England in Sylvia Plath's Prose: An Attempt of Imagological Analysis

The name of Sylvia Plath, an American writer and poet, is often associated with England. A significant part of her life was connected with this country. In Russia, Plath's oeuvre remains relatively unexplored. In addition to several articles on certain aspects of the poet's work, it is worth mentioning Ekaterina Gerasimova's thesis “The Artistic World of Poetry and Prose of Sylvia Plath: Late '50s - Early '60s” (2007), which became the first attempt of a systematic analysis of the writer's work. Plath's reception of English culture, literature and everyday life has never been studied separately, while scholars limited their interest to the relationships between Plath with English literature in the person of Ted Hughes. The object of this article is Plath's prose, including short stories, journals, as well as letters addressed mainly to her mother and brother. The study of this topic is complicated by the fact that, if we trust the testimony of Plath's relatives and friends, she cannot always be considered a fully reliable narrator. There are many examples when she, consciously or unconsciously, being carried away by the artistic re-creation of the world, misleads the reader. The evidence contained in the journal entries can be diametrically opposite to the impressions contained in Plath's letters. Life in England, getting familiar with the British, their customs and traditions have left their mark on Plath's creativity, images and even the language that the poet uses to create her complex and multi-layered texts. Since 1956, “English” has become inseparable from both the biography and creativity of the author. The image of England is formed on the basis of personal impressions, stereotypes that existed at that time, literary sources and new media, among which a special place belongs to cinema and advertising. This study is relevant, as it not only sheds light on some aspects of Plath's work, but also helps to understand what England was in the eyes of the Americans in the 1950s-1960s. Despite the non-standard perception of the world, Plath, nevertheless, projects in her oeuvre many stereotypes that existed at that time, some of which have not lost their relevance even today. The image of England in Plath's works is always ambivalent. On the one hand, the concept “Englishness” includes such associations as English literature, Shakespeare, English poetry. On the other hand, the country always bewildered Plath by its conservatism, snobbery, stiffness and cold. All those shades of “Englishness” are traced in Sylvia Plath's prose, having become an integral part of her ego-text.

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