I kept Plath’s “Magic Mirror” close by as I wrote my own thesis. This knowledge that someone else—a literary titan who had seen me through my own breakdown—had attempted a similar project, using a proxy form to interrogate a personal psychological past, helped me.
Many writers cite Sylvia Plath as an influence, but few go to the lengths to pore over the minutiae of her personal history. Over at Lit Hub, Nathan Smith shares his experience of reading Sylvia Plath’s college thesis to help him write his own.
