a secret by sylvia plath info sheet
TRANSCRIPT
A Secret - Sylvia Plath information Context
● Written on October 10th 1962, a year before her death in 1963
● Sylvia Plath wrote “A Secret” just after she separated from her husband Ted Hughes as
his secret was out about his affair with friend Assia Wevill.
● Plath wrote the poem as part of the ‘Ariel’ collection, however following her death
Hughes removed it from the published collection
● Plath and Hughes’ son was born in January of 1962, however Ted seemed disappointed
with the baby and treated him coldly - Ted’s affair began to dawn on Plath at this
point as he would openly seem to flirt with Assia.
● This poem is known as being one of Plath’s most cryptic and ambiguous poems as the real
meaning behind it remains a secret due to Plath’s death and the removal from the
‘Ariel’ collection
About the Poem
● Offers a grotesque take on Plath’s classic themes throughout the ‘Ariel’ collection:
female subjectivity, scrutiny of femininity, fertility, family, revelation, betrayal
and public vs private
● Plath’s poem also has three perspectives, with its narrator and two speakers.
● Plath wrote “A Secret” in quatrains
● “A Secret” is certainly modern love gone wrong
● The imagery throughout the poem has no coherence, only Plath’s bitter sarcasm and this
dirty secret
● Critics regard this poem as as a piece of ‘cryptic fury’ due to it’s riddle like nature
which makes the poem difficult to understand - this riddle like nature means that the
poem has to be picked apart to begin to gain an understanding
Links Made in the Presentation
● The Bloody Chamber, Wolf Alice, The Snow Child, Sow, Daddy, Stella and Stanley’s
lustful relationship, Blanche’s interference with Stella and Stanley’s relationship,