Sylvia Plath
She described herself as "dangerously brainy." Sylvia was born on October 27, 1932 to Otto and Aurelia, who had been married since 1929. Sylvia's father knew five languages and had a doctorate degree from Harvard. He had sailed to America in 1901 from the Prussian town of Grabow in the Polish Corridor. He was a strong believer in Darwinism, which caused his family to strike his name from the family Bible. He also loved bumblebees and was considered to be a brilliant man. Sylvia was the center of her father's attention while her mother was absorbed with taking care of Warren, Sylvia's two and a half year younger brother, who was always sick. This caused Sylvia to be extremely jealous of her brother. Her father died after developing diabetes and had a leg amputated. Sylvia was only eight years old at the time.
Sylvia Plath's early writing reflects the Horatio Alger ethic; happiness is the right of everyone, to be achieved through hard work, success is the reward of work, and fame and money are the measure of success. She was thought to be very prude and smug as a child, the favorite of many of her relatives.
She loved the sea, but moved inland when she was ten years old. She was 5' 9" by the time she was 15, and kept journals constantly. She had mastered the art of achievement; even she thought of herself as super-normal.
By the time she attended Smith College, with scholarships of course, she already had an impressive list of publications. While she was at Smith, she wrote more than 400 poems.
During the summer following her junior year at Smith, having returned from a stay in New York City where she had been a student ``guest editor'' at Mademoiselle Magazine, Sylvia nearly succeeded in killing herself by swallowing sleeping pills. After a period of recovery involving electroshock and psychotherapy Sylvia resumed her pursuit of academic and literary success, graduating from Smith summa cum laude in 1955 and winning a Fulbright scholarship to study at Cambridge, England.
In 1956, Sylvia married Ted Hughes. Unfortunately, he ran off with another woman and Sylvia committed suicide on February 11, 1963, by inhaling gas from an oven. The woman her ex-husband had run off with later committed suicide as well, the exact same way as Sylvia had.
The Works of Sylvia Plath