Inhabited by a Cry: The Birth and Rebirth of Ariel

Sylvia Plath joked in her Journals that, of all the books she might take to a desert island, her thesaurus would be the first and most precious choice. Ted Hughes's characterization of Plath's working habits during her writing of The Colossus helps explain some of the reasons for her preference: In her earlier poems, Sylvia Plath composed very slowly, consulting her Thesaurus and Dictionary for almost every word, putting a slow, strong line of ink under each word that attracted her .1