Sylvia Plath

Plath, Sylvia (1932–63), U.S. poet whose taut, melodic, highly imagistic works explore the nature of womanhood and her fixation with death. Ariel (1965), published after Plath's suicide, won her international acclaim as a major U.S. “confessional” poet. Her other works include The Bell Jar (1963), a semiautobiographical novel about a young woman's emotional breakdown, and Complete Poems (1981), edited by her husband, Ted Hughes.