Sylvia Plath, The Colossus

Helen Bain (King's College London)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Gina Lyle (University of Glasgow), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), David Ian Paddy (Whittier College), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1962

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Poem collection

Resources

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I. Introduction

The Colossus and Other Poems, published in 1960, was Sylvia Plath’s first collection of poetry, and the only one published in her lifetime. It was followed by Ariel (1965), later by Crossing the Water (1971; broadly speaking, the poems Plath wrote in the period between The Colossus and Ariel) and Winter Trees (1971; poems written in late 1962 and early 1963 following Ariel), and finally the Collected Poems (1981), which won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. A new complete collection of Plath’s work, The Poems of Sylvia Plath, is currently being compiled by Plath scholars Karen Kukil and Amanda Golden for Faber & Faber.

The Colossus and Other Poems, published in 1960, was Sylvia Plath’s first collection of poetry, and the only one published in her lifetime. It was followed…

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5601 words

Citation: Bain, Helen. "The Colossus". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 February 2023 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=1235, accessed 07 December 2023.]

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