PETALS: The Aestheticisation of Death in Sylvia Plath’s “Edge” and in the Illustrations of Adriaan van de Spiegel’s Frucht in Mutter Leibe

Estella Ciobanu

PETALS: The Aestheticisation of Death in Sylvia Plath’s “Edge” and in the Illustrations of Adriaan van de Spiegel’s Frucht in Mutter Leibe
PETALS: The Aestheticisation of Death in Sylvia Plath’s “Edge” and in the Illustrations of Adriaan van de Spiegel’s Frucht in Mutter Leibe

Author(s): Estella Ciobanu
Subject(s): Aesthetics, Theory of Literature, Sociology of Art, American Literature, Sociology of Literature
Published by: Editura Universitatii LUCIAN BLAGA din Sibiu
Keywords: Sylvia Plath; “Edge”; “The Munich Mannequins”; “The Oval Portrait” (E. A. Poe); perfection, petals; death; aestheticisation; anatomical illustration; Adriaan van de Spiegel;

Summary/Abstract: This article investigates the aestheticisation of death in Sylvia Plath’s poem “Edge” in relation to other poems by her and marginally by Seamus Heaney and Charles Baudelaire, and to the short story “The Oval Portrait” by Edgar Allan Poe. Such aestheticisation, I contend, partakes of the spirit of the anatomical illustration of early modern tracts such as the joint volume by Giulio Casserio and Adriaan van de Spiegel, and of western culture’s necrophilia.

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Journal: American, British and Canadian Studies

Issue Year: 2023
Issue No: 40
Page Range: 42-57
Page Count: 16
Language: English

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PETALS: The Aestheticisation of Death in Sylvia Plath’s “Edge” and in the Illustrations of Adriaan van de Spiegel’s Frucht in Mutter Leibe PETALS: The Aestheticisation of Death in Sylvia Plath’s “Edge” and in the Illustrations of Adriaan van de Spiegel’s Frucht in Mutter Leibe

PETALS: The Aestheticisation of Death in Sylvia Plath’s “Edge” and in the Illustrations of Adriaan van de Spiegel’s Frucht in Mutter Leibe
PETALS: The Aestheticisation of Death in Sylvia Plath’s “Edge” and in the Illustrations of Adriaan van de Spiegel’s Frucht in Mutter Leibe