附原文
　　

　　坚白 译

　　当西尔维亚·普拉斯(1932-1963)八岁时，她在波士顿先驱报(the Boston Herald newspaper)上发表了一首诗。这是普拉斯早熟的文学生涯的开端。她从高中毕业，得到一份奖学金去了史密斯学院(一座学费昂贵的女子学校)。大学之后，她赢得了一份弗尔不莱特奖学金(a Fullbright scholarship)去英国剑桥深造。

　　普拉斯被归于美国诗歌中的自白派，而她的作品(例如，《爱丽尔》，1965年)极其内省和女性化。她的小说《钟罩》描述了一个少女的精神崩溃(普拉斯自己在1953年曾经历过一次)，此书可以说是J·D·塞林格的《麦田里的守望者》的女性版。

　　一位注评者曾写道阅读普拉斯就是“阅读叫做完美症的故事”。无法在世界和她自己过度的敏感性之间取得和解，普拉斯在1963年自杀。她留下两个孩子和原本就已感情失和了的丈夫，英国诗人，特德·休斯。
出版于1981年的《普拉斯诗选》赢得了普利策奖。她的日记与1982年也被公开出版。这一系列文本的出版和不计其数的学术性和传记性研究在一定程度上使得普拉斯短暂而又悲剧性的一生和作品始终保持了其对人们的吸引力。

　　人们对普拉斯的兴趣持续上升，或许在短期内还会形成高潮。特德·休斯，于1984年成为了英格兰的桂冠诗人，就在1998死前不久出版了他的《生日诗集》。对自己与普拉斯的关系的细节长期保持沉默之后，这本新书中诗作绝大部分是对此关系的沉思。据报道，电影制片人艾黎生。欧文正在拍摄特德和西尔维亚，由吉内斯。帕尔丘饰演命运凶险多难的西尔维亚。

　　早熟和高度的紧张(通常总结伴并行的两种个性)，普拉斯在她自己所身处的历史环境(20世纪中叶的美国)中探索她的女性灵魂。困惑并诟病艺术和社会中对男女不同的标准，普拉斯内倾而凶险的精神挣斗对今天而言依然是富有意义的，正当我们开始要跨越所谓的通往21世纪的桥梁时。她是我们时代巨大分裂的早期预兆：对消亡的恐惧。

　　7岁时，西尔维亚。普拉斯为她的妈妈写了一首诗：

　　When mother goes away from me
　　I miss her as much, as much can be.
　　And when I go away from mother
　　She misses me， and so does brother.


年表 第一部分

1932 1月4日 西尔维亚·普拉斯的双亲：奥托·埃米尔·普拉斯(Otto Emil Plath)和奥若莉亚·斯考贝(Aurelia Schober1)在内华达州结婚。
10月27日 在马赛诸塞州，Jamaica PLain地方(近波士顿)的洛宾森纪念医院(Robinson Memorial Hospital)西尔维亚·普拉斯出生。普拉斯家的第一个孩子。

1935 4月17日 渥伦·普拉斯(Warren Plath)，西尔维亚的弟弟出生。

1936 10月 普拉斯家从Jamaica Plain搬到了约翰生大街，Winthrop，马赛诸塞州。

1940 10月12日 奥托·普拉斯截肢(一条)。
11月5日 奥托·普拉斯死于肺部栓塞。

1942 10月26日 奥若莉亚，西尔维亚和渥伦一家由Winthrop搬至维斯利的埃尔姆务德路(Elmwood Road)26号。西尔维亚进入马歇尔·立文斯顿语法学校(Marshall Livingston Grammar School)6年级，此学校是维斯利公共教育体系的一部分。

1946 9月 西尔维亚进入伽马列尔·布拉夫德高中，维斯利。

1947 9月 作为一个高中二年级生西尔维亚开始了由英语教师维尔不莉·柯劳科特执教的为期3年的文学课程。柯劳科特教二年级学生重点在美国文学。

1948 9月 西尔维亚开始她的高中三年级。柯劳科特的课程重点在于英国文学。

1949 9月 西尔维亚进入了她的高中最后一年。柯劳科特的文学课着重于世界文学。在这一年中，西尔维亚是一分学生报刊——布拉夫德报的合编者，在其中她发表了诗作和其他的文章。她也是《维斯利人》——布拉夫德的年刊的编辑成员。在4年级的话剧《令人敬重的克林却顿》中扮演阿伽沙夫人。
　　 此剧为J·M·伯利世纪之交的戏剧，一个关于贵族在海上遇难的故事。困留于一岛上，罗姆伯爵一家经历了社会地位的转变——最后这些海难者被救出时这一转变就确定无疑了。阿伽沙夫人是伯爵的女儿之一，最初难以适应海岛生活。

1950 6月 西尔维亚从布拉夫德高级中学毕业。
7月 西尔维亚和弟弟在丹佛的了望农场干活。(普拉斯出版的日记中有一节就叫做“了望农场”)
夏 西尔维亚的小说《而夏天不会再来》在《十七杂志》的8月刊上发表。
8月3日 埃迪·克恩(Eddie Cohen)芝加哥的一位大学生在读了西尔维亚在《十七杂志》上的小说后给她写了封信。这是他俩持续至1954年的关系的开始。
8月6日 西尔维亚给埃迪·克恩回了信。
8月 西尔维亚被埃勒(Ilo，一个了望农场的雇工)突如其来地亲吻。

　　 微笑着，他站在我和门之间。一刹间，他揽住我的手臂，突然嘴紧压在我的嘴上，猛烈地，他的舌头在我唇间冲撞，他的手臂像铁一样惊箍着我。“埃勒，埃勒！”我记不得自己是在尖叫还是呻吟，我奋力挣扎，手臂发疯似的猛敲猛砸，发狠地对抗他巨大的力量。最后他放开了我，退后站开。我把手压在自己的嘴上，嘴因为他的亲吻又烫又肿。当他看到我受惊而泣，就好奇又嘲弄地看着我，一副又吃惊又有趣的样子。从未有人像这样子吻过我。我站在那里，充满热望，激动和颤栗。
　　(摘自西尔维亚。普拉斯的日记[8月，1950])

9月 西尔维亚进入史密斯学院，北安普敦(Northampton)。她住在海文·豪斯(Haven House意译：避难所，休息所)大学课程包括：英语，艺术，植物学，历史和法语。安·戴维都(Ann Davidow)是她当时的朋友。在史密斯学院的第一年，她的小说《狮子的巢穴》赢得了由《十七杂志》赞助的竞赛的三等奖。
12月 迪克·诺顿(Dick Nortun，Dick意为：阴茎)邀请西尔维亚参加一次耶鲁大学的周末舞会。他俩的罗曼史开始了。(Dick Nortun就是《钟罩》里的Buddy Willard)。

1951 3月 埃迪·克恩在没有任何预示的情况下，冲动地从芝加哥驾车来到北安普敦前来看西尔维亚，而她则是又是惊喜又惊惶失措。
6月 西尔维亚(和大学朋友马西亚·布朗一起)得到了一份暑期工作----作为摩犹一家的妈妈的帮手，斯旺普斯考特，马赛诸塞。(普拉斯出版日记的一节即“斯旺普斯考特”：Swampscott)。

　　 难道所有的一切还没使你明白事实真相：这是个男人的世界？如果一个男人选择放荡的生活，他依然能优雅地对“放荡”扬起鼻子。他可能依然会要求一个女人忠诚于他，将他从他自己的肉欲中解救出来(满足他的肉欲)。但女人也有肉欲。为什么女人非得也只能维持情感，护理婴儿，成为滋养男性灵魂，身体和骄傲的饲料？生来是个女人是我最糟糕的悲剧。自从我被怀上起，我就注定要萌长出胸部和卵巢而不是阴茎和阴囊，我所有的行为，思想和情感都得是女性气的，不得越雷池半步。吞噬我的热望：混迹于汽车司机，船员，士兵及酒吧常客——成为活生生的生活场景的一部分，隐于众生，去听，去记录——所有这一切的毫无实现的希望，仅仅因为我是个女孩，一个总处于被袭击，被暴力威胁中的女性。我满心憧憬在露天野地里入眠，去西部游荡，在夜间自由自在地行走。
　　(摘自西尔维亚。普拉斯的日记[7月，1951])


7月 迪克·诺顿成了西尔维亚的男友，他在考德角(Cape Cod)度夏。
9月1日 西尔维亚创作了“十四行：前往春天？”

　　Sonnet: To Spring?
　　You deceive us with the crinkled green
　　of juvenile stars, and you beguile us with
　　a bland vanilla moon of maple cream:
　　Again you tame us with your April myth.
　　Last year you tricked us by the childish jingle
　　of your tinsel rains; again you try,
　　and find us credulous once more. A single
　　diabolic shower, and we cry
　　to see the honeyflavored morning tilt
　　clear light across the watergilded lawn.
　　Although another of our years is spilt
　　on avaricious earth, you lure us on:
　　Again we are deluded and infer
　　that somehow we are younger than we were.

9月 西尔维亚开始了她在史密斯学院的二年级生活。马西亚·布朗是她的室友。在这年西尔维亚被任命为《史密斯评论》的编委会成员。

　　 审视以往的自己，我终于明白：我必得与某个人发生热烈的性关系——否则就得以自我压抑来与身体中的性的枵渴相肉搏。我选择前者。我也承认我对家庭和社会(不管怎样，总得顾忌这该死的社会)承担有一定程度的义务，得遵从那些个可笑的传统风俗----为了保护我自己，就像他们告诉我的。因此，我必须忠于一位异性，将自己生活的绝大部分归属于他......这之所以必要因为：
　　(1)我选择身体交流这样的关系作为生活中肉体性和释放(紧张压力)性的组成部分。
　　(2)我不能既放纵地满足肉欲又保持在社会上的尊严，得到它的支持(得到社会的尊重和肯定的虚荣，我心中猫一样的小魔鬼)——此外，因为我是个女人，所以——心性深处就对男性的自由扎根着嫉妒。
　　(3)还是因为是个女人，我必须学聪明点，以便抓住作为以后即将到来的年老色衰，魅力不再的自己安身立命的依靠，到时候我将不再有什么机会"捕获"一位异性伴侣----简直是一定的(多半如此)。因此，就这样决定了：我得通过传统的习惯程序动手找个男伴了：就是说----结婚。
　　(摘自西尔维亚。普拉斯的日记[9月，1951])

11月6-7日 西尔维亚参加英语和政治的终考。
11月 西尔维亚的小说《临时保姆，看好它》(“As a Baby-sitter Sees It ”)在《基督教科学监察报》(the Christian Science Minitor)发表，附带她自己画的3幅插图。
12月 给《小姐》(Mademoiselle)杂志投稿短篇《在明顿斯的星期天》(Sunday at the Mintons)

1952 4月 西尔维亚参加了一系列的讲座和活动，包括罗伯特。弗罗斯特(Robert Frost)的一次诗朗诵和参议员约瑟夫·麦卡锡的一次演讲(据称，她对他的讲演报以虚声)。
5月 西尔维亚完成了她大学第二年的学业。

　　 现在，肉体的生活来了——而这也正是问题所在。因性而获罪的只是人类。动物，幸运的低级的四脚兽们。它们毫无顾忌，做就做了，而我们，可怜的肉欲的人类为道德所桎梏，为环境而束缚，被严酷的火舌烧舔于腰部而扭曲挣扎......一旦有了第一次接吻，那，老一套的宿命也就不可避免了。克制，自我调节。胸中有股饥渴之火燃起，阴道内液体暗暗滋生，盲目地驱往毁灭。除了毁灭还能是什么？某种隐秘的情欲，驱往肉体的毁灭——这样，在另一人的身上熄灭自己本身——是双方自我的纠缠，毁坏？是其中之一的死亡？
　　或二者俱亡？被吞噬而取代？不，不。两人之间与其说是互相平衡，毋宁说是一个围着另一个转，追逐，诉求，颤栗着，一个纠缠着另一个，而每个人都是散发冰冷寒意的中心，就像星星。[......]双方融为一体既令人不快，也不可能——即使存在也如昙花般易逝。因此，谁也不会对此有何幼稚幻想。
　　(摘自西尔维亚。普拉斯的日记[5月，1952])

6月 西尔维亚在考德角的百门旅馆(the Belment Hotel)找了份作服务生的工作。她得知《小姐》杂志已决定采用她的小说《在明顿斯的星期天》，将刊登于1952年8月刊上。

7月 7月初，为窦炎所困扰，西尔维亚辞去了百门旅馆的活，和她的朋友菲利普·麦科第一起驾车回了维斯利。

8月 西尔维亚在马赛诸塞州(考德角)卡塞姆地方给坎特家(Cantor)干了份看孩子的活。

　　 星期五，早晨9：45......冲了澡，躺在床上，凉爽可喜的雨又一次降临----清脆地从屋面上溅落至我的窗前。[...]一年前，同样的雨在我门廊前降临，在草坪上，在梅欧斯(Mayos)外的平缓的灰色的海上降临，在那天的空大的房子里靠近我;当我独自坐于床中写作时，雨在夜晚孤寂一人的房间中向我倾诉，而我则正从我的宝座上环视自己的王国：街角上寂寞的路灯孤悬于潮湿的光晕之中，而远处是灰色迷朦的雾气，雨声混合着海潮冲刷声。雨把我和迪克逼进了马贝海德海滩的一处岩石洞窟，淋得湿透；我们朝一个生锈的锡桶扔石头，直到它不再不怀好意朝我俩滚来而是跌入海中，搅起一片惨白。
　　 两年前，八月的雨打落在我和埃勒身上，当我俩肩并肩地走着，一言不发，走向谷仓。天下着雨，我哭着冲出阁楼，嘴唇因他的亲吻而青肿。[...]三年前，燥热黏人的八月的雨，滂沱地下来，那时我正无精打采地坐在自家的门廊里，因不复再来的夏日而哀伤——如此的夏日永远不可复得。我第一篇刊发的小说来自于“再也不会有的”雨中的压抑。八月的雨：夏季最美好的日子已经逝去，而新的秋天还没到来。古怪畸零的时日。
　　(摘自西尔维亚。普拉斯的日记[8月8，1952])

8月9日 晤见波希米亚作家维尔·更德壬(Val Gendron)，并暂住其家。

　　 维尔说：“不要急于感情化，显现具象。初涉写作者常从感官印象出发创作，而忘记冷静的现实的组织框架。先得有冷静客观的完整的情节构思。要严密。随后再躺在沙发上写那该死的内容，使其呈现出来，抽打它直至热气腾腾，栩栩如生，获得艺术的生命，获得其形式，而不再是不定形的，没有参照标准的。”
　　(摘自西尔维亚。普拉斯的日记[8月19，1952])

9月 西尔维亚开始了她在史密斯学院的三年级的学习。她住在劳伦斯屋。课程包括英语(高级)，物理，中世纪文学和由罗伯特·高海曼(Robert Gorham)主持的创作研讨班。

10月 西尔维亚以投往《十七》杂志的小说《入会仪式》(Initiation)赢得了二等奖。嘉奖包括200美元现金和在53年的杂志一月刊上发表该小说。

11月 西尔维亚的男友迪克·诺顿前往离纽约州首府奥尔巴尼80英里的萨冉纳克湖(Lake Saranac)治疗结核病。

11月4日 西尔维亚，一位坚定的崇尚自由的青年公民因艾森豪威尔在总统选举中战胜斯蒂文森而沮丧。

11月27 会见麦容·咯兹，一位耶鲁大学医学院预科生。
[咯兹是个棒球运动员。尽管说法纷纭，西尔维亚认为他在底特律老虎队打球。出版了的日记中有处注释说咯兹在小职业球队联盟打球。安·斯蒂文森的著的普拉斯传记《悲苦的声誉》中一处脚注暗示咯兹仅仅打过半职业的球赛。]

12月 西尔维亚在萨冉纳克湖看望迪克·诺顿时滑雪而折断一条腿。

　　 总的来说，我的腿终于让我明白了老以为有不可克服的困难是多么愚蠢。我的断腿是(或曾经是的)基本精神的界限的具体象征物。而既然我已明了屈服于那些自己所认为的精神障碍是如何愚蠢，那我就决定快活起来，积极面对自己的精神困境，成为一个身体性的活生生的人。
　　(摘自普拉斯给母亲的一封信，1月9日，1953)

附原文：

Sources for the Chronology 

Aird, Eileen. Sylvia Plath: Her Life and Work. 1973
Plath, Sylvia. The Journals of Sylvia Plath. Edited by Ted Hughes and Frances McCullough. 1982.
Stevenson, Anne. Bitter Fame: A Life of Sylvia Plath. 1989.



the original version:


Sylvia Plath Chronology Part I, 1932-1952 
When Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) was eight she had a poem published in the Boston Herald newspaper. It was the start of a very precocious literary career. She graduated high school and received a scholarship to the exclusive and expensive Smith College. After college she won a Fullbright scholarship to study at Cambridge, England. 
Plath is identified with the "confessional" school of American poetry and her work (for example, Ariel, 1965) is intensely introspective and feminine. Her novel The Bell Jar which describes a teenage girl's nervous breakdown (Plath had one in 1953) is the female companion to J. D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. 

One commentator has written that to read Plath is "to read the story of the symptom named perfect." (Tamise van Pelt). Unable to negotiate a truce between the world and her sensitivities, Plath committed suicide in 1963. She left behind two children and an estranged husband, British poet, Ted Hughes. 

Plath's Collected Poems published in 1981 won a Pulitzer Prize. Her Journals were published in 1982. These publications and numerous academic and biographical studies have helped maintain an on-going fascination with Plath's short and tragic life and work. 

Interest in Plath continues to grow and may crest shortly. Ted Hughes, who became England's poet laureate in 1984, published Birthday Poems shortly before his death in 1998 . Long silent on the details of his relationship with Plath, the poems in the new book are mostly a meditation on that subject. Film producer Alison Owen is reportedly making Ted & Sylvia starring Gwynneth Paltrow as the star-crossed Sylvia. 

Precocious and very highly strung (the two characteristics commonly travel together), Plath probed her female soul within the context she found herself in: the United States in the middle of the 20th century. Confused and critical of the differing standards for men and women in the arts and in society, Plath's introspective and perilous battle is a lesson for today as we start across this so-called bridge to the 21st century. Plath fell into the gap before the bridge was built. She is an early warning of our age's great disruption: the fear of the not forever.

At the age of seven, Sylvia Plath wrote a poem for her mother:

When mother goes away from me
I miss her as much, as much can be.
And when I go away from mother
She misses me, and so does brother.



Sylvia Plath Chronology 
Part I 



1932 January 4, 1932 Sylvia Plath's parents, Otto Emil Plath and Aurelia Schober get married in Nevada. 
October 27, 1932 Sylvia Plath is born in the Robinson Memorial Hospital in Jamaica Plain (near Boston) Massachusetts. She is the Plath's first child.

1935 April 17, 1935 Warren Plath, Sylvia's brother, is born. 

1936 October, 1936 Plath Family moves from Jamaica Plain to Johnson Avenue in Winthrop, Massachusetts. 

1940

October 12, 1940 Otto Plath's leg is amputated.
November 5, 1940 Otto Plath dies from an embolism in the lung.


1942 October 26, 1940 Aurelia, Sylvia and Warren Plath move to 26 Elmwood Road in Wellesley from Winthrop. Sylvia attends sixth grade at Marshall Livingston Grammar School, part of the public school system in Wellesley. 



1946 September, 1946 Sylvia enters Gamaliel Bradford High School in Wellesley.

Gamaliel Bradford (1863-1932) was an American biographer born in Boston. He wrote numerous biographical books including Lee The American (1912), Portraits of Women (1916) and Damaged Souls (1923). The school is now called Wellesley High School but the student newspaper is still called The Bradford. 



1947 September, 1947 As a sophomore in high school, Sylvia begins a three year course of study in literature with english teacher Wilbury Crockett. For sophomores, Crockett's focus is on American literature. 



1948 September, 1948 Sylvia begins her junior year in high school. Crockett's literary course focuses on English literature. 



1949 September, 1949 Sylvia begins her senior year in high school. Crockett's literature class focuses on world literature. During her senior year Sylvia is a co-editor of the student newspaper, The Bradford in which she publishes poems and other articles. She is also a member of the staff of the The Wellesleyan, Bradford's yearbook. Sylvia plays the part of Lady Agatha in the senior class production of The Admirable Crichton.

J. M. Barrie's turn of the century play is a tale of shipwrecked aristocracy. Stranded on an island, the family of the Earl of Loam undergoes a social transformation which is at the end undermined when the "castaways" are rescued. Lady Agatha is one of the Earl's daughters who initially has a great deal of difficulty adjusting to island life. 



1950 
1950
High School Portrait 
June, 1950 Sylvia graduates from Bradford Senior High School. 
July, 1950 Sylvia, with her brother, works at Lookout Farm in Dover, MA. (A section of Plath's published journal is called "Lookout Farm.") 

Summer, 1950 Sylvia's story "And Summer Will Not Come Again" is published in the August issue of Seventeen Magazine.

August 3, 1950 Eddie Cohen, a college student from Chicago sends Sylvia a letter after reading her story in Seventeen Magazine. This is the beginning of a relationship that lasts until 1954.

August 6, 1950 Sylvia sends her reply letter to Eddie Cohen.

August, 1950 Sylvia gets an unexpected kiss from Ilo, a worker at Lookout Farm. 


From Sylvia Plath's Journals [August, 1950]

Smiling he was between me and the door. A motion. His hand closed around my arm. And suddenly his mouth was on mine hard, vehement, his tongue darting between my lips, his arms like iron around me. "Ilo, Ilo,!" I don't know whether I screamed or whispered, struggling to break free, my hands striking wildly, futilely against his great strength. At last he let me go, and stood back. I held my hand against my mouth, warm and bruised from his kiss. He looked at me quizzically with something like surprised amusement as he saw that I was crying, frightened. No one ever kissed me that way before, and I stood there, flooded with longing, electric, shivering. 



September, 1950 Sylvia enters Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts as a freshman. She lives in Haven House. Academic classes include English, Art, Botany, History and French. Ann Davidow is her friend. During her first year at Smith her story "Dens of Lions" won third prize in a competition sponsored by Seventeen Magazine.


Founded in 1871 by Sophia Smith, Smith College in the 1950s was a relatively exclusive all-women college in Northampton, Massachusetts. 
December, 1950 Dick Norton invites Syliva to a weekend dance at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Their romance begins. (Dick Norton is Buddy Willard in The Bell Jar) 




1951 March, 1951 Eddie Cohen, impulsively and without warning drives from Chicago to Northampton to see Sylvia who is surprised but disconcerted.
June, 1951 Sylvia (with college friend Marcia Brown) gets a summer job as a "mother's helper" with the Mayo family of Swampscott, Massachusetts. (A section of Plath's published journals is called "Swampscott.")


From Sylvia Plath's Journals [July, 1951]

And yet does it not all come again to the fact that it is a man's world? For if a man chooses to be promiscuous, he may still esthetically turn up his nose at promiscuity. He may still demand a woman to be faithful to him, to save him from his own lust. But women have lust, too. Why should they be relegated to the position of custodian of emotions, watcher of the infants, feeder of soul, body and pride of man? Being born a woman is my awful tragedy. From the moment I was conceived I was doomed to sprout breasts and ovaries rather than penis and scrotum; to have my whole circle of action, thought and feeling rigidly circumscribed by my inescapable femininity. Yes, my consuming desire to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, barroom regulars-- to be a part of the scene, anonymous, listening, recording-- all is spoiled by the fact that I am a girl, a female always in danger of assault and battery. My consuming interest in me able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night. 



July 1951 Sylvia's boyfriend is Dick Norton who is living on Cape Cod for the summer.

September 1, 1951 Sylvia writes "Sonnet: To Spring?"

Sonnet: To Spring?
You deceive us with the crinkled green
of juvenile stars, and you beguile us with
a bland vanilla moon of maple cream:
Again you tame us with your April myth.
Last year you tricked us by the childish jingle
of your tinsel rains; again you try,
and find us credulous once more. A single
diabolic shower, and we cry
to see the honeyflavored morning tilt
clear light across the watergilded lawn.
Although another of our years is spilt
on avaricious earth, you lure us on:
Again we are deluded and infer
that somehow we are younger than we were.




September, 1951 Sylvia begins her sophomore year (2nd) at Smith College; Marcia Brown is her roommate. During this year Sylvia is appointed to the editorial board of the Smith Review. 




From Sylvia Plath's Journals [September, 1951]

Looking at myself, in the past years, I have come to the conclusion that I must have a passionate sexual relationship with someone-- or combat the great sex urge in me by chastic means. I chose the former answer. I also admitted that I am obligated in a way to my family and to society (damn society anyway) to follow certain absurd and traditional customs-- for my own security, they tell me. I must therefore confine the major part of my life to one human being of the opposite sex....That is a necessity because:
(1) I choose the physical relationship of intercourse as an animal and releasing part of life.
(2) I cannot gratify myself promiscuously and retain the respect and support of society (which is my pet devil)-- and because I am a woman: ergo: one root of envy for male freedom.
(3) Still being a woman, I must be clever and obtain as full a measure of security for those approaching ineligible and aging years wherein I will not have the chance to capture a new mate-- in all probability. So, resolved: I shall proceed to obtain a mate through the customary procedure: namely, marriage. 




November 6-7, 1951 Sylvia takes final exams in English and Government.

November, 1951 Sylvia's story "As a Baby-Sitter Sees It" is published with three of her drawings in the Christian Science Monitor. 

December, 1951 Writes and submits to Mademoiselle magazine the short story "Sunday at the Mintons." 




1952 April, 1952 Sylvia attends a variety of lectures and events including a poetry reading by Robert Frost and a speech by Senator Joseph McCarthy (she reportedly "hisses" at McCarthy's speech.)
May, 1952 Sylvia completes her second year of college.


From Sylvia Plath's Journals [May, 1952]

Now there comes the physical part-- and therein lies the problem. Victimized by sex is the human race. Animals, the fortunate lower beasts, go into heat. Then they are through with the thing, while we poor lustful humans, caged by mores, chained by circumstance, writhe and agonize with the appalling and demanding fire licking always at our loins. [...] Once there is the first kiss, then the cycle becomes inevitable. Training, conditioning make a hunger burn in breasts and secrete fluid in vagina, driving blindly for destruction. What is it but destruction? Some mystic desire to beat to sensual annihilation-- so snuff out one's identity on the identity of the other-- a mingling and mangling of identities? A death of one?+
Or both? A devouring and subordination? No, no. A polarization rather-- a balance of two integrities, charging, electrically, one with the other, yet with centers of coolness, like stars. [...] But fusion is an undesirable impossibility-- and quite nondurable. So there will be no illusion of that. 



June, 1952 Sylvia gets a waitressing job at the Belmont Hotel on Cape Cod. She learns that Mademoiselle Magazine has accepted her story, "Sunday at the Mintons" which is to be published in the August 1952 issue. 

July, 1952 In early July, suffering from sinusitis, Sylvia quits her job at the Belmont Hotel. With her friend Phil McCurdy she drives back to Wellesley. 

August, 1952 Sylvia takes a job as a mother's helper with the Cantor family in Chatham, Massachusetts (Cape Cod).

From Sylvia Plath's Journals [August 8, 1952]

Friday, 9:45pm...In bed, bathed, and the good rain coming down again-- liquidly slopping down the shingled roof outside my window. [...] A year ago it came down on my porch and the lawn and the flat gray sea beyond at the Mayos-- closing me in the great house in the day, talking to me alone in my room in the evening as I sat alone in bed writing, surveying my kingdom from my throne: the lone streetlight on the corner, hanging solitary in a nimbus of light, and beyond it the gray indistinguishable fog and the rain sound blending with the wash of the sea. It shut me in a rock cave with Dick on Marblehead Beach, drenching, soaking, and we threw rocks at a rusted tin can until it stopped coming down viciously and churning the sea to a flayed whiteness. 
Two years ago August rain fell on me and Ilo, walking side by side, wordless, toward the barn. And it was raining when I came out from the loft, crying, my mouth bruised where he had kissed me. [...] Three years ago, the hot sticky August rain fell big and wet as I sat listlessly on my porch at home, crying over the way summer would not come again-- never the same. The first story in print came from that "never again" refrain beat out by the rain. August rain: the best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born. The odd uneven time.







August 9, 1952 Meets and visits with the bohemian writer Val Gendron. 


From Sylvia Plath's Journals [August 19, 1952]

Val said: visualize, emotionalize afterwards. Beginning writers work from the sense impressions, forget cold realistic organization. First get the cold objective plot scene set. Rigid. Then write the damn thing after lying on the couch and visualizing, whipping it to white heat, to life again, the life of the art, the form, no longer formless, without frame of reference. 



September, 1952 Sylvia begins her junior year (3rd) at Smith College. She is living in Lawrence House. Academic courses include Honors English, Physics, Medieval Literature and a creative writing seminar with Robert Gorham.



October, 1952 Sylvia wins 2nd prize for the story "Initiation" she had sent to Seventeen Magazine. The award includes $200 cash and publication of the story in the January 1953 issue of the magazine.

November, 1952 Sylvia's boyfriend Dick Norton goes to Lake Saranac, 80 miles north of Albany in New York State, for treatment of tuberculosis.

November 4, 1952 Sylvia, a staunch liberal-thinking young citizen is despondent about Eisenhower's victory over Stevenson in the presidential elections.

November 27, 1952 Meets Myron Lotz, a Yale premed student. 


[Lotz was a baseball player. Sources conflict but Sylvia thought he played baseball in the Detroit Tigers organization. The published journals include a note explaining that Lotz played minor league baseball. Anne Stevenson in her Plath biography Bitter Fame includes a footnote suggesting Lotz only played semi-professional baseball.
December, 1952 Sylvia breaks her leg skiing while visiting Dick Norton in Lake Saranac, New York. 


from a Letter by Sylvia Plath to her mother [January 9, 1953]

All in all, my leg has made me realize what a fool I was to think I had insurmountable troubles. It is a sort of concrete symbol of limitations that are primarily mental, or were. And now that I see how foolish I was in succumbing to what I thought were mental obstacles, I am determined to be as cheerful and constructive about my mental difficulties as I am going to be about this physical one.