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Quote by Sylvia Plath

“My virginity weighed like a millstone around my neck. It had been of such enormous importance to me for so long that my habit was to defend it at all costs. I had been defending it for five years and I was sick of it.”

Quote by Sylvia Plath

Work

the bell jar

This book is a profound exploration of the psychological struggles of a young woman named Esther Greenwood, who experiences a breakdown while working as a guest editor at a prominent magazine. Set in the 1950s, it delves into the complexities of mental illness, societal expectations, and the search for identity. more

Author

Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath

American poet, novelist, and playwright. Her works are known for their profound emotion and unique style, and she is considered one of the most important female writers of the 20th century. more

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“When critics like Matthew Arnold, for example, suggest that his poetry is deficient in elaborate thought, they only prove, as Matthew Arnold proved, that they themselves could never be great poets. It is no valid accusation against a poet that the sentiment he expresses is commonplace. Poetry is always commonplace; it is vulgar in the noblest sense of that noble word. Unless a man can make the same kind of ringing appeal to absolute and admitted sentiments that is made by a popular orator, he has lost touch with emotional literature. Unless he is to some extent a demagogue, he cannot be a poet. A man who expresses in poetry new and strange and undiscovered emotions is not a poet; he is a brain specialist. Tennyson can never be discredited before any serious tribunal of criticism because the sentiments and thoughts to which he dedicates himself are those sentiments and thoughts which occur to anyone. These are the peculiar province of poetry; poetry, like religion, is always a democratic thing, even if it pretends the contrary.”