‘I Need a Master’:1 Sylvia Plath Reads D. H. Lawrence
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Abstract |
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Although scholarship exploring the intertextual relations of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes continues to grow, little attention has thus far been paid to D. H. Lawrence's impact on the development of Plath's poetry. This paper aims to remedy that situation by exploring the circumstances of Plath's readings of and fascination with D. H. Lawrence's poetry and prose, with particular attention to imagery, symbolism, thematic and lexical choice. I expound the relationship between Plath and Lawrence evidenced in Plath's annotations to Lawrence's texts held in her personal library, which reflect both writers' preoccupation with ‘the ghastly’, as Plath terms it. I argue that Plath's readings of Lawrence shape her 27 October 1961 poem, ‘Ariel’, in which the ‘end’ of one self signals the rebirth of another. Yet, Lawrence's literary influence is rendered problematic through Plath's cognizance of his stylistic inadequacy, thus complicating his status as her ideal literary ‘master’.