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Mad Girl's Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted
Mad Girl's Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted | Andrew Wilson
36 posts | 9 read | 2 reading | 27 to read
From an award-winning author comes a groundbreaking biography of Sylvia Plath, focusing on her childhood, adolescence, and early years of writing, creating a new portrait of this iconic yet still mysterious literary legend. A new biography of Sylvia Plath, a literary icon who continues to haunt, fascinate, and enthrall even now, fifty years after her death On February 25, 1956, twenty-three-year-old Sylvia Plath walked into a party and immediately spotted Ted Hughes. This encounter now one of the most famous in all of literary history was recorded by Plath in her journal, where she described Hughes as a big, dark, hunky boy. Sylvia viewed Ted as something of a colossus, and to this day his enormous shadow has obscured her life and work. The sensational aspects of the Plath-Hughes relationship have dominated the cultural landscape to such an extent that their story has taken on the resonance of a modern myth. Before she met Ted, Plath had lived a complex, creative, and disturbing life. Her father had died when she was only eight; she had gone out with literally hundreds of men, had been unofficially engaged, had tried to commit suicide, and had written more than two hundred poems. "Mad Girl s Love Song "chronicles these early years, traces the sources of her mental instability, and examines how a range of personal, economic, and societal factors the real disquieting muses conspired against her. Drawing on exclusive interviews with friends and lovers who have never spoken openly about Plath before and using previously unavailable archives and papers, this is the first book to focus on the early life of the twentieth century s most popular and enduring female poet. "Mad Girl s Love Song "reclaims Sylvia Plath from the tangle of emotions associated with her relationship with Ted Hughes and reveals the origins of her unsettled and unsettling voice."
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Lots_O_Books
Pickpick

This was a great read. About a woman who refused to be stuck in a bad love story! Loved it.

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kspenmoll
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#LiteraryLuck #RainbowStack #CatsofLitsy
Emmy had to monitor my book activities. She loves toppling stacks. 🌈🌈

Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks Awww Emmy 😽😻 5y
tammysue Sweet! 😻🌈 5y
Leftcoastzen Oh, so cute!😻 5y
97 likes3 comments
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TrishB
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#barbiegirl #septemberdanes
Well- there‘s a girl and my Barbies 😁❤️

Reggie That‘s perfect! 6y
erzascarletbookgasm 👍😁 I picked up the tagged book recently. Curious about it 🙂 6y
batsy I love this! 😆 6y
See All 9 Comments
Kalalalatja Creative, and I love it! 👏👏👏 6y
Cinfhen Hahaha!!! Perfect 👌🏽 6y
Cathythoughts Adams Family barbies ... that‘s brilliant 🖤🖤🖤nice one 6y
TrishB @Cathythoughts I saw them on a show about Barbie and wanted them for ages. Hubby finally found them and got them for me for Christmas a few years ago ❤️ I love them! 6y
TrishB @erzascarletbookgasm it gives a quite different side to Sylvia than most. But a bit more of a realistic look. 6y
Centique Those are AMAZING! 😍😍😍 6y
112 likes2 stack adds9 comments
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youneverarrived
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Finished tagged book, read the other two and started a new audiobook 🤓 #12intwo

Andrew65 Almost there! 6y
Leftcoastzen I liked “mad girl” love that Baldwin cover. 6y
youneverarrived @Andrew65 I stopped with only half an hour to go coz I couldn‘t stay awake any longer 😂 6y
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Andrew65 @youneverarrived Still a fantastic total! 🙌👏👍 6y
youneverarrived @Leftcoastzen I really liked it too. She was a fascinating person. 6y
youneverarrived @Andrew65 thanks 😃 I did better than I usually do in readathons so I‘m happy 😊 6y
65 likes1 stack add6 comments
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youneverarrived
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Really liking this. I‘ve read a lot of her poetry, letters & her diaries but never a biography of her. She was clearly very creative & clever from an early age.

Trashcanman She's an author/poet I wish I could have a conversation with. 💕 6y
youneverarrived @Trashcanman Me too! I bet she was such an interesting person to know. 6y
51 likes2 comments
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bibliobliss
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“Plath was conscious of the fragility of her own identity and the ease with which her self could mutate from mask to mask. Reading her journals is like coming face-to-face with a multiplicity of fragmented selves.”

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bibliobliss
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Truth

TrishB 😢 6y
32 likes1 comment
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bibliobliss
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“Sometimes she chose words with disquieting connotations for their shock value. Often, however, the poetry reflected the turbulent process that was taking place beneath her placid exterior. At her core, Sylvia experienced a welter of raging emotions and violent impulses, and on the surface, to keep them in check, she wore the mantle of a bourgeois lady, as inhibiting and restraining as a straight jacket.“

27 likes1 stack add
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bibliobliss
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“My mind keeps poisoning itself uselessly.”

#currentlyreading #SylviaPlath #ladywriters #madgirl

35 likes2 stack adds
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bibliobliss
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“How far my vicarious sharing of her agony went, she never knew—I didn‘t want to show her.”
—Aurelia Plath

#currentlyreading #nonfiction #SylviaPlath #madgirl

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bibliobliss
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• I feel so sad for her poor mother. She wasn‘t blameless, but she still has some of my sympathy. Tbc in next post... •

#currentlyreading #SylviaPlath #nonfiction #madgirl

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bibliobliss

“She, of all people, knew of course, that one couldn‘t feel real ecstasy until one had endured the agony.”

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bibliobliss
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• oh Sylvia, always building problems in her mind where they didn‘t have to exist. good philosophical questions tho •

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bibliobliss

• quite simply my favorite book at the moment. just wonderful •

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TrishB
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On kindle U.K. offer today - #99ponkindle
If you want a good Plath biography this is definitely worth 99p!

youneverarrived Thanks for posting. Definitely buying this! 6y
Weaponxgirl Thank you! I'm getting that 6y
83 likes1 stack add3 comments
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bibliobliss
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bibliobliss
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bibliobliss

“During the course of her short career, Plath sacrificed everything for her writing: her mental health, her close relationships, her life.”

37 likes2 stack adds
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bibliobliss

“Yes; quaint and curious war is! / You shoot a fellow down / You‘d treat, if met where any bar is / Or help to half a crown.”
From “The Man He Killed” by Thomas Hardy

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bibliobliss
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“She would, she said, rather read a book—and let her imagination do the work—than go to a movie.”

#relatablemoments #truth

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bibliobliss

Despite her groomed appearance and perfect manners, inside Sylvia lurked confusion and disorder. As she wrote in a letter in August 1950, most people did not realize “the chaos that seethes behind my exterior.”

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bibliobliss
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bibliobliss
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bibliobliss
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“She also expressed her desire to be a little bit insane. She bemoaned the fact that so few people had what she described as a kind of fire of divine insanity, a quality that had the power to transform the everyday into something extraordinary. The “girl who wanted to be God,” as she called herself in the same entry, aspired to transform herself into a psychotic deity. In many ways, Sylvia Plath did just that.”

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bibliobliss
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bibliobliss
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“There was something sinister about popularity, something that leached a girl of her individuality.”

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bibliobliss
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• She was such an emotional and psychological enigma •

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bibliobliss
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• OH MY GOODNESS...I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH!!! So much love for Sylvia 💗 •

#currentlyreading #poets #writers #women

TrishB It‘s a good one 👍🏻 6y
bibliobliss @TrishB SO good 😊 6y
28 likes2 comments
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bibliobliss
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“Looking back, perhaps she had too many.”

#currentlyreading

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bibliobliss
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• Sylvia Plath‘s imagination as a child...🤯 •

#currentlyreading #creative #creativity #SylviaPlath

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bibliobliss
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• has anyone read this one? I'm gaga for anything about Sylvia...it's waiting on the shelf •

#TBR #wanttoread #everlastingTBR #SylviaPlath #tragicmuse

TrishB I have - I'm gaga for all things Sylvia too! If you've read all the other stuff it doesn't add masses, but always some interesting bits! 7y
bibliobliss @TrishB I have yet to finish her diaries. It's such a huge undertaking, emotionally speaking. No surprise there! I've been wanting to read this one, possibly alongside her diaries. So you enjoyed it, even though it didn't add much additional information? 7y
TrishB Yes, it's a good read. Anything Sylvia wipes me out emotionally - bits at a time! 7y
bibliobliss @TrishB you are so right! 💔😞 7y
17 likes3 stack adds4 comments
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TrishB
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#celebritylove #sizzlinsummerbooks
@Tiffy_Reads
Been obsessed with Sylvia and Ted since my teens.
Apologies for the terrible photography!

Leftcoastzen Me too! 7y
TrishB @Leftcoastzen 💜👍 7y
peggyriley Me too too. 7y
TrishB @peggyriley 😀😀 7y
77 likes4 comments
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BookishMarginalia
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Found this hiding in the biography shelves @TheBookmarkPR -- looks intriguing!

Kat_Reads This book is amazing!!!! 7y
vivastory Plath is fantastic 7y
Reviewsbylola Sounds fantastic! 7y
broomperson I read that a few years ago. I love anything that gives insight into her life. 7y
125 likes7 stack adds5 comments
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ScarletBennett

"I think I made you up inside my head"

Ukulelebob Such a good writer so depressing though. 8y
ScarletBennett @Ukulelebob true! I feel like her talent was so strong, but it takes a lot out of a reader. 8y
1 like2 comments
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utterly_jessie
Pickpick

This bio focuses on Plath's life before she meets Ted Hughes-- something rarely seen in literature about her. A must read if you're a Plath fan/scholar!

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Peterdamien
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The third book I'm currently reading. I knew nothing about the effect of Ted Hughes on her work and legacy, so this promises to be fascinating

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