May Sarton: Biography [Paperback]

Margot Peters (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 23, 1998

From acclaimed writer Margot Peters comes the first, completely authorized biography of novelist, poet, and feminist May Sarton. Granted unprecedented access to personal papers and diaries, Peters gives us a compelling look at the woman who influenced a legion of readers with rich and intimate writings, and reveals the fascinating life that Sarton herself kept hidden.

Beginning with a young Sarton largely ignored by her parents, Peters traces the compulsive quest for recognition and artistic inspiration that would characterize most of Sarton's life. We witness her at nineteen as she chooses a life in the theater, only to discover later her real passion: writing. As her literary career takes shape, we watch her personal and professional struggles for acceptance, her intense relationships with such learned friends as Muriel Rukeyser and Louise Bogan, and her secret turmoil over her sexuality. But ultimately, we see Sarton begin to create in her works the image of a strong, independent woman who lived peacefully with solitude--an image that often contradicted the reality of her life.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Margot Peters had full access to May Sarton's letters, journals, and notes while she researched and wrote this biography, and the result is a book that charts Sarton's personal life as it explores her work as a poet, novelist, and feminist. Peters carefully details Sarton's many love affairs (mostly with women), portraying the writer as an insensitive and self-absorbed lover who was prone to betrayal on the slightest pretext. She attributes this behavior to Sarton's precarious sense of self-worth, developed as a result of parental neglect in her early childhood. That low self-esteem resonated in Sarton's incessant fear--despite publishing 15 books of poetry, 19 novels, and 13 memoirs and journals--that her writing might not be quite up to par. Peters draws this out and, unlike many literary biographers, allows that her subject's writing could have been better. Throughout the book, she points to Sarton's common use of cliché and her tendency toward sentimentality. She suggests that if Sarton had taken more care with her craft and had better editors to guide her, she might have evolved into a better writer. Ultimately, the blend of facts about Sarton's life and loves with the critical analysis of her writing gives readers a comprehensive view of this complex woman and artist. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

With the blessings and cooperation of May Sarton (1912-95), literary biographer Peters, an English professor formerly at the University of Wisconsin, provides an in-depth look into the character, personality, and private life behind the inspirational and dynamic poet, novelist, essayist, journal writer, feminist, and lesbian. Peters chronicles a life full of turbulence, pain, loneliness, neediness, and passion. This biography dispels any myth that Sarton's writing was effortless, portraying the writer's never-ending need for a Muse and the numerous women who played this role. Peters offers a well-written, compelling literary biography to which readers will respond with emotions ranging from empathy, sympathy, awe, and admiration to disgust and disbelief that an artist who produced works that provided inspiration for so many lived with much misery and dissatisfaction. Highly recommended.?Jeris Cassel, Rutgers Univ. Libs., New Brunswick, N.J.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (June 23, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0449907988
• ISBN-13: 978-0449907986
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,126,235 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Peters went beyond the biographer's mandate., November 27, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: May Sarton: A Biography (Hardcover)

Margot Peters did a good job in reporting the details of Sarton's life and connecting them to Sarton's works. But instead of giving the facts and letting readers evaluate them, she continually judges Sarton and crams her disapproval down the reader's throat. I was especially annoyed by her decree that Sarton was a "minor writer." Sarton was clearly hard to live with. Romantic involvement with her was a pathway to pain. But she had important things to say, and she said them well. Had she been a man, the suffering she caused her friends and lovers would be taken for granted as the artist's privilege, and forgiven for the sake of the work. I didn't know her, but I know her work, and for its contribution to my life, I'd forgive her anything.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A clear-eyed biography of a complex woman, February 17, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: May Sarton: Biography (Paperback)

I think the reviewers of this book who pat themselves on the back for not being taken in by the "persona" of May Sarton should go back to her journals again -- especially "Journal of a Solitude." It seems to me that Sarton was very much aware of the unpleasant aspects of her own nature, the twists and turns of mood, the antisocial tendencies, the destructive effect of anger. Should she be condemned because she allowed the persona of "sister, mother, lover, mentor, friend" to take on a life of its own, to the point that millions of fans can still see her no other way? The persona itself has the power to heal -- even if the real woman was faced, as we all are, with sorting out the mess of her life. The fact that Sarton knew this biography would be published showing her "warts and all" was telling -- certainly not the final act of a hypocrite.
This is not an easy biography, and fans of Sarton may be put off for awhile after reading it, but I found that after time I was able to go back to her books with more understanding, and more appreciation, for the writer and person of May Sarton. Highly recommended!

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Highly worth reading!, January 24, 2002

By 

Maureen "Unitarian Universalist Minister, Lif... (Hendersonville, New Caledonia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: May Sarton: Biography (Paperback)

I gave this a '4' (rather than a 5) because, like so many contemporary biographies, Margot Peters shows us many sides of May that those who have had their lives saved by her work would rather ignore. Do I want to know that my icon was sexually, emotionally and financially abusive her friends . . . probably overly arrogant . . . often bitter . . . Probably not. Do I need to know this fully to appreciate her work and fully to assess her import in my life? YES . . . "Without darkness nothing comes to birth as without light nothing flowers." Without fully embracing the shadow -- my own and those of my mentors -- I can never come to wholeness. After reading Peters' book I have found much more depth and vision in my re-encounter with Sarton's poetry and novels . . . the journals, on the other hand, can never for me be the same again. Caveat emptor.