Thesis (Honors)--College of William and Mary, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 56-60). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Texte remanié de: Diss--Universität Augsburg, 1998. / Bibliogr. p.[259]-273.

Sylvia Plath utilizes confessional poetry to subvert traditional gender roles and provide commentary on the expectations of those positions in both the domestic and social spheres. I argue that Plath uses the motherigure and her relationship to children in order to exploit this role, and in the distance that she places between the two, she provides a new role for the female speaker. I also discuss my own poetry’s use of the motherigure. In the second part of my thesis, I explore this and other feminine concerns through poetry.

This collection of original poetry is preceded by a critical introduction that includes an exploration of Sylvia Plath’s elegiac poems, particularly her failed attempts to respond to grief. Similarly, the following poems deal with failed attempts to assuage suffering and how one can address his or her need to be loved when that need is unmet. The essay follows Plath’s use of the traditional elegy to create her own elegiac poems about her dead father, using strategies such as mythologizing the dead or wishing to join the dead. Her strategy evolves into an exorcism of grief in her emotionally heavy poems, such as “Daddy” or “Lady Lazarus,” and later into an exploration into her speakers’ abject consciousness. The essay introduces my own poetry with its discussion of work that unapologetically confronts many forms of adversity, of inevitable anguish that follows, and of ways to respond.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Canterbury, 2007. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (p. 111-115). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Middle Tennessee State Univ., Diss.--Murfreesboro, 1992. / Literaturverz. S. [99] - 102.

I denna studie analyseras sju dikter ur Sylvia Plaths diktsamling ”Ariel”. Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka representationen av kvinnlighet och manlighet i utvalda dikter från Sylvia Plaths diktsamling ”Ariel”. Metoden som har använts är diskursanalys som använder begreppen av Laclau och Mouffe. Dessa begrepp användes även som teori, samt att teorier av Judith Butler och Lena Gemzöe har använts. Studien visade på att kvinnligheten i Plaths dikter är väldigt ambivalent, detta gällde även för de manliga subjekten som figurerar i texten men kunde dock ses som mer normativa.

Thesis (M. A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

Several of Sylvia Plath¡¦s poems are associated with the term ¡§Gothic¡¨ by critics. By examining how some conventional Gothic literary devices are used and how the feeling of terror is evoked in Plath¡¦s poetry, I shall try to prove the close correspondence between the Gothic literature and Sylvia Plath¡¦s poetry in this thesis. Then, I shall proceed to assert Plath¡¦s orthodoxy in the Gothic literature and discuss her uniqueness in the Gothic tradition.

The purpose of this thesis was to examine the mouth imagery (images of eating, tasting, swallowing, and devouring) in the poetry of Sylvia Plath in terms of its meaning of Plath's art. An examination of Plath's Collected Poems reveals that both the prevalence and specific nature of the mouth imagery make it a significant part of her poetic vision. The mouth imagery differs from the other threatening imagery in Plath's poems because, unlike the threat of death presented by the moon or sea, the mouth imagery describes a threat humans cannot detach themselves from; they must contribute to the "gross eating game." Because existence depends upon consuming food, and new life builds upon decay, the threat represented by the mouth imagery is hoplesslessly recognized as necessary by its victims in Plath's poems. The mouth imagery expresses the paradox in the interdependence of life and death through metaphors which convey a sense of threat as well as necessity. / Department of English