Linguocreative Methods of Conveying the Emotional State of Despair in the Works of Sylvia Plath (Based on Her Poetry and Prose)

Introduction. This article explores the linguistic representation of emotional despair in Sylvia Plath’s literary works. Its objective is to identify and systematize the linguistic and narrative strategies employed to convey this state in Plath’s prose and poetry, examining their connection to the poetics of psychological realism and modernist aesthetics. The novelty of the study lies in its comprehensive analysis of linguo-creative techniques used to express despair, encompassing both Plath’s poetic and prose output. Methodology and sources. The research employs an integrated methodological approach, combining linguistic-stylistic analysis, contextual analysis, and psycholinguistic perspectives. The primary source material comprises key texts exemplifying the evolution of Plath’s style and the centrality of despair: the novel The Bell Jar (1963), the short story collection Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams (1977), and the poetry collection The Collected Poems (1981). This selection is based on the texts' significance for exploring the theme across different genres, including autobiographical and experimental works. Results and discussion. The study reveals that despair in Plath’s writing is conveyed primarily indirectly through the “creative destruction” of language – manifesting in shocking imagery, syntactic shifts, and complex symbols. Direct lexical naming is rare. Prose enacts a “poetics of disintegration”: it unfolds crisis linearly (in the novel) or fragmentarily (in stories) through metaphors of identity dissolution, syntactic fragmentation, and motifs of depersonalization. Poetry is characterized by concentrated, polysemantic symbols with shocking impact, the defamiliarization of commonplace images to reveal cruelty/inevitability, and distinctive syntax. Genre specificity is pronounced: prose constructs an extended space of psychological suffering, while poetry condenses despair into an intense “explosion” of imagery. Conclusion. The research confirms that Plath’s linguistic creativity serves as a strategy to overcome the impossibility of directly naming existential despair. Her language becomes an instrument for embodying psychological trauma and liminal states of consciousness. The specificity of genre resources – the narrative expanse of prose and the concentrated imagery of poetry – proves crucial for achieving the author's primary creative aim: conveying the “inexpressible” with unparalleled force. The identified strategies reflect not only the author's profound personal crisis but also the existential anxieties of her era, situating Plath's work within the tradition of modernist confessional literature and underscoring its unique power in representing extreme human experiences.

Authors: Marina Yu. Kuzmina, Nina V. Nikolayeva

Direction: Linguistics

Keywords: Sylvia Plath, despair, emotional state, psychological realism, 20th century prose, 20th century poetry, confessional poetry

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