Sylvia Plath and resurrection

Sylvia Plath, in the tradition of such poets as Wordsworth and Tennyson, may be seen as a writer who chose to explore all possible aspects of life and death and immortality. Many of her poems, as well as her one novel, The Bell Jar, reflect a concern with death and rebirth. The search for purity and the emphasis on both pagan and Christian themes and images of resurrection suggest that for Plath this life was a stepping stone to a possible brighter existence. The poems selected for this thesis are divided into four categories, each of which constitute a chapter, and include: poems in which a persona seems to suggest the existence of both past and future lives; poems in which a persona seems to be seeking self-purification as a means of regeneration; poems in which metamorphosis is seen as a means of regeneration; poems in which metamorphosis is seen as a means of generating new modes of existence; and poems in which a persona undergoes a form of resurrection per se.