taken from anne stevenson's 1989 biography of american writer and poet sylvia plath, called 'bitter fame; a life of sylvia plath'. the first chapter of this book is called 'the girl who wanted to be god (1932-1949)', after REFLECTIONS sylvia plath wrote IN HER DIARY when she was seventeen. THESE REFLECTIONS ARE USED TO ILLUSTRATE THE WAY PLATH WAS caught up in the hapless dualism of the Romantics, HOW she idealized herself AND longed for perfection she knew she would never attain:

i want, I think, to be omniscient... I think I would like to call myself: "The girl who wanted to be God." Yet if I were not in this body, where would I be?... But, oh, I cry out against it. I am I - I am powerful, but to what extent? I am I.

'bitter fame' is seen as one of the best biographies of plath. it is different from many other biographies because it does not blame ted hughes (see before us stands yesterday.) for leaving plath, leading to her suicide in 1963. stevenson claims that plath's suicide was her own choice and that she was not a 'victim' of hughes.this biography also includes Essays written in remembrance of sylvia Plath by Lucas Myers, Dido Merwin and Richard Murphy.