Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T04:33:38.071Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 33 - After Plath: The Legacy of Influence

from Part VIII - The Creative Afterlife

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 August 2019

Tracy Brain
Affiliation:
Bath Spa University
Get access

Summary

Fiona Sampson looks beyond any simplistic account of legacy in her nuanced tracing of Plath’s continuing influence on British poetry. While Plath left no substantial or explicit articulation of her poetics, her early published work indicates some of her own literary debts. The free verse which eventually muscles its way out of that initial formality is closely related, in both rhythm and register, to exactly contemporary work by Ted Hughes. Almost universally read by contemporary British poets, she contributes a Plathian dimension to contemporary British poetics as a whole. This is less apparent in today’s Confessional free verse, which owes much to life writing and oral forms, than in the continuation, alongside the Hardy/Larkin mainstream, of a more risk-taking, symbolic and higher-register tradition. Its protagonists include Sharon Olds, Louise Glück, Selima Hill and Denise Riley.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×