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Sylvia Plath and "The Bigger Things": War, History, and Modernism at Midcentury

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Sylvia Plath and City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 2-2019 Sylvia Plath and "the bigger things": War, History, and Modernism at Midcentury Reagan Lothes The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/2978 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] SYLVIA PLATH AND “THE BIGGER THINGS”: WAR, HISTORY, AND MODERNISM AT MIDCENTURY by REAGAN LOTHES A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2019 Ó 2019 REAGAN LOTHES All Rights Reserved ii Sylvia Plath and the “bigger things”: War, History, and Modernism at Midcentury by Reagan Lothes This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in English in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Date Carrie Hintz Chair of Examining Committee Date Eric Lott Executive Officer Supervisory Committee: Wayne Koestenbaum Steven Kruger Robin Hackett THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT Sylvia Plath and “the bigger things”: War, History, and Modernism at Midcentury by Reagan Lothes Advisor: Carrie Hintz Sylvia Plath and “the bigger things” explores the ways in which Plath’s “confessionalism”—so often read as antithetical to T. S. Eliot’s notion of “impersonality”— constituted not a break from modernism but rather a negotiation of its transatlantic legacy. In doing so, it works against a long-standing critical tradition that has defined Plath, who was living in England as she composed her Ariel poems, as nonetheless a distinctly American poet and one focused uniquely—and, as some have claimed, even pathologically—on the self. An examination of Plath’s published work, including interviews, statements of poetics, journal entries, and letters, in the context of a range of archival materials, such as college essays, teaching notes, and annotations she made to texts now housed in her personal library, reveals the extent to which engaging modernism—and, in particular, the tradition of the modernist epic—enabled her to position her explorations of “the personal” in relation to what she called “the bigger things.” As I argue, Plath’s engagements with modernism and the atrocities of World War II, which she indeed defined as “the bigger things,” prove not an escape to a literary “golden age,” to a New Critical conception of modernism institutionalized at midcentury, nor a regression to a childhood framed by the war. Instead, they constitute a direct engagement not only with the literary scene of early 1960s London—in which the critic Al Alvarez had issued a call for poets to address the “forces of disintegration” at work in both the horrors of the twentieth century and in the individual psyche—but also with her broader historical moment. At the time that Plath was iv writing the majority of the poems that she would include in her Ariel manuscript, such atrocities of the past as the Holocaust (in the wake of the capture, trial, and execution of Adolf Eichmann) and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (with Cold War tensions at fever pitch on the brink of the Cuban Missile Crisis) had indeed become newly present. v For Benny and the lives we’ve made. vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am deeply indebted to my advisor, Carrie Hintz, for breathing new life into this project. Offering to work with me after my original advisor, Jane Marcus, passed away, Carrie helped me to mourn Jane and to shape and complete a project I think Jane would be proud of. Along the way, she taught me, as she once put it, to “fight my corner,” and offered me both the deadlines and flexibility that I needed to put this project to paper. For all of this—and for all of the unceasing support, patience, wisdom, and humor that went with it—I am forever grateful. I would like to offer immeasurable thanks, too, to my committee members. This project started my first semester at the Graduate Center in Steve Kruger’s Theory Colloquium. Introducing me to the pleasures of sustained theoretical inquiry, Steve helped me to begin imagining how I might use theory—or cobble together parts of different theories—to move my thinking beyond what felt at the time as the already-been-done state of Plath criticism toward what I might be able to contribute to the conversation. And to Wayne Koestenbaum, who repeatedly reminded me of why I started this project, of why it matters to me and why it might possibly matter to someone else—thank you. Wayne’s initial hesitancy toward a Plath project, given the brief span of Plath’s career and the veritable critical industry that has sprung up in response to such a relatively small body of work, proved an invaluable sounding board. How gratifying, and what an honor, to know that my vision of Plath, insofar as I’ve been able to communicate it in these pages, has resonated with another person, not to mention someone who is an intellectual and a poet, like Plath was herself. Thank you, too, to Robin Hackett, whom I met at a conference organized in Jane Marcus’s honor and who so generously volunteered to serve on my committee in her capacity as a modernist. Her presence has made this project’s connection to Jane (Robin, too, was a student of Jane’s) all the more lived. And to Jane herself—Jane, who created for her students a community based in collaboration and conversation, and who imparted to us the imperative of archival research, of unsettling critical narratives. It was while taking her Women and Modernism course that I visited the Plath archives for a second time and was struck by all the women modernists on Plath’s bookshelves. In fundamental ways, Jane (and the inspiration of her work on Woolf) helped to shift my focus from Plath alone to Plath in relation to—or, rather, in conversation with—other writers and thinkers. I didn’t have the words then, nor do I have them now, to fully thank her. Thanks are due, too, to my undergraduate advisor, Cynthia Richards, who first set me on this path, introducing me to feminist theory and the joys of Judith Butler, and to my other undergraduate mentors, Robin Inboden and Terry Otten, who taught me the rigors and rewards of close reading and Toni Morrison. I also owe a large debt of gratitude to Karen Kukil for all of her help with the Plath archives at Smith College, to the archivists at the Lilly Library at Indiana University, and to Peter K. Steinberg for the massive amount of archival work he has performed and the Plath resources he has made available online. I am also immensely grateful to the Graduate Center for the support of a dissertation-year fellowship. vii To my fellow Graduate Center cohorts, Cori Gabbard and Charlotte Thurston, and to my former colleagues at John Jay College, Mark Alpert, Maria Grewe, Beata Potocki, Margaret Fiore, Jim Petzke, Antoinette Jones, Christopher Moore, and Katherine Arnoldi, I am incredibly grateful for your unwavering support and miss you much. I would also like to offer many thanks to Tim McCormack for his tireless encouragement over the years and to Jay Gates for his timely dissertation pep-talks. Many thanks are due, too, to Kathryn Narramore, for helping to keep me afloat with her encouragement, counsel, and pinch-hitting during my first semester of teaching at Rutgers as I finished this project. How lucky I am to have her as a colleague, and thank you to Carrie for introducing us! Much love is due, too, to Danny Rivera, Laura Modigliani, and Gregory Crosby, who have been with me, it feels like, from the beginning, from when I crashed their MFA program at City College. Who would have guessed where the years have taken us? And to Khadijah Costley White, neighbor, Rutgers colleague, social justice activist, summer writing partner, and mother extraordinaire—you are an inspiration and a daily reminder of what is possible. Many thanks, as well, to all of my John Jay students over the years and to my new Rutgers students, who have taught (and are forever teaching) me new ways of seeing the world and our places in it. And to Amanda Harris, my beloved “work wife,” and to the tattoos we will soon be getting in celebration of our words. You came into my life at such a pivotal moment, and this project owes so much to your grit, your unwillingness to compromise on what matters, and your uncanny insights. To my family—my parents, Rick and Lois, my sisters, Juli, Ashley, and Morgan. Thank you for always believing in me and for loving my babies like you do. And thank you to Tresa and Beena—if it hadn’t been for the weekends at Grandma’s or Auntie Beena’s, this project would have been forever in the works. Finally, to Benny—you are so much a part of this project that it is impossible to know where to start. Here, too, words fail me, but please know how immensely grateful I am to you for seeing in me what I couldn’t, for taking on more than any human being ever should, and for being the partner and father that you are.
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