Citation

Lester D, McSwain S. Psychol. Rep. 2011; 109(1): 73-76.

Affiliation

Psychology Program, The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, Jimmie Leeds Road, Pomona, NJ 08240-0195, USA. lesterd@stockton.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

22049649

Abstract

Changes in the words used in the poems of Sylvia Plath were examined using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count, a computer program for analyzing the content of texts. Major changes in the content of her poems were observed over the course of Plath's career, as well as in the final year of her life. As the time of her suicide came closer, words expressing positive emotions became more frequent, while words concerned with causation and insight became less frequent.

Language: en