Sylvia Plath's Children’s Fiction

Speaker: Lissi Athanasiou-Krikelis, Ph.D., Associate Professor of English

Sylvia Plath is associated with modernism, confessional poetry, and the feminist movement. Nonetheless, few are familiar with Plath’s engagement with children’s literature. She regularly published reviews on children’s books, and she worked on three children’s texts—two stories, “Mrs. Cherry’s Kitchen” and “The It-Doesn't Matter Suit,” as well as a poem, “The Bed Book.” Her children’s fiction was published posthumously, “Mrs. Cherry’s Kitchen” as late as 2001.

Dr. Athanasiou-Krikelis will interrogate Plath’s children’s texts by first identifying Plath’s use of stereotypes not aligned with her more progressive adult poems, before examining them as specimens of children's literature. “Mrs. Cherry’s Kitchen” and “The It-Doesn't Matter Suit” are written with an adult audience in mind and, therefore, embody cultural ideologies that embrace conformity and adult authority, whereas “The Bed Book” veers towards topics quintessentially pertinent to the child reader. Join us on April 15 to discover a side of Plath that is relatively unexplored.

Use the button above or go to nyit.zoom.us/join and enter meeting ID: 955 9186 8760.

This event is part of the Dean’s Digital Café Series, NYIT College of Arts & Sciences, Spring 2021.