…Shkallëve të vogla zgjatuese me tasa ngjitësi / e kovash me Lysol / Zvarritem si një milingonë që mban zi / Ndër akra plot barërash të këqija të ballit tënd / T’i ngjes pllakat e paanë të kafkës dhe pastroj / Tumat e bardha cullake të syve të tu.
[ Sylvia Plath – The Colossus, 1962 – Përkthyer S. Guraziu – Ars Poetica, 2013 ]
Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)
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…during her undergraduate years Plath began to suffer the symptoms of severe depression that would ultimately lead to her death. In one of her journal entries, dated June 20, 1958, she wrote: “It is as if my life were magically run by two electric currents: joyous positive and despairing negative – whichever is running at the moment dominates my life, floods it”.
This is an eloquent description of bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression, a very serious illness for which no genuinely effective medications were available during Plath’s lifetime. In August of 1953, at the age of 20, Plath attempted suicide by swallowing sleeping pills. She survived the attempt and was hospitalized, receiving treatment with electro-shock therapy. Her experiences of breakdown and recovery were later turned into fiction for her only published novel, The Bell Jar.
Having made a recovery, Plath returned to Smith for her degree. She earned a Fulbright grant to study at Cambridge University in England, and it was there that she met poet Ted Hughes. The two were married in 1956. Plath published two major works during her lifetime, The Bell Jar and a poetry volume titled The Colossus. Both received warm reviews. However, the end of her marriage in 1962 left Plath with two young children to care for and, after an intense burst of creativity that produced the poems in Ariel, she committed suicide by inhaling gas from a kitchen oven…
| – – – [ Poetry Foundation ] – – –