실비아 플라스의 유산: 사생활과 폭로의 정치

박주영 ( Jooyoung Park ) 한국영미문학페미니즘학회 2020 영미문학페미니즘 Vol.28 No.3

This essay aims to explore how Birthday Letters exploits and abuses Sylvia Plath’s stunning poems in order to undermine her literary authority. This essay argues that Ted Hughes’s poetry consistently attempts to stand guard over the privacy of Plath’s death, exposing his hatred of Plath’s critics and readers. Focused on Hughes’s private memories of his life with Plath, Birthday Letters could be read as a public response to arguments over the politics of publication, representation, and poetic authority. Ghosts of many other Plath’s poems frequently haunt Birthday Letters; this poem also indicates a response to the problems of publicity. Furthermore, this essay examines the familiar but misrepresented aspects of the controversies surrounding Plath and Hughes. Since her untimely death, Plath’s public status has remained heavily contested. Many critics who write about Plath do so not in order to assert her literary authority, but to retract what they suggest is a public standing artificially inflated by the details of her personal life. Male critics and the Plath Estate seek to commodify Plath’s mental health as a way of removing her authority to tell her own story. On the contrary, feminist literary critics make claims for Plath’s poetry and life as an icon of feminism. Feminists accuse Hughes of silencing Plath with concomitant charges of censorship. Ultimately, Hughes’s continuing contest with Plath over the ownership of his life is not a contest with Plath, but with her readers’ interpretations of her words.

실비아 플라스의 시와 1980년대 한국 여성시 비교 연구

이혜원 한국여성문학학회 2010 여성문학연구 Vol.23 No.-

In this article, I compared the poems of Sylvia Plath and those of the Korean women poets' of the 1980s. I analyzed the character of their poems and evaluated products' place of them in the history of women's poetry. Sylvia Plath and the Korean women poets of the 1980s had a similarity in their strong negation of patriarchism or absolute male power. Sylvia Plath revealed autobiographical elements and expressed love and hatred for her father completely. In comparison, Korean women poets presented a strong repulsion towards extremely violent paternal authority. 'The father' had an important meaning as the symbol of patriarchism and violent power in Korean women's poems of the 1980s. Plath and the Korean women poets of the 1980s were similar in their distinct self-awareness of their experiences as females and their femininity. In Sylvia Plath's poems, the power of her conflicted relationship with her mother evoked another pressure and a sense of crisis. By contrast the Korean women poets looked back cooly at the Korean mothers who had devoted themselves to patriarchism even though they had been sacrificed by it; they tried to find a new femininity to attain a free self. They showed not only their innovative thinking, but also freshness in their poetic expression. They used shocking language for expressing their dissatisfactions and rage about the oppression of women. Also they developed free and unique discourses which were a critique of the earlier forms. Sylvia Plath created moments of self-discovery by putting her internal voice in dramatic confessions. Korean women poets also expressed their keen realization about their confined language and invented the possibility of newlanguages. Sylvia Plath and the Korean women poets of the 1980s held a special position in each country's history of women's poetry by awakening to their own circumstances as women poets and expressing them openly. These poets developed a new history of women's poetry by revolting against patriarchism that suppressed women's consciousness and language. 이 논문은 실비아 플라스의 시와 1980년대 한국 여성시인들의 시를 비교하여 이들의 시가 보여주는 특성과 여성시사에서 이룬 성과를 규명하고자 한다. 실비아 플라스와 1980년대 한국 여성시인들은 가부장제 혹은 절대 권력에대해 강한 부정을 행한다는 점에서 뚜렷한 유사성을 드러낸다. 실비아 플라스의 시에는 자전적인 요소가 강하고 부친에 대한 애증이 복잡하게 드러난다. 이에 비해 1980년대 한국 여성시는 오랜 가부장제와 폭력적인 정권에 대한상징으로서의 의미가 큰 부권에 대해 극도의 거부감을 표출한다. 이들은 여성적 경험과 여성성에 대한 자각을 분명하게 드러내기 시작했다는 점에서도 유사하다. 실비아 플라스는 모계로 이어지는 생명의 강한 유대에대해 또 다른 압박감을 느끼며 위기의식을 드러낸다. 한국의 여성 시인들은가부장제의 희생자이면서도 그것의 충실한 조력자가 되어온 한국의 어머니들 에 대해 냉철하게 인식하고 새로운 여성성을 모색한다. 글쓰기 방식에서 이들이 보여주는 개성은 파격적인 시어의 사용과 언술 방식의 혁신에 기인한다. 실비아 플라스는 일인칭 화자의 극적 고백에 내면의소리를 담아 발견의 순간들을 이끌어낸다. 한국의 여성시인들은 자유로운 형식의 언술로 억압된 언어에 대한 예리한 각성과 새로운 언어의 가능성을 드러낸다.

오염된 부엌, 불안한 집 - 실비아 플라스와 냉전시대 편집증적 공포

박주영 한국현대영미시학회 2015 현대영미시연구 Vol.21 No.1

Polluted Kitchen, Haunted House: Sylvia Plath and Cold War Paranoia Jooyoung Park (Soonchunhyang Univ.) This paper aims to explore how Sylvia Plath’s poems describe the domestic space, particularly, the kitchen as a metaphor for the Cold War paranoia. Using Marsha Bryant’s term, “the domestic surreal,” it looks into how Plath builds a complex and nuanced poetics of domesticity. Without depicting it as a married woman’s desire for private space, Plath intertwines the domesticity with the Cold War politics and anchors her writing style in a woman’s experiences. For instance, she reveals the Cold War paradox of domestic security by reversing marriage vows for safety into anxieties over her married life. She also blurs the distinction between the public and the private worlds and argues that the home represents as much a place for masks as a theatre of public life. In doing so, Plath overlaps the private space of home over the public sphere of Cold War geopolitics. Staying domestic, literally and poetically, in a woman’s place, and satirically asking for the home to be a place for a woman to locate her authentic selfhood, Plath puts out a strong public critique of the logic of American Cold War. Indeed, Plath is a ‘domestic’ poet who spoke up a woman’s voice of social engagement in the precarious period of war.

『벨 자』를 중심으로 구축된 대중문화 속 실비아 플라스의 이미지

진주영(Ju Young Jin) 한국영미문학교육학회 2014 영미문학교육 Vol.18 No.3

Sylvia Plath's only novel The Bell Jar has become synonymous with the oft-melodramatized life and suicide of the author. The coupling of the two has been further consolidated by popular cultural depictions of Sylvia Plath. Plath has been often juxtaposed with self-destructive young female characters who exhibit a penchant for her only novel, rather than her poetry. This essay proposes that The Bell Jar animates an intimate group of female readers marked by anxiety, paranoia and their conflicting views on domesticity, all of which belong to the milieu of the American 50s and beyond. By correlating the image of Sylvia Plath and the novel in popular culture, I also demonstrate how the shifting critical evaluations of Plath's poetry have been in fact yoked together with the responses, both positive and negative, toward this type of affective female readership. On the one hand, the often violent and suicidal propulsions that pulsate her writings and her image in popular culture may have undermined Plath's canonical status as one of the major female writers. On the other hand, however, the enduring legacy of The Bell Jar will continue to make the second wave feminism and its emphasis on women's experience relevant for the new generation of young female readers, suggesting ways for them to appropriate patriarchal popular culture from a feminist standpoint.

서평 : 에어리얼의 노래 『실비아 플라스 시 전집』 (박주영 옮김, 마음산책 2013)

박선애 ( Sun Ae Park ) 서울대학교 미국학연구소 2014 미국학 Vol.37 No.1

This paper aims at reviewing the book Sylvia Plath: The Collected Poems translated by Park Ju-yeong and published by Maumsanchaek in 2013. American poet Sylvia Plath`s Collected Poems, published posthumously in 1981, won the Pulitzer Prize. Its Korean translation was published in 2013. The translation by Park Ju-yeong, the translator and scholar who majored in American Women Poetry, is fluent and faithful to the original. It is valuable and helpful to the readers who have trouble in reading the original. Plath was born in 1932 in America. She married British poet Ted Hughes in London in 1956, continued writing poetry, and committed suicide on February 2, 1963 at the age of 30. Expressing complex and ambivalent emotions, Plath wrote original, extreme, intense, and confessional poetry on such a basis of American Poetry Convention. Since her death, she has been researched through various approaches, such as feminist criticism, psychoanalysis criticism, biographical and historical criticism, etc. Plath catched vivid moments of life and turned them into poetry of a high standard. Reading this book, we can see an artist who loved everything including life and death, experienced and expressed them passionately. Through this translation, I think, American poet Sylvia Plath will be strongly impressed on Korean readers` memory beyond nationality and language.

실비아 플라스 시에 나타난 메데이아 신화 전복 연구

강문애 한국현대영미시학회 2017 현대영미시연구 Vol.23 No.1

This paper argues that Plath takes mythology as her topos and confronts stereotypical characters and notions in this mythology. Plath focuses on the marginalized female characters, especially for Medea and tries to subvert the stereotypes from the perspective of a modern female poet. In the so-called “Ariel Poems”, her later ones, Plath focuses on her female self who is confined in the traditional feminine sphere of submission to men like Ariel trapped in the tree. This conflict derives from the patriarchal society in which Plath feels the strain of a double bind, as a woman and poet. Plath attempts to emancipate her confined female self by taking on her strong, and furious, female mythic persona, Medea. Plath’s Medea, however, is not the traditional evil one, but the subverted modern one: the emancipated female self who redeemed the lost female voice and the violent power. Taking Medea Myth as a poetic solution, and revising it with her strong and unique vision, Plath eventually constructs her own Modern Medea Myth through a subtle and creative mytho-poesia in her own “Plath Myth”.

Sylvia Plath’s Snakecharmer and William Wordsworth’s Self Portrait: Hope and Aspiration to be a Poet, Growth of a Poet’s Mind

임보라 ( Im¸ Bora ) 한국현대영어영문학회 2021 현대영어영문학 Vol.65 No.1

Sylvia Plath was afflicted by the fear of death. Thus she desperately needed a place where she could be free from it and create new things like a god; the place was her own world of poetry. Controlling and sublimating her fear of death and the reality Plath grew the poetic mind and became a poet. On the other hand, Wordsworth's poetic mind was formed by the poet's interrelation with nature. Nature was Wordsworth's loving mother; young and old Wordsworth was solaced by the power of nature. It was also a stern teacher to Wordsworth. Wordsworth's love of nature led him to love human including himself. Wordsworth considered that “to love” is synonymous with “to know,” and thus the poet's love of nature made him learn and know of human nature fully. In this article I would like to read Plath's poems “Getting There,” “Snakecharmer,” and “The Lady and the Earthenware Head” etc. along with Wordsworth's The Prelude to examine the two poets' artistic aspiration and growth of their poetic mind. (Jeonbuk National University)

소비하는 욕망-실비아 플라스의『벨자』와 1950년대 미국사회 소비문화

박주영 ( Joo Young Park ) 한국영어영문학회 2015 영어 영문학 Vol.61 No.2

This paper aims to explore how Sylvia Plath``s The Bell Jar analyzes American consumer culture of the 1950s. Plath entirely depends on the diverse descriptions of the consumption in order to portray the bell jar of confining 1950s patriarchal culture and society. Plath``s literary work prompts new ways of thinking about American mass media-magazines, newspapers, and advertisements, etc. in consumerism. She provides an extraordinary instance of the inseparability of the consumption and subjectivity in the age of Cold War. From the beginning of the novel, The Bell Jar represents Plath``s heroine, Esther Greenwood``s paralysis when faced with the constellation of the consuming desire in the consumer society. Throughout The Bell Jar, Esther shows a conflicted stance toward the consumer culture in capitalistic society; she tries to speak as "a subject against the dehumanizing commodity culture," while at the same time, "improving her ``feminine`` allure as a valuable object within this same culture." In other words, Esther seems to be fascinated by the commodities of the beauty and fashion industry; however, simultaneously, she protests against the feminine values promoted by consumer culture. Plath casts Esther``s rebellion against 1950s codes of femininity in Cold War perspectives; Esther signifies to be transgressing ideals of femininity. Furthermore, Plath creates the direct, immediate language and surreal images advertised in magazines, which breaks the rigid boundary between high masculine art and low feminine popular culture.

실비아 플라스의 유아론과 반형이상학적 상상력

윤효녕 한국현대영미시학회 2015 현대영미시연구 Vol.21 No.1

Sylvia Plath’s Solipsism and Anti-Metaphysical Imagination Hyonyung Yoon (Dankook Univ.) This paper aims to clarify Sylvia Plath’s anti-metaphysical poetic imagination developing in her earlier epistemology of solipsism and persisting throughout her oeuvre. I have attempted an intensive analysis of some of her earlier poems and journals, drawing critical approaches from Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction of Western logocentric metaphysics and the feminist critiques of phallocentrism elaborated by Luce Iragaray, and Hélène Cixous and Catherine Clément. The second section of this paper elucidates Plath’s solipsism deconstructing the logocentrism of Christian metaphysics and revealing the radical “differance”―in Derrida’s term―inherent in such concepts as God, angels and heaven and hell. The third section moves to the argument that Plath’s deconstructive imagination advances farther to create a new locus for the female body by reclaiming the “‘elsewhere’ of female pleasure” in Luce Irigaray’s term. And the final fourth section concludes by finding the importance of Plath’s anti-metaphysical vision as it spans consistently over her whole career as a poet.

신화 또는 성경 속 여성 인물에 대한 시적 변용

허현숙(Hyunsook Huh) 한국동서비교문학학회 2018 동서 비교문학저널 Vol.0 No.45

Sylvia Plath wrote several poems based on mythic figures. She moved between real life and myth through the wide-known characters from Bible and mythic story. On attempting to figure out her own voice in male dominating society she focused and transformed the mythic characters, specifically Lazarus and Medusa. With this method she adopted a more specific way to express her emotion and judgment on her situations. She found her own characteristic voice through which she reinterpreted and reinvented the female mythic role accepting the potent and vengeful identity. Plath’s way to express her inner conflicts with the female figures is an example for Duffy to lift the substantial over the male dominant literary world. Duffy took the same way as Plath’s in choosing the mythic characters and transformed them to female figures as in “Lady Lazarus”, or gave them female voice as in “Medusa”. But Duffy, the poet in the late 20th century, rewrites the characters and rejects the male power. The tone of much of her poems speaking through these female characters is potently ironic and gives laughing and scathing mood all over the works. Duffy found the useful world in Plath. Thus Plath gives Duffy helpful way to express her own judgment and to reinvent the way to overcome the male dominant world.