Talk:Otto Plath

Images
Some images of Otto Plath can be found with a simple Google search but I have little experience with the uploading of images to Wikipedia and would appreciate it if I could get some help with implementing them in a way consistent with Wikipedia policies in doing so. --Philpill691 (talk) 17:49, 14 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I dealt with this a while ago. --Philpill691 (talk) 00:51, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Daddy
Not sure whether we can deal with this, but the wording in the article re: 'Daddy' throws up an interesting question in itself. If Plath was eight when he died, it's surely possible the poem was not about her own father at all, but rather a generalised work concerning father/daughter relationships in general using the few specifics she could recall. The poem is a highly visceral piece; unlikely to represent the perspective of anyone aged eight - or less. Also not sure if this view is a commonly held one. Source? Hanoi Road (talk) 00:32, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Good idea. Go with that. First, Otto's life bears no relationship to the character, or characters, in the poem called "Daddy." Second, one of the most generally accepted insights in criticism from the New Critics to the present is, "Don't reduce a poem to the intention of its maker." Even if she meant it to be Otto, it's not only Otto, or even most importantly Otto. Third, though it's hard to imagine anything Plath's critics haven't written by now, they tend to be unsophisticated biographical critics who hunt for clues to whom the poem's character "really" is. (Cf. "Who was Fagin?") The change in the death date you've noticed could have been Plath's signal to them, not to do that to her poem. But going back to the second point, it doesn't matter if she meant it to be Otto. Don't commit the "Intentional Fallacy" and reduce a poem to that. Why the hell should we care about Otto if there's no wider implications? Good luck. Profhum (talk) 18:10, 27 October 2019 (UTC)