Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath (1932 – 1963) was a major American poet who studied in the USA and then in the UK, where she settled. Her volumes of poetry, including her posthumously-published collection, Ariel, established her as one of the most important poets of her generation, alongside her husband, Ted Hughes. Although controversy surrounded and continues to surround her early death by suicide, the importance of her work (she is credited with creating what has become known as a ‘confessional’ genre of poetry) and its contribution to the course of twentieth-century poetry, are beyond controversy.