand as such at a second removefromthe textstheyreference emulate-con and taina discourseof homage andworshipfulimitation which shouldbe eval uated on different groundsthanaestheticquality.13 A Myth ofOne's Own In fact,the staginessof Plath's ownwork is perfectly tune in with her Plath perceivedher own experience in termsof posthumous reification. as myth,partly a result her encounter of with psychoanalysis. The speakers

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inher poems are often identified with mythological,legendary, and sym bolic figures,and there is enough evidence that the poet herselfwas inclinedto relateon a verypersonal level with symboliccharactersof all kinds. One of themost infamous rejections of earlyGreek myths was made by Socrates in a passage from Plato's Phaedrus, where he declares himselfoffendedby theirundisciplined irrationality, which makes them of unworthy interest:
"I have no leisure at all for such matters; and the cause of it, my friend, is this: I am not yet able, according to theDelphic precept, to know myself. But it appears tome to be ridiculous, while I am still ignorant of this, to busy myself about matters that do not concern me." (Graves 11)

no Needless to say, Delphic oraclewas necessaryto counsel SylviaPlath on the relevance self-knowledge: was haunted by thequestion of self of she Nor did she understandthe languageofmyth as extraneousto definition. a preoccupation On thecontrary, with the self. Plath carriedthecorrespon to dence betweenmyth and identity theextreme,in thatshe trimmed the two intoa perfect It superimposition. has oftenbeen observed thatPlath's on poetryhas impresseditself many readers with the forceofmyth,but as thisdoes not necessarilyimply, ithas been suggested,thatthepoems as such are imbued withmythological imagery, decodable as a coherentsys tem.Rather,Plath seems to have reached to thequick of a pure emotion makes her speakers'voices resound intoa void, like the first that voice of of mankind,with theeffect a mythicpoemwrittenby itsprotagonist. Ted to Hughes testified Plath's easy access to depths formerly reservedto the primitiveecstatic priests, shamans and holymen (Kroll 4), and this is where thevoices in thepoems shouldbe located. Plath's technique of reaching this unadulterated tone is a complex process of ethical impersonation, wherebyher own poetic personamerges with a mythic image whose bereavementshe absorbs to thepoint of dou so we reach the lastAriel poems Sylvia bling its identity, thatby the time Plath has become a mythicalfigure herselfsomewherein the subtlepoetic in undertow, only this time it iswe who takeup her afflictions, a process that mirrorsher own ethicalpractices.In theearlypoetryshe seems to be in "borrowingthe stiltsof an old tragedy," thatshe elevatesher own per sonal drama to the status of a mythic plot (Plath,Collected Poems117). Later poems enact a less transparent identification with tragicfigures as variationson the trueselfthat Plath's speakersare struggling recapture. to It is a factthatthe torment caused by the inability the speakerto define of her identity raises the intensity and necessity of these impersonations; however,at no timedoes the mythicand tragic mask succeed inoffering a which figures Afterall, it is theblistering completeself, only as possibility. friction thevoicewith the falseself thathouses it-rather than the tri of

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umph of a fullyrecoveredidentity-thatgives thepoetry its immediate effect. The Journals offer also abundantexamplesof her close affinity with literary characters, whose transformations indicatethephases thatPlath's poetry underwent in time: Lawrence's "man who died," Rappacini's or daughter, Nina, in StrangeInterlude, thewoman on the red couch in Henri Rousseau's paintingThe Dream. she admits in a journalentry, As she "pick[s] up poetic identities characters of who commitsuicide,adultery, or getmurdered,and believe[s] completelyin themfora while" (204). Rely ingon Plath's semanticcanniness,one can assume here that not onlydoes she trusttheir existence ("believe in" as acknowledgement fact)but she of also trusts them in the sense of placing faith in their actions, their motives, and theauthenticity theirlives.By believing in this of wretched assembly,she becomes them,just as we as readers findourselves trans formedintoPlath, emotingwith her everyoutburst inChristine Jeff's and just as our children biopic,Sylvia, are likely practicetheirsentimen to tal educationson poems evokingthe luridtaleof theyoungpoet. Like the mirror in thepoemwith the same name, she takes the faceofwhomever she setsher eyes upon, only toprove the imprecision reflection the of and ethical responsibility confronting of otherness in itspainfulspecularity-a gesture thatanticipatesthepopularpreoccupation with Plath as alterego, emotionaldoppelganger, metaphoricalspouse. or One cannot say-with Kroll-that the figures takenup by Plath are reenactments Plath's ownmyth, since she tends to create them from of scratch,ratherthan take forgrantedalreadyexistingrenditions them; of any attempt in thatdirection is precluded by the "lameness" ofmemory whichmarks thepoems from beginningto end. Similar forms amnesia of characterize depictions of Plath in themedia-I focus here on visual images, musical representations, fanart-which remain and knotted in an ethical, almost obsessive sense of responsibilityforthepoet's fateand with her fatalchoices. In fact, sympathy Plath herselfcould be as much of a fanatical admireras hermost rabid fans today, and easily susceptibleto blurringthedivisionsbetween personal lifeand passionate identification with famedfigures. most of her adult life, For Plath displayedan unusually intense idolatryof Dylan Thomas, whom she superimposed onto the imageof her husband Ted Hughes, merging features the two intoone of of figure symbolic thedarkprimal forcesthatpopularmyth-criticism had familiarized with. She suffered her when deep bouts of anxietyand regret her underlinedcopies ofDylan Thomas were stolen from her date's car, and stalked thepoet at his hotel in thehope of catchinga glimpseof him after missed his appearance at a conference.14 having inadvertently Plath herself is being posthumouslystalked with a similardegree of nostalgia and distress.

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Packaging theNightmare relieson a fewsnapshotsand even fewerstudio Plath's visual iconicity that testify thepoet's merelymoderate interestinvisual self to images performanceoutside of her own, otherwise spectacular appearances in and with the fanfare visual sparkleof suchpoems as "LadyLazarus," often a media queen. Although the femalebody as public spectacle and com Arielpoems ("TheApplicant," "The modity is a constantthemein the late MunichMannequins," etc.), Plath had littletime to extendher critiqueof gender packaging to thepromotionof her own image,evenwent a long Mademoi her defeating own purpose bymodeling clothingfor way towards of selle duringher stintas an editor-an image that is suggestive Plath as Or, depending on the practitionerof glamorous commodity fetishism. arewilling to grant theyoung fashion model, and degree of candorwe Plath couldwell be a we especiallyif consider theplot behind TheBellJar, media system still learning to package and sell victim of theprimitive which Plath oftencolludedwith a certain physicality femaleattractiveness, For of and intensity sensation, as her poems testify. Plath, surfacesnot only serve to disguise giddydepths,but contributeto the lureand danger of thedepths themselves.Ifher poems use thisoblique sexualityforaes Plath's photographicimages is an occasion foran thetic purposes, reading of ethicalapplication thesame. Plath did not intendher personal photos forpublic dissemination, which is precisely why theyinvitesensationalistabuse. They are intimate but forming perfect artistic, most of themnot particularly photographs, myth.Suchwas theconvictionthat raw material fortheshapingof cultural many book cov poetryand lifeinPlath's case were closelyentwined,that and of ers used photographsand other illustrations thepoet to illuminate Panicand the The coversof TheBell Jar, Bible their Johnny content. prefigure Poemsall display imagesof Plath, and TheCollected ofDreams,TheColossus, These photographs carrya bluntmessage that irrespective edition.15 of with herwork,while the reader is invitedto buy an links thepoet's life or at least hindered fromreading thework without pre autobiography, Panic is The imageon thecoverof theFaber editionof Johnny sumptions. beach sand,her hair bleached,during also notorious.Plath smilesup from a of thesummer 1954, sporting white swimsuitand an endearingsmile.To writer who is depictedon thecoverof her my knowledge,thereis no other or his books in a swimsuitor any similarlyintimate pose.16None of the of forewords, blurbs,or jacketstatements thesebooks failsto suggestthat A Plath and her fictionalcharacters are entirely interchangeable. sen Carol Oates, printedon the tence-in both senses of the word-by Joyce coverof Faber's special editionof thenovel of 1996, sums up theprevail for "It ingbias quite clearly: isproper to say thatSylviaPlath represents us to is a tragic action,and thather tragedy offered figureinvolvedin a tragic

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us as a near perfect work of art inher books."As I suggestedearlier,it is we the readers who now borrowthe"stiltsof an old tragedy," re-inventing Plath as the poet herself recreated her own tragicheroines (Medea, Clytemnestra,etc.), illustratingtheplot as we see fit,sometimeswith innocent beachmemorabilia,or inkeeping with romantic notions of how The back coverof Jacqueline Rose's monograph tragedy visuallyunfurls. TheHauntingof SylviaPlath replicates Henry Fiissli's TheNightmare, the half-lascivious paintingof a supinewoman, in a half-painful, position, in thegripof a blatantlypornographicincubus.Both thepainting and the book's titleunsubtlypoint to Plath being haunted and tormentedintoa of "nightmare," which she has passed on toher community worshippers. "Time eventually positionsmost photographs, even the most amateur ish,at the levelof art" (OnPhotography This statement Susan Son 21). by tag certainlyfitsthedevelopment thatPlath's photographshave under work of art is rather work a gone in recent years,althoughinher case, the ofmourningand remembrance, evenbeyond the levelof art,an ethical and turnseems to have been occasioned by the focuson Plath's well-known The family of the features. photographs Plath usually foreground face,all the more vulnerable forthe fatetowhich we know it was subjected.The destitutenature of the face is best encapsulated inEmmanuel Levinas's multiple discussions of the "face,"starting with Beingand Infinity, up and to his later interviews, where he concludes: "The face is exposed,men us aced, as if inviting to an act of violence.At the same time,the face is what forbidsus to kill" (86). Response to the images thus becomes responsibilityforthe fateof theirsubject, a responsibilitythatLevinas itself. That theviewer should takea definesas theessence of subjectivity responsiblestance towards Plath,one who relinquished lifeand discard a ed all responsibility her children,is an ethical reactionin the sense of for replacement and compensation, beyond itsapparentparadox. Sylvia's face as the Other also initiatesthediscourse of her poetry, haunted as it is by theobtrusivepresence of a voice, one that come to know and almost we with Plath, fear. Also, there is scarcely ever a second Other together Ted with thepoet in except,occasionally, Hughes.We are thusconfronted isolationfromthe (human)world, sometimes in thepresenceof her chil woman stillholding death of the who also serve to recall the tragic dren, we to them with an affection are invited replicate. or Because they takentobe pieces of reality, "quotations,"as Sontag are narra suggests, photographsseemmore authenticthanextensiveliterary novels thathave beenwrittenon tives,such as thenumerousbiographical memoirs. In Son Plath,or plain biographies-six inbook form, excluding is "a trace,something stenciledoffthe tag'swords, a photograph directly of or real, likea footprint a deathmask" (154). So thecorporeality a pho tographis grantedby itsproximityto the real on theone hand, and the

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medium on theother,amedium thatcan be not only concretenessof its as and hand touched, Mitchell advises,but re-touched well, airbrushed as or tinted,trimmed, reshaped,as is often the case with Plath's imageson theweb. For this reason,no biographyof Plath, nor any of her autobio graphical writings,failsto include thealreadyknown set of images, which are carefully collected and exhibitedon all of Plath's Internet"shrines," even inHemphill's biographical poetry collection and, unsurprisingly, mentioned above. Beyond revealing thephysicalityof thepoet herself, Plath's photographsare inexhaustibleinvitationsto deduction, specula and death.The houses tion,and fantasy around theexactdetailsof her life where she livedand her burial place-in theirturnabundantlyillustrat ed-are inspectedlike the scenes of crime.Lurid expectationsare not sat that isfied, since theconventionality Plath observed inher outerdemeanor and lifestyle sanitize thepicturesand annul all tracesof abnormality, only oftenconcerning heightening desire for the objects unexpectedrevelations novel Falcon enshrouded in Yard).Jarring myth (such as Plath's apocryphal wake of therecent visual comparisonsare bound to ensue in the biography of Ted Hughes's "other woman," Assia Wevill, a book thatalso makes a not only its subject, but also her rivalSylvia Plath. point of portraying Despite the implicit pain thateach of thesedetails conjuresup, no suffer ing is legibleinPlath's interview picturesfor Mademoiselle, in thephoto or on the she graphs with her children; thecontrary, impression gives is that of a cheerful, matter-of-fact person,patently different from self-accepting, Woolf's modernist photographsor the theposed pensiveness ofVirginia studiedquaintness of MargaretAtwood's dustjacketpersona.Unlike high lystylized photographs, Plath's imagesare not posed; they displayprivate kindof beauty rather thancommercial expressionsand an iridescent which promotesnostalgia, and, by virtueof theirsubject no longerbeing alive, theyacquire a certaindegree of pathos. Plath's photographs are indeed of most inconspicuous them, they as have been dignified moving, even the of death andmore rarely an acquain by by the foreknowledge her tragic She becomes theobjectof rueful tance with her poetry. feelings and ethical sympathy, occasionally degenerating into a tendency to apportion the Plath's failureinmarriage and her subsequent death,much in blame for "I theway feminist poet RobinMorgan did in her poem "Arraignment": accuse / TedHughes" (33). is art. As Sontag put it,"photography an elegiac art,a twilight All pho tographsarememento mori" (On Photography By lookingat Plath's 15). or photographs,theviewerparticipatesinhermortalityand vulnerability, what they both inPlath and themselves, it is so experienceas these things, theneed to sympathize with thepoet and instinctively protecther that Plath's visual constitutestheappeal of theseclose-ups.At the same time, presence exorcises some of the anxietyprompted by the readingof her

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work. If thepoems oftenhave a disconcerting effect the reader, on who is with a feeling loss forcedtomove on shifting groundsand is often left of and emptiness,the imageof thepoet alleviates thisabsence in a spurious abandonment enacted in thepoems by the way by replacingthe figurative touchableand even downloadable imageof theirauthor. This is almost a which expresses a feeling both senti talismanicuse of thephotograph, mental andmagical. on Unlike thepictures reprinted some ofTed Hughes's books, Plath is her but ratherin free-time moth and virtually never seen practicing craft, or picturesalongside erlyactivities stockpostures,such as herhoneymoon the Hughes. Roland Barthes has dubbed thispracticeof surprising writer in the contexts"the most unprofessional writeron holiday"phenomenon, Barthes's argument,this insightinto the more and if were to follow we earthlyside of a writer,her locationon a parwith thehuddledmasses, only serves to distinguishher uniqueness and radicaldifference fromthe of writesBarthes, rest. Nothing exposes better the singularity a vocation, than its negation by theordinariness of its incarnation. Contemporary he journalism, pointsout, tendsto make ofwritersa rather prosaic specta The cle,which he understands as the exact opposite of demystification. trivial details supplied about an author's pajamas and her gastronomic preferences bringher down fromthecelestialpedestal,but do not hamper word. The contradictory coexistenceof a superhu her access to the sacred man conscienceand a worldlybodymerely accentuatesthe wonder of the writing profession, the sheermiracle of it.This paradoxical argument brings to lightthe inner workingsof thePlathmystique, in that it shows how an apparentlytrivializing portrayal can even increase theadmiration and bafflement thatthepoet induces. However, Iwould also contend that the impact theseoverlyexposed images of may lead in the long run to an anaesthetizing effect,since it reliesmainly on an emotional response. What separatesPlath fromtheunidentified writer that Barthesponders is her death and the limited numberof imagesavailable to thebeholder. This and satu of paucity visual signscan onlyengenderrepetition consequently ration. There is,however, another limitation. linked yet Symptomatically is of The picturesof to photography thedistinctfeeling the lapse of time. Plath as a child were publishedonly inherLetters Home,so at leastvisually thepoet never seems to age. She is frozenin a still, single slide of time, the theonlyone thatshe is known to inhabit and, significantly, verysame thatLady Lazarusmentions in thepoem by the same name.On theother hand, the small number of imagesmight also be colluded into a single more inten with all the "face"that would appeal to theviewer overarching mere sketchof a real person. By focusingon the face sity forbeing the which somewriterspose in today) thanon appareland accessories, (rather in a limited numberof postures,photographsof Plath can only facilitate

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memorization, and thatdestitute quality thatLevinas regarded as the sourceof ethicalresponseand responsibility. Dead Poet's Society Not onlyvisual representations Plath, however,appear in the erotic of interaction between thepoet and her audience; textualportrayals lend themselvesto a similargame of seduction, as a fanpoem posted on the virtualSylviaPlathForumdemonstrates: Apparitions invoked evaporate
While generation aftergeneration still clamor To hold mercilessly onto your quill: All wanting to love you, To capture you, To be you. (Deja Gworek)

Both as haunterand prey,and in a very similarethical gestureof imper sonation throughempathy,Plath forms the subject of forty-five such 1998 until thepresent, most of themby common read poems posted from in to erswho not onlypay tribute verse,but also contribute thediscussion forumthathas been runningforalmost a decade under theguidance of Plath scholar and occasional fan-poetElaine Connell. These amateur pieces, collected under the heading "Poems Inspired by Sylvia Plath," revealan interestin thepoet thatgoes beyond the fablesof Plath's life, although theyare hedged in precisely by the things that enrich their vision,namely theclose use of thepoems and of Plath's linguistic idiosyn model forlatergenerationsof aspiring crasies.Plath has been a poor role writers:many imitated her,but few managed to go beyondmere simula was faithful emotionallysincere.The and tion,evenwhere the imitation to work thatPlath inspiredis sometimesreferred as the "I am a gardenof a black and red sausages school of poetry,"'17 term that shows towhat was more thanpurelyformalistic extent this influence nothing frightening and Most of thepoemswritten mimicryof her imagery quirkinessof style. are Plath's fansand posted on the forum pale replicasof thepoet's own by of an from Plath's retrieved judgment, agglomeration metaphors faithfully work and heavilyadulteratedin theprocess,allmore or less frivolous vari line "I likeblack statements"(Collected ations on Plath's tongue-in-cheek Poems187). The generalapproach is a tentative account of Plath's elusive forayintoa pacifying emptiness thateventuallyreached its climax inher self-annihilation:
What Iwanted was Something else, something More distant,more tender,perhaps More impossible.

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What Iwanted was The beat of the close heart in the dark The moon's calm, yourwhite wing, The cool hand that soothes and promises nothing. Jim Long)

so main categories. The poems thathave been submitted farfallinto three The first comprises personal encounterswith Plath that read likediary writers confess to and ask forguid with a poetwhom the conversations of means ofwinningPlath's confidenceis the invocation ance.A frequent an indefinite, conspiratorial"they,"a word thatcomes to stand for the perceiveas resistance the of world toPlath's visionorwhat the fan-writers such. Plath's "last tape" is takenas a "rhymed departurenote" used to who refusesto come back to life:"So herewe breathe lifeinto a specter are: yourvoice / and I in this room alone / hangingused fleshback / on used bone, replacing/ your shyness,your gracious / distress,your long fingers/ strayingagain to your neck / like children playing" (Gary in Hyland). Here, theauthor's protectivestance transpires his suggestion to thatPlath's suicide-the fingers straying furtively theneck-was noth of ing more than theunwittingself-wounding a child out to enjoy itself, more complex affairthat itwas. While insteadof thedour and definitely Plath's eclectic imagery is subsumed towhat Steven Gould Axelrod referred as a process of "self-legitimation" to (159-60), thesehighlyper writ sonal poems takeover the same pattern inorder to legitimatetheir the ers' vision, reiterating abuse and self-abuseperpetratedon Plath to writersuggests, decomposi her alleviatepersonalplight,or,as one tribute tion is his own composition-an ethicalexchangeof roles that is as much based on sympathy it is on posthumousemotionalexploitation.In this as She is sancti a almost religiousfunction. sense, thepoet fulfills ritualistic, her ownwork invites makes pos and fiedandworshipped,a responsethat sible: Plath's speakers can relieve theiraddressees of vulnerabilityby most vulnera just as Plath selected the becomingvulnerable themselves, ble femalecharactersand inhabitedthemfora while tobreak theiremo tionalfall. There are, I believe, twopossible reasons fortheease withwhich read and ers of Plath'swork can adopt her patternsof suffering self-retrieval. of oftencreate the impression being vic Firstly, althoughPlath's speakers inview,except, timizedand tortured, thereis hardlyany clearperpetrator perhaps, the image of the father,even that resembling a contextual By SylviaPlath, metaphor ratherthana crediblelocusof danger. re-writing for readersand fanscan easily substitutetheirsuffering hers, the"needles and knives" of theirownwith theHolocaust depicted inPlath's poems. while the with other fans Moreover, this fanpoetry ismeant to resonate aroundwhom the poet herselfis relegatedto the statusof a poster figure as fancommunity comes intobeing and continues to function a self-serv

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many of Plath's poems seem tomanipulate the mechanism. Secondly, ing to a largerimportance thepersonalplightdescribed readersintoaccording own creation,suggesting contact with a world of their They feign therein. no outside of thepoems them that it can be accessed but offering entry and languageof her poems, the selves.The more contingentthe imagery more theybecome subject to narcissistic duplication, contrary to the with PeterOrr: Plath herselfstated inher interview intentions
I thinkmy poems immediately come out of the sensuous and emotional experiences I have, but Imust say I cannot sympathize with these cries from the heart that are informedby nothing except a needle or a knife, or I think that personal experience is very important,but whatever it is.... certainly it shouldn't be a kind of shut-box and mirror looking, narcissis tic experience. I believe it should be relevant." (Orr 169-70)

personal,but sometimesdegen Response toher poetryis not onlyhighly mimicryof Plath's despondentposes, dulled-downby clumsy erates into and stageprops of Plath's own poetic inte attemptsto revivethe settings
riors: Sylvia, the residue of you is alive in the new. Your icydead masks glower atme walls of every From mirrors; theyhang from Room, dangle from light fixturesof the Decaying corridors and empty halls through Which I blindly stumble, blood chilled. JamesChong)

We, too stumbleblindly throughthispoem, not knowinghow to square from Plath-nothing could be further this repulsiveimageof a glowering of visually, thepoet-with the livingresiduesof this what we remember, more crass,unwittingly self-mocking might perhaps clear up some of the to imitations),Susan Sontag states that"to name a sensibility, draw its modified by requiresdeep sympathy contours and to recount itshistory, in with Plath's own takeon unsym revulsion"(276).While perfectly tune pathetic figures(Medusa and Daddy come tomind), the fan-poetfails to and recreatethehauntingaura thatsurroundsanykindof impersonation, especially the encounterwith a character less than amiable, less than human, less thanreal. A second categoryof fanpoetry includes those humorous texts that replayPlath's obsessive interestinpopular culture and her attempts to to contributions more her seriouspoeticworkswith flimsier complement mass culture.Not only did she strive to middle-of-the-roadvehicles of women's magazines such asMademoiselle, her stories in gain acceptancefor her hand at but, as she confesses in a letterto hermother, she even tried in of which seems unsurprising light her self-professed advertising jingles,
50 "The Same, IdenticalWoman" fan-poet's admiration. In "Notes on Camp" (and "camp" is a term that

addiction to all things trivial,to the "peripherals"which poetry, that One amateurpoet thuscon her todiscard.18 "tyrannical discipline,"forces verted her eccentricpoetic vocabulary and syntax into a publicity text, interfering Plath's poem "Mary'sSong," intendedas a double act of with massacre of theJews: mourning forthe sacrifice Jesusand the of
It is a Dole (Trademark), This holocaust Iwalk in. O golden pear theworld will kill and eat. (Kenneth Jones) It is a heart, This holocaust Iwalk in. O golden child theworld will kill and eat. (Sylvia Plath)

does not lend itselfto repeti As alreadysuggestedabove,Plath's imagery tion letalone topastiche,and becomes unbalanced when taken out of con inPlath's suffering ispredominantly text. The feeling voices opaque, tangi ble and at the same time incomprehensible.The excess on which her between theconcrete languageof poetryrestsappears at the intersection who does not the textand theobscure sensation itcauses in the reader, findenough substance in theemotion to attributeit to a real, individual and it subjectivity at the same timehas troubleappropriating forherself. compre The effect thewords takeshold before theircontent is fully of of at hended, ifit is comprehensible all.The nebulous fields metaphor cre thatescapes fullarticulation apprehension, as or or ate an imagistic feeling or one criticaptlyput it,"thewords contain,represent, transmit feelings less than theyserveas a dwellingplace forthem" (DeShong). Once repli cated, theyshedwhateverkept theminone piece. Strippedof subjectivity, of thepoetic voice is only a temporary repository emotion thatcannotbe repeated without damage. of It is only the third category fanpoetrythatadds a new dimension to Plath's work and cultural persona while borrowing some of her own A motifsand symbols. macabre image inone poem ofPlath thawingin the with heated oven and dining on herselfprompts thebiblical connection of last supper, while thedestructiveeffect thegas is seen to prepare the of the chaos and rebirth a new creation.Along the same lines, another Lazarus with the image poem completes the metaphor of the resurrected with a secret"and re-emerging of amummifiedancientqueen, "entombed, back intoone piece. Icarus,Isis, mend herself from underher bandages to Priestess of Thebes, all converge to form a mythic patchwork best described byRobert Lowell as "one of those super-real,hypnotic,great classical heroines" (122). As a Christian or mythological icon, Plath with holiness" (Collected remains, to use one of her own phrases, "stiff mim Poems 173), not a humanbeing at all but a puppet tiedon its strings, ingvarious mythicscripts.

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These popular responses to Plath have evolved in a certain cultural field,and are part of a collectivehabitus, to use PierreBourdieu's term, public commiser presupposes a dispositiontowardself-exposure, one that and thecollective a focuson communication, ation, ethical conformism, of solipsismof fancultures.The poetic features Plath's poetrycopied by ownworksmake up a listof aestheticqualities thatpass her fans in their why Plathwas canonized as a leadingconfession for value, forthe reasons Her fanbase is,however, writing today,in the al poet of the earlysixties. one that might have appreciatedPlath's wry humor century, twenty-first but perhaps not her lugubriousness.Bourdieu recognized the arbitrary Art: Genesis Rulesof (The natureof rules thatgovernaestheticperformance can Field,1995): indeed,Plath's virtuosity only of Literary andStructure the be perceived as such in the contextof herwork's production, its social (and Some of the fanpoems are intrinsically and reception. environment from Long, but theysuffer by Plathian,especiallythe text Jim successfully) of theirstatus as literature second degree, too readilyaccessible on the and of medium, the scarcity mon web, lackingtheconcreteness a tangible and perhaps theheart etaryvalue of it,a more visible authorialpresence, Dependent as thesepoems are on theirsub lessness of poetic ambition. ject and on theirown placement on theweb, theycan hardlybe judged as but aestheticcriteria, rather discursiveethical accordingto conventional practice, in the serviceof poetry itself,after thepixel has replaced the bloodjet.The new aesthetic theycondone combines the styleof lowbrow aestheticvalue matter of poetic elitism; the resulting artwith the subject between the two. lies, I believe, in theethicalrelation Music (De-)Facing the artistconsumed by a of The excessive style a SylviaPlath, the suffering is passion forself-exposure, only one ofmany formalizedtransgressions of popularmusic. The society media specta on the scene of contemporary extremebehavior, of cle, especially in the field music, has long routinized of suicide, and public confession.Occasionally, prominent figures high commentsto rock self-justifying brow art serve to provideprogrammatic, bands and singerswho quote and emulate, allowing themselves to be of As but inspired not intimidated. a result suchquotation,Plath has shift memory into thatof publicmemory-a dis ed fromthe sphereof cultural Museum": Hartman in "Democracy's made recently Geoffrey by tinction mass media through mainly by the "In our time, publicmemory is formed and it accumulates as an accessible cache easily near-endless repetition, Plath appears inpopu popular consumption, retrieved" (193). Stylizedfor whose storyis told music less as a poet thanas a victimizedheroine, lar Wind." The manner of theevergreen"Candle in the and lamented in the and in the aspect of theseportrayals lies in theirpopularity, interesting

52

"The Same, IdenticalWoman"

factthatforthe first timesincePlath's timeatMademoiselle and sinceher stories were published in ladies'magazines, herwords are receivedby a much larger public thanher regularreadership. An idealizedpresence of SylviaPlath is thus fixatedintoa popular icon.Overfull and eclectic, the archive publicmemoryallows only fora simplified, of theatrical plot going by thename of thepoet, one thatgets superimposedonto other similar tragicstories and finally onto thatof the singerhimself.The burden of "SylviaPlath" on memory triggers, believe, an unburdeningin I musical representations thatalmost raises the specterof amnesia. Simplified but not tamed,Plath featuresinher own storyinwhich morality-in a turn also anticipatedbyLevinas-becomes roleplaying:one is eitherher lover or her savior, and usuallyboth, in a continuousrecasting thatthreatens to leave theprotagonist out. The music itselftransforms Plath intoan explic it fetish, flowing aroundher,caressingher,exposinga fleshy incarnation of thepoet, alonewith thesingerand implicitly alonewith the listener. The shortpoem "SYLVIAPLATH,"writtenbyRyanAdams and Richard Causon and set tomusic on thealbum Gold in2001, occasions a sympto matic return the ideologically of and factually dead author. The capitalized titleresemblesa gravestoneprint, most likelyin reference theheated to debate in thepress about the inscription Plath's headstone19 also an on and of unspoken invocation thenotoriousdeath artist ofteninvoked Plath as by Lady Lazarus. The melody is containedby the funereal piano lilt,encum berednot bypain,but rather a studiedand self-conscious ofmourn by act ing.Still, instead voicinggriefforthe loss of thepoet at the levelof cul of tural memory,the textsettleson one possible imageof SylviaPlath among others-the indefinite article ("a" Sylvia Plath) is used-to referto the more personal loss of the speaker's inspiration, resultingin a mixture of helplessnessand hope thatseems tohave foundinPlath thebest represen tation. The selectionof "amansion at the topof a hill" as theplacewhere theseductressresides is relevant thiscontextas theclassic toposof Par in nassus, thehill thatused to be amountain beforepoetry was relegatedto theplace itnow holds, the mythologicalhome ofApollo and the muses, and,more recently, figurative the resting place of thegreatpoets. Its glam our is,however, undercut thehypothetical by toneof theentire poem in its of agglomeration maybes: the textbetrayssome generalanxiety about the fate poetry of and song,but especiallythefate itsauthor'sart,an anxiety of thatis assuaged by proximity Plath, in sympathy to with thepoet andwith oneself. iswhat Adams faces inhis art;creativerecklessness Difficulty and ease is what he sees inSylviaPlath.As ifthey weremeeting,as in thepoem Wallace Stevens, Mount ofVision,20one descending by midway down the inglory, otherstruggling climb,Plath and the the to male speakerstand for twodifferent kinds of talentand artisticendeavor, which Adams tries to reconcile here in theform an eroticencounter. of

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Even before the first note has sounded, the listener is aware of the death of the titleheroine, whereby the text is perceivedas theprojection of a future onto someonewho has none, excepther posthumous influence supported as thesirencall of amuse-the imageof the sirenbeing further by themaritime setting, with Plath perpetratingher seduction in the water.Adams's song is a plea fora new muse, who is and is not Sylvia but at the same time the biographical terms, Plath. It is Plath in strictly symbolexceeds thepoet's lifeand encompasses a largerscriptof public While various details point to episodes inPlath's life(Spain and memory. France as honeymoon settingsforthePlath-Hughes couple; the oceanic of landscape;Plath's sleepingout fora week a ghoulish reminder her first swallowed sleepingpills and hid forsever at suicideattempt 21,when she creviceunder the floor, al days in a tight waiting to die), thesedetails are pictureof the selectiveand tend to be combinedwith a gothic, romantic ratherthan artist,so thatthe textrelieson a generalized image repertoire on an authentic figure. Sensing perhaps thegrandiosityof his claim to revive imageof thedead poet,Adams makes an attemptat humanizing an her face to inviteethical response ("busted toothand a smile") and her with partlyhumorous effect and manner ("cigarette ashes inher drink"), and only faintsuccess in creating"likeness."Seduced byPlath's intensity which he deduced from biographical material,Adams defiance, features reversesthe lyrical prioritiesand betrayshis own penchant forherowor instead ofmaking room for the lure of his heroine. On theother ship, hand, the femaleprotagonist is undeniablyPlath herself,i.e., thewoman rather thanthepoet. In his eclectic studyThePleasure the Text, Roland Barthes argues for of of the erotics reading,which would be added to the poeticsof reading and the author as a already in use. Though theauthor as an institution paternity(or materni biographical person have been dispossessed of their Barthes recants former his conviction makes room and ty)of literary texts, fora libidinalinterplay enactedbetween authorand reader in theveryact of reading:
As institution, the author is dead: his civil status, his biographical person have disappeared; dispossessed, theyno longer exercise over his work the formidable paternitywhose account literaryhistory, teaching, and public opinion had the responsibility of establishing and renewing; but in the text, in a way, I desire the author: I need his figure (which is neither his representation nor his projection), as he needs mine. (27)

This tensionproves essential in the reception many cult authorsof our of who not only induce an avuncular kind of affection (in J.D. century, Salinger's classic novelHolden Caulfield talksof thebestwriters as the ones he feels theneed to call), but even inspire romantic involvement, charisma and passion for especiallywhen endowedwith the irresistible
54 "The Same, IdenticalWoman"

is in extremity a SylviaPlath.This eccentricity reflected numeroushints of at drugsand anti-depressants, which not onlyare traceableinPlath's biog raphy, also function staplesof the rockstar life. but as The intimacy reach while the accumulationof es thepointwhere a "she and I" is imagined, of personal encountersin the second stanza is an intimation eroticclose in ness.Though apparently sympathetic itsportrayal, songdelineatesa the stereotyped response to Plath and a romantic pictureof thepoet, tinged one more to theunin with thebroad brushof sentimentality, thatrelates hibiteddesiresof the lyricist rather thanto thepoet herself. A secondmusical portrayal Plath by theCanadian singer-songwriter of Tom Cochrane reveals a more differentiated approach.Again, the song resortsto the same fetishistic objectivizationby suggestingan interven tionof an erotickind, in that the singerattempts to seduce SylviaPlath out of her sealed fate."PaperTigers" glosses over Plath's aggressiveand her self-destructive nature,portraying insteadas thevictimof her poems and proportionto become somany Franken which growout of all intent stein figures. Plath is no longertheconsummateartisttrading wordly her existence forthat"most unnamable lust"of poetryand self-destruction; insteadshe becomes aworthythoughsomewhatflawedindividual thatthe for songwriter willing tomake sacrifices to thepoint of renouncing is his ethicalgesturenot onlyof own lifeto ensureher survival,in a profoundly responsibility the to Other but also of completeself-abnegation. Both Adams and Cochrane address a fascination with Plath that is based on her resilienceand stronggrip on a vision that is about to dis for solve,her persona appearingto be a sourceof inspiration both artists. By attemptingto possess (Adams) and recover (Cochrane) SylviaPlath, both texts conveythe longing herpresence, for but it is theveryabsence of the desired and unknowable object that constitutes the driving force behind the two wistful invocations.SylviaPlath herselfdisplayed in her of work the symptoms a deeply ingrained melancholy,that"most archaic wound" (Kriste unnamablenarcissistic expressionof theunsymbolizable, va 12), which fuelled her fixations with the meaning beyond signification. Adams's and Cochrane's Sylvias remainas desired and unpossessible as thephantomspopulating thepoems of SylviaPlath, those shewished to get hold of andwho eventually hold of her.Deprived of the imperious got ness of Plath's search,her own replicated phrases (see Cochrane's refer ence to "the bell jar") and those thatattempt to describe her can only Poems words seem "dryand riderless"(Collected 270), in a way her original neverwere. It is also remarkablethatboth songs featurea first-person both focuson thepoet. I suspect thisderives from speaker, although they the natureof the textdemandinga self-reflexive melancholy manipulation of the subject matter. In thissense, the two song textscome closer to the fanpoetrydiscussed above and differ fromthe more literary of portrayals

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which describeher in a historical criticalframework only sel or Plath, and dom strike more personalchord. a The secretsympathy sharedby the speakersof these two songs and the poet easily transcendsthenormalbounds of admiration. While referring to SylviaPlath, they probe thedepths of theirown selves, ascribingseg ments of theirconscious or unconscious personalityto thepoet, thereby around an imageof the selfand itsdouble,which can creatinga narrative be seen as a consequence of the ethical gesture.The substitution motif also points to thepresence of a double: Cochrane's speakerdeclares his willingness to give up his own life in order to save Plath. As an artistic Plath shiftsin and out of focusas the two speakers reveal doppelganger, of wishes notmerely topossess, sexual patterns wishful thinking (Adams lyor otherwise, someone resemblingPlath but in fact wishes he were to needs itandwhich is SylviaPlath), or offer comfort one who no longer in the end onlymeant as comfortforoneself (in the case ofCochrane). Bothmale speakersconveyan impression Plath as a somewhatunderde of who can be fascinatingfora while but veloped, puerile self-performer, needy enough to requiresomething get her through," "to incapableas she is of getting through herself,as ifPlathwere also one ofCochrane's by "paper tigers":seeminglyferociousbut ultimatelyquite powerless. The precise nature of the relationshipbetween the speakers and thepoet is never clear,except that shemirrors and at the same timecomplements theirartisticambitions.Yet forall their of understanding Plath's demons her intoone), Adams and Cochrane fail to (and their willingness to turn free recreate identity of romantic an cliches,bridal images,and an overpro tective machismo.A seriesof details indicatessexuallyseductivebehavior on on thepartof thespeakerand sexual attraction thepartof SylviaPlath. in But theyare as interrelated psychologicaltermsas theyare intertwined in the erotic event. The image and persona of Sylvia Plath operates a mind into (at least) two segments, decompositionof the speaker'sartistic to Yet corresponding a male-femaledichotomy. beyond the roleof a mere in femalesecret sharer, Plath is used tomake a plea forself-sacrifice the of service art, with art substitut whereby theethicalequation is modified, ing theOther. By aligning themselveswith the suicidal poet, the two with her self-abnegation without actual speakersproclaim theirsympathy From thisperspective,the textsseem lycommitting any act of sacrifice. exploitativeof thepoet's image in their quest for"spiritualshortcutsto but to virtues, preferring see someone else trythemout" (Kenner spiritual of 43), an approach thatcan onlyboost the impact Plath's poetic and phys icalpersona. Whether as art-world gossip or puremelodrama, the scenarioof Sylvia Plath's lifehas resulted in somany different adaptations that the sum of

56

"The Same, IdenticalWoman"

these alternativeplots makes up a separate artworkrunning parallel to Plath's own poetic output and at timeseven steals the spotlightfrom her of enduring masterpieces. The reinventions thepoet by themedia have subtly changedour view of SylviaPlath and broughtintofocusthe mediat ed, slipperynature of authorship.As Elizabeth Hardwick has written, "There is a peculiar remoteness about SylviaPlath.A destinyof such vio lent self-definition does not always bring the real person near; it tends, rather, inviteiconography, freezeour assumptions and responses" to to (100). In 1985,Hardwick alreadyintuited reticent the fascination was that tohold swayover Americanpoetryforthedecades to come, far beyondher Plath'smove towarda more transparent, own expectations. public sphere does not obliterate, but instead perpetuatesthebinary oppositionbetween high and low culture. However, the focusset by her representations on is the means ofmediating between the two, ratherthanestablishing the was. One is not contaminating the truthabout who Sylvia Plath really which is also an embalm other; instead both are complicitina reinvention ing,an homage,and a gift. of University Constance,Germany
Notes 1. See Emma Tennant, The Ballad of Sylvia and Ted (2001); Kate Moses, Wintering (2003); Robert Anderson, Little Fugue (2005); and FayWeldon, Down among the Women (1971) (the couple referred to as X and Y is based on Plath and Hughes). Susan Fromberg Schaeffer's latest novel, Poison (2006), recounts the saga of a poet's life following the itinerary of Ted Hughes's career, with Plath making a prominent appearance; and indirect connections with the Plath-Hughes plot can also be detected inDoris Lessings's To RoomNineteen (1963). 2. Examples include Colm Toibin's TheMaster (2004) and David Lodge's Author, Author:A Novel (2004). 3. For example, JudithFarr's INever Came toYou in White (1997).

4. This is Billy Collins's "TakingOff Emily Dickinson's Clothes." 5. See, for examples, Mrs. Parker and theViciousCircle (1994) on the lifeof Dorothy Parker; Tom& Viv: TheMovie (1994), an account of themarriage of T. S. Eliot and the British aristocrat Vivienne Haigh-Wood; Factotum (2005), a biography of Charles Bukowski put together frompartial accounts in his novels; Henry and June (1990), which focuses on melodramatic relationships and betrayals in the lives of Henry Miller and Anais Nin; Capote (2006); In Love andWar (a sentimental view on Hunter ofDeath (2001); The Legendary the lifeof Ernest Hemingway); Hemingway, the Mark Twain (1944). Life ofEarnestHemingway (1988); and TheAdventuresof

6. For example, Ocean's 12 (Emily Dickinson); ConspiracyTheory (J.D. Salinger); AnnieHall (Sylvia Plath); and 10 ThingsIHate About You (Sylvia Plath). 7. Some instances include Sarah Slean, "Me and Jerome" (on J.D. Salinger); Peter Gabriel, "Mercy Street" (on Anne Sexton); Ryan Adams, "SYLVIA PLATH"; and Tom Cochrane, "Paper Tigers" (on Sylvia Plath).

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8. See Marta McDowell, EmilyDickinson.

EmilyDickinson's Gardens and Judith Farr, The Gardens of

mentz's

9. Examples includeNancy Crampton's Writers:Photographs; D. McClatch's Ameri J. canWriters at Home; Marion Ettlinger's Author Photo: Portraits 1983-2000; JillKre
The Writer's Desk, and Sally Soames's Writers.

10. "The photo is all charisma and charm, the poet is shown twisted into place, her legs lightly crossed, her feet inwhite shoes with a crisscross buckle, her sleek black-and-white dress aswirl in Matisse-style geometry,bangles spangled down her arms, her hands livelyand expressive, as ifarguing a point or respondingwith glee to some juicy gossip, a Salem menthol draped between her fingers" (Wurtzel 182). The imagery of chic and the idiom of fashion journalism employed by Elizabeth Wurtzel in this description say as much about the picture itself as they betray a tendency among the fashionable female intelligentsia to frame Sexton as the poster figure of the catwalk poet. 11. See Weiler. 12. For a close analysis of the film see Banita. 13. By contrast, Plath's own ethical takes on theHolocaust can of course be read according to aesthetic criteria,although theyhave also often been criticized on eth ical grounds, most prominently by George Steiner, who in 1969 declared that Plath's use of theHolocaust in her late poems lefthim "uneasy": "Does anywriter, does any human being other than an actual survivor, have a right to put on this death-rig?" (305). 14. See Gordon 188-92. 15. Faber and Faber's oft reprinted paperback edition of The Bell Jar places two large, luridlycolored, air-brushed illustrations of Plath on its dust jacket. Both are based on well-known photographs of Plath and depict her at moments in her life
she was close to her heroine's age, which suggests a tion. biographical interpreta

when

16. In recent years, criticism of this simplifyingpackaging has burgeoned, and aca demic works have devised ways of undermining the tendency to over-portray the poet in the context of her work. Thus, JanetMalcolm's book The SilentWoman depicts on its cover Ren? Magritte's Lovers,a kissing couple with sheeted faces, as a symbol of the auctorial effacement that is a prerequisite of valid scholarly work. Tracy Brain's discussion of untapped sources in Plath's work The Other Sylvia Plath features on its cover a painting by Plath herself entitled Study of a Woman, reminis cent of the abstract painters that Plath so much admired and perfectly fitting for Brain's intent: to uncover previously unavailable work by Plath and set it in new
interpretive contexts.

17. The poet Hugo Williams coined this term by observing behavior in creative writing classes (see Patterson). The phrase itself is a reference to a line from Plath's poem "ThreeWomen": "I am a garden of black and red agonies" (Collected Poems 180). 18. "I'm a woman, I like my littleLares and Penates, I like trivia" (Orr 171).
19. For 20. See a detailed Stevens's analysis poem of this controversy "Mrs. Alfred Uruguay." see Bronfen.

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"The Same, IdenticalWoman"

Works Cited
Adams, Ryan, and Richard Caus?n. 2001. "SYLVIA PLATH." Gold. UMG Recordings,

Atwood, Margaret. The BlindAssassin. London: Virago, 2002. Words. Baltimore: Axelrod, Steven Gould. Sylvia Plath: TheWound and theCure of JohnsHopkins UP, 1990. Banita, Georgiana. "No More Idols but Me: Sylvia Plath as Cinema Icon." American StudiesasMedia Studies.Heidelberg: Winter, 2007 Text. London: JonathanCape, 1976. Barthes, Roland. The Pleasure of the _. "The Writer on Holiday." InMythologies. Selected and translated from the French byAnnette Lavers. London: JonathanCape, 1974. 29-31. 1998.

Cochrane, Tom. "Paper Tigers." Songs ofa CirclingSpirit.EMI Music Canada, 1997. Collins, Billy. "Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes." Sailing Alone Around the Room:New and Selected Poems.New York: Random House, 2001. 119-20. Comolli, Jean-Louis. "Machines of theVisible." The Cinematic Apparatus. Ed. Teresa de Laurentis and Stephen Heath. New York: St.Martin's, 1980. 121-42.
Crampton, Nancy. Writers: Photographs. New York: Norton, 2005.

Brain, Tracy. TheOther SylviaPlath. Harlow: Longman, 2001. Bronfen, Elisabeth. SylviaPlath. Plymouth: Northcote House,

Derrida, Jacques. Le Toucher, Jean-Luc Nancy. Paris: Editions Galil?e, 2000. DeShong, Scott. "Sylvia Plath, Emmanuel Levinas, and theAesthetics of Pathos." PostmodernCulture:An ElectronicJournal of Interdisciplinary Criticism 8.3 (1998). Muse. 14Nov. 2006 Project <http://muse.jhu.edU/journals/postmodern_culture/v008/8.3deshong.html> Marion. AuthorPhoto: Portraits 1983-2002. New York: Simon, 2003. Ettlinger, Farr,Judith.The Gardens ofEmilyDickinson.Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2004. ry.Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2002. Gordon, John. "Being Sylvia Being Ted Being Dylan: Plath's 'The Snowman on the Moor.'" Journalof Modern Literature 27.1/2 (Fall 2003): 188-92. Graves, Robert. TheWhite Goddess. London: Faber, 1961. Hardwick, Elizabeth. "On Sylvia Plath." Ariel Ascending: Writings about Sylvia Plath. Ed. Paul Alexander. New York: Harper, 1985: 100-15.
Hartmann, Felman, Shoshana. The Juridical Unconscious: Trials and Traumas in the Twentieth Centu

New York: Palgrave, 2002. 191-209. Inauthenticity. Hemphill, Stephanie. YourOwn, Sylvia: A VersePortrait of Sylvia Plath. New York: Knopf, 2007. Hughes, Frieda. "MyMother." Tattler (Feb. 25, 2003). 124-25. Letters.London: Faber, 1998. Hughes, Ted. Birthday Kenner, Hugh. "SincerityKills." SylviaPlath:New Views on the Poetry.Ed. Gary Lane. Baltimore: JohnsHopkins UP, 1979. 33-44. Writer'sDesk. New York: Random, 1996. Krementz, Jill.The Kristeva, Julia.Black Sun:Depression andMelancholia. New York: Columbia UP, 1989.

Geoffrey.

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of the Spirit:

The Struggle

against

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New York: Harper, 1976. Kroll, Judith.Chapters inaMythology.

Levinas, Emmanuel. Ethics and

Richard A. Cohen. Pittsburgh:Duquesne UP, 1985.

Robert. Janet. "Sylvia Plath's Ariel." Collected Prose. London: The Silent Woman. London: Pan Macmillan,

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Philippe Faber,

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Lowell, Malcolm,

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