![]() ![]() Snodgrass are each commonly associated with the poetic movement known as ‘confessionalism’ which emerged in the USA in the late 1950s and early 1960s. As Susan Gubar notes: “Plath's poetry broods upon the contamination of the very idea of the genuine.” (Gubar, 2007: 181) It will give insight into why such a reading might be easy to accomplish, eventually though fails to capture the various levels of meaning and inconsistency. The last chapter will negotiate in how far Sylvia Plath’s poem can be read as “Camp” when being analyzed under the theoretical idea of the “death of the author.” Beforehand, the initial chapter will make a short attempt in reading the poem biographically, trying to find Sylvia Plath in the figure of Lady Lazarus. Furthermore, an analysis of the spaces represented in “Lady Lazarus” through Michel Foucault’s “On Other Spaces” will extend the motif of the imaginary author onto a spatial level. Emphasis will be put on the Holocaust imagery Plath makes repeated use of. By utilizing Roland Barthes' ideas in his influential essay “Death of the Author” as the theoretical basis, the narrative structure of the poem will be analyzed to understand how exactly the author as a real existence is negated and instead deconstructed. The following paper will make an attempt in reading Sylvia Plath’s “Lady Lazarus” under the aspect of “the author.” The assumption is that while the poem invites a biographical reading due to its theme of suicide and depression, it ultimately tries to accomplish the very opposite task, actively defying the construction of a genuine author. One of the most susceptible poems is “Lady Lazarus”, part of Ariel and the famous “October Poems.” However, a fully biographical reading of the poetry will not do justice to the multiple layers of meaning to be found in these texts. It is a culturally constructed search for a unique author, trying to force an imaginary person upon the text. ![]() As Linda Wagner-Martin notes: Ted Hughes' releasing of his version of the collection, started the “cult of Plath.” (Wagner-Martin, 1999: X) This is a most fitting statement, as her poetry is often read through a biographical approach, trying to find the person Sylvia Plath in her work. Sylvia Plath’s poetry has been a widely discussed subject ever since her death and the posthumous release of her final collection of poems, Ariel. ![]()
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