Since then, her name has become a by-word for female angst. Woolf's novels and Kane's plays are dubbed as being manifestations of mental illness, while Thomas's poetry is brilliant in spite of, rather than because of, his alcoholism and troubled life.Ĭhief among those female artists who have become defined by their suicide is the US poet and novelist Sylvia Plath, who died on 11 February 1963. When a male author dies prematurely, it is a tragic stopper in his creative output – we mourn the poetry Dylan Thomas never wrote after he died aged 39 in 1953, for example, distinct from his self-destructive lifestyle. From Virginia Woolf to Sarah Kane, everything she did, everything she created during her life becomes part of a death-drive narrative. When a female author dies by suicide, it defines her.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |