The following version of this poem was used to create this guide: Plath, Sylvia. Ariel. The Poetry Foundation: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49001/ariel.

Note that all parenthetical citations within the guide refer to the lines of the poem from which the quotations are taken.

Sylvia Plath, one of the most iconic figures in American poetic history, was born in Boston in 1932. She began writing as a young child and began experiencing success as a writer while still in high school. She attended Smith College, where, after her father's death and some career setbacks, she began experiencing depression. She attempted suicide repeatedly during her college years, while also writing and publishing. She married poet Ted Hughes, with whom she had a famously contentious marriage (it has since been widely understood that Hughes was abusive toward Plath).

During the early days of her marriage to Hughes, Plath experienced some relief from her depression, as she underwent psychoanalytic treatment and electroconvulsive therapy. She wrote more confessionally and from her own perspective, and also had two children. In 1962, she learned that her husband was having an affair. She had a great burst of creativity, writing many poems (including "Ariel"), before entering a severe depressive episode that ended in her death by suicide.