The Unwritten Sylvia Plath Biographies

Sylvia Plath’s belonging to the literary modernist canon turns the issue of her biographical iconography into a problematic matter, as late modernist critical directions considered biography a flawed concept and practice with a poor reflective capacity. Moreover, the first generation of prospective Plath biographers abandoned their projects at various stages in their progress, leaving a consistent amount of archival material that needs re-exploration and reinterpretation. I propose a revisiting of the Harriet Rosenstein Sylvia Plath archive and of Elizabeth Hinchliffe’s unfinished Plath biography, preserved as a manuscript, in order to highlight the relevance and impact of these initial biographies on later perspectives on Plath’s literary art and life.