Chapters in a Mythology: The Poetry of Sylvia Plath

This is the first full-scale study of Plath’s poetry, in which Kroll persuasively disputes the image of Plath as a death-obsessed poet whose poems were little more than vivid symptoms or a biographical record of anguish foreshadowing her suicide in 1963. Each chapter challenges its readers to confront a writer whose verse is full of tremendous complexity and nuance. Kroll shows that Plath’s poems form a mythic biography presided over by a “Moon-Muse” in which depictions of death are nearly always matched with visions of rebirth and transformation. This new edition features a substantial new foreword from Kroll, in which she dispels many myths surrounding her authorship and relations with Plath’s husband, Ted Hughes. Chapters in a Mythology is an original work of fresh scholarship and impressive insight that remains a compelling examination of one of the 20th century’s great poets.