SOURCE: "'God's Lioness'—Sylvia Plath, Her Prose and Poetry," in Women's Studies, Vol. 1, 1973, pp. 191-8.

In the following essay, Martin provides both a brief overview of The Bell Jar and examples of Plath's poetry to illustrate the autobiographic and social context of her work. Challenging the "negative and even hostile judgment of Plath's politics" levelled by some critics, Martin extols Plath's talent and influence as "one of the leading American women poets since Emily Dickinson."

In recent years, cultists have enshrined Sylvia Plath as a martyr while critics have denounced her as a shrew. Plath's devotees maintain that she was the victim of a sexist society, her suicide a response to the oppression of women, and her poetry a choreography of female wounds. Conversely, critics such as Elizabeth Hardwick and Irving Howe complain of her "fascination with hurt and damage and fury." Hardwick can't understand how Plath could...