Book description
Originally published in 1960, The Colossus was the only volume of
Sylvia Plath's poetry published during her lifetime. Showing a
scholarly dedication to the craft, the poems in this collection
are brimming with originality and the startling imagery that would
later confirm her status as one of the most important poets of the
twentieth century.
'She steers clear of feminine charm, deliciousness, gentility,
supersensitivity and the act of being poetess. She simply writes
good poetry. And she does so with a seriousness that demands only
that she be judged equally seriously . . . There is an admirable
no-nonsense air about this; the language is bare but vivid and
precise, with a concentration that implies a good deal of
disturbance with proportionately little fuss.'
A. Alvarez, The Observer
Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and
studied at Smith College. In 1955 she went to Cambridge University on
a Fulbright scholarship, where she met and later married Ted Hughes.
She published one collection of poems in her lifetime, The Colossus
(1960), and a novel, The Bell Jar (1963). Her Collected
Poems, which contains her poetry written from 1956 until her
death, was published in 1981 and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.
