Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy was born #onthisday in 1840. He was an English novelist and poet influenced by Romanticism. Many of his novels concern tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances, and they are often set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex; initially based on the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom, Hardy's Wessex eventually came to include the counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, Hampshire and much of Berkshire, in south-west and south central England.

ADRIENNE RICH

Born #onthisday in 1929 Adrienne Rich was an American poet, essayist and feminist. She was called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century".   Rich criticised rigid forms of feminist identities, and valorised what she coined the "lesbian continuum", which is a female continuum of solidarity and creativity that impacts and fills women's lives.

ROBERT BROWNING

Robert Browning was born #onthisday in 1812. An English poet and playwright whose mastery of the dramatic monologue made him one of the foremost Victorian poets. His poems are known for their irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentary, historical settings, and challenging vocabulary and syntax.

Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft was born #onthisday in 1759 in London yet despite her inauspicious beginnings, she became a self-supporting bestselling international human-rights celebrity.

“I do not wish women to have power over men; but over themselves”

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)

“Dying is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like hell. I do it so it feels real. I guess you could say I've a call.” Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath was one of the most dynamic and admired poets of the 20th century. Plath met and married British poet Ted Hughes, although the two later split. The depressive Plath was treated multiple times with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and attempted suicide in 1953.  More ECT followed and although she seemed to have made a good recovery she committed suicide in 1963 after the breakdown of her marriage to Hughes.

Sylvia Plath 1932-1963

Dying is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well.

Oil on Linen 71x61cm (Available for Sale)

Many of Plath’s posthumous publications were compiled by Hughes, who became the executor of her estate. However, controversy surrounded both the estate’s management of her work’s copyright and his editing practices, especially when he revealed that he had destroyed the last journals written prior to her suicide. Her work attracted the attention of a multitude of readers, who saw in her singular verse an attempt to catalogue despair, violent emotion, and obsession with death. She garnered accolades after her death for the novel The Bell Jar, and the poetry collections, Colossus and Ariel.  In 1982, Plath became the first person to win a posthumous Pulitzer Prize. 

Sylvia Plath

I eat men like air

Oil on paper 25x23cm (Available for Sale)

I have read a stunning biography of Plath by Heather Clarke titled Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath.  It tells the tragic story of her life giving careful analysis of her work and a compassionate understanding of her relationship with Ted Hughes.  I found it thoroughly inspirational and would strongly recommend it.