Sylvia Plath's Lyrical Responses to Works of Art: A Portrait of the Artist(s) (Paperback)

~ Doris Kraler-Bergmann (Author)

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Product Description

No doubt, people who have an artistic bent oftenrealize their full creative potential in more thanone field of the arts. Musicians are not onlymusicians, painters are not only painters and poetsare not just poets. Throughout her short life, SylviaPlath was similarly interested in a variety ofpursuits, including drawing, for which she had aquite remarkable gift. This book attempts to traceher development as both poet and artist through aclose examination of her letters, journal entries,and last but not least poems related to art. Indeed,if, through a painting, an artist such as HenriRousseau expresses his innermost feelings, thenSylvia Plath likewise reveals her inner life, herartistic preoccupations and concerns, in these earlymeditations on art. This book takes a closer look atSylvia Plath's artistic career, gives an introductionto the ekphrastic theory and finally discussesvarious poems and their respective paintings throughthe eyes of the artist(s).

About the Author

Mag. phil.: Diploma in English and Italian,Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck.

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: VDM Verlag (October 9, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3639034643
• ISBN-13: 978-3639034646
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #3,630,834 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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4.0 out of 5 stars Writing to Art, February 5, 2009

By	Peter K. Steinberg "pksteinberg" (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Sylvia Plath's own artwork has received much attention in the last seven years. The Eye Rhymes exhibit at the Sylvia Plath 70th Year Symposium at Indiana University, Bloomington, in 2002, and the book Eye Rhymes: Sylvia Plath's Art of the Visual (edited by Kathleen Connors and Sally Bayley) published in 2007, led the way. And, artists inspired by Plath's work were given special exhibition at the Sylvia Plath 75th Year Symposium.

Plath, who considered majoring in art at Smith College, had an emotional and creative reaction to artwork, in a wide range of mediums. Doris Kraler-Bergmann's recently published Sylvia Plath's Lyrical Responses to Works of Art: A Portrait of the Artist(s) (VDM Verlag, 2008) approaches Plath as a viewer of artistic works and as one who responds, lyrically, to them. This is called ekphrasis. Merriam Webster defines this as "a literary description of or commentary on a visual work of art."

The focus of Kraler-Bergmann's book are the art poems Plath wrote in March 1958, at the request of ARTnews. Plath wrote two poems each on paintings by Giorgio de Chirico and Henri Rousseau, and four poems on etchings and paintings by Paul Klee. Though Plath wrote eight poems altogether, Kraler-Bergmann focuses on only two of them: "Yadwigha, on a Red Couch, Among Lilies" and "Snakecharmer". Kraler-Bergmamm also looks at "Sculptor". "Sculptor", written about and dedicated to Leonard Baskin, is not strictly an ARTnews poem, but it is ekphrastic.

It was this March 1958, ekphrastic-creative outburst that lead Plath to believe she would be "the poetess of America" (Letters Home, 360). Obviously that came later and at a deep consequence, and unfortunately Plath failed to see any of these poems published in ARTnews. Kraler-Bergmann's study is a good read, and a welcome contribution to this subject, as well as an inspired examination of poems that Plath thought, for a time, were the foundation upon which her reputation would rest.