Since Sylvia Plath died in 1963, she's been turned into a crudely tragic symbol...

 Since Sylvia Plath died in 1963, she's been turned into a crudely tragic symbol. As she inspires more biographies, will we ever get closer to the 'real' Plath, asks Lillian Crawford.

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When a female author dies by suicide, it defines her. From Virginia Woolf to Sarah Kane, everything she did, everything she created during her life becomes part of a death-drive narrative. When a male author dies prematurely, it is a tragic stopper in his creative output – we mourn the poetry Dylan Thomas never wrote after he died aged 39 in 1953, for example, distinct from his self-destructive lifestyle. Woolf's novels and Kane's plays are dubbed as being manifestations of mental illness, while Thomas's poetry is brilliant in spite of, rather than because of, his alcoholism and troubled life...