When I set up this blog, I chose to set my header text to “A Passionate, Fragmentary Girl,” because it sounds good and also because I feel it describes me very well. I can’t take credit for the phrase, though; that goes to Sylvia Plath.
Mention Sylvia Plath to most English majors, especially ones from my alma mater, and they’ll probably start to salivate. Personally, I’ve never liked Plath’s work. Plath went to Smith College and briefly taught there, so it was inevitable that I would read her poetry. Ariel bored me, and in a journal entry, I compared reading The Bell Jar to stepping into an ankle-deep puddle to get to the crosswalk–unpleasant, but necessary, as I had to read it for a class.
And yet, Plath haunts me. After I read The Bell Jar, I was required to read parts of Plath’s journals. In class, I heard people discuss how intense her journals were, how they couldn’t imagine experiencing life as Plath did. I was shocked, because when I had read the journals, I had thought, “God, this woman really understands!” I had underlined passages, noting in the margins, “We kindred are.” Reading Plath’s journals was like hearing myself speak.
To Be Burned Up with Beauty 