Journey Toward Ariel
Sylvia Plath's Poems of 1956-1959
By Nancy D. Hargrove
January 1994
Lund University Press
Distributed by
ISBN: 9179662382
294 pages, Illustrated
$79.50 Paper Original
This study of Plath's early poetry makes a number of contributions to Plath scholarship and should force a re-examination of the order and worth of her early poems. First, it establishes a more accurate chronology for the composition dates of these poems, correcting many of the errors in dating in the order presented in The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath.
Further, based on this revised chronology, it traces Plath's development as a poet in these crucial years through a close examination of these poems, thus presenting a more comprehensive study of this part of her career and of the poems produced then than has appeared previously. FOr many of these poems,the book gives new or alternative readings; for poems which have heretofore been entirely ignored, it offers first-time readings, thereby filling a gap in Plath's own sketches depicting scenes in a number of poems, as well as photographs of settings on which various poems are based.
