H-ART. Revista de historia, teoría y crítica de arte

hart. Rev. Hist. Teor. Crit. Arte | eISSN 2590-9126 | ISSN 2539-2263

Lady Lazarus: Living From Death, Die From Life. From The Poetry Of Sylvia Plath a And the Images Of Janieta Eyre

No. 2 (2018-01-01)
  • Ana Barroso
    CEAUL - Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
https://doi.org/10.25025/hart02.2018.05

Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between the poem “Lady Lazarus” by Sylvia Plath, on the one hand, and two photographs of Janieta Eyre, on the other hand, which are part of the exhibition Lady Lazarus, presented at the Diane Farris Gallery in 2001. Both artistic processes are intrinsically linked to the experience of death, conditioning their work by the intensity that this experience spurs in the construction/deconstruction of the Self, engaging the reader/spectator in the experience of death, not merely as a necessary and final stage of life, but as a revelation of an emotional, creative, and liberating inner energy. Thus, death also becomes a staging experience, a celebration of art over the mortal physical condition, surpassing real space and time: the artist looses herself from her personality imprisoned in physical and moral constrictions, dies of inner energy, multiple and excessive, to reborn into some aesthetic immortality, and to create a powerful and fantastic imagery capable of expanding the artist and her work to eternity.

Keywords: Sylvia Plath, Janieta Eyre, death, experience of death, subjectivity

References

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