a secret by sylvia plath info sheet

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,