5/23/2023 0 Comments Heather clark red comet![]() New Statesman (UK) Unlike other biographies of Plath (1932-63), Clark’s traces her subject’s literary and intellectual development rather than concentrating on her undoing through suicide. ![]() Actually, through the course of the research, I became a more firm believer in my own thesis, because even I would have these moments, and my editor would write in the margin, “Don’t fall into the Plath trap. Red Comet is the kind of serious literary biography Plath has long deserved but, until now, not received. ![]() So I started with that sense of mission, but I certainly don’t think it’s something that everyone starts with. Heather Clark, Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath Vintage, London, 2020, pp. I felt like she’s so brilliant and witty and cerebral and ironic, and a lot of that was getting lost in the popular imagination. I had this sense of injustice, or frankly anger, about the ways in which she had become a writer whose name was often synonymous with madness and tragedy. But I don’t necessarily believe that’s the case. It’s been drilled into my head that you need a thesis. Heather Clark: I guess I did begin with that thesis, probably because of my academic training. My question is, does biography always begin with an agenda? You already had a previous understanding of this woman’s work as a scholar, but did you begin with that thesis or did the research show you what that thesis was? ![]()
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