在諸多評論絲兒薇亞•普拉斯（Sylvia Plath）的文章裡，特別是關乎詩義的層面，相左的意見總是多過相近者。似乎，爭執已經成為普拉斯研究中，在所難免的一環。很難得地，我們可以看到一篇評論文章，廣為接受而不遭駁斥。評論家們總是可以從普拉斯的一個生活特點切入，然後對她的同一個詩作，提出迥異的看法。就這一現象而言，評論家們對普拉斯作品的態度，跟佛洛伊德解夢的方式相去不遠。他們的這種態度使得普拉斯的作品像夢一樣，可以作多重解讀。毫無疑問地，這個現象讓普拉斯研究更為艱難，因為讀者往往發現自己困頓於大相逕庭的評論意見之中。
在本篇論文中，普拉斯的詩作將視如夢境。然而，作者之目的不在於解讀她具有夢品質的詩作，而是要運用佛洛伊德的夢理論，探究其詩作中的兩個夢境現象：1）受壓抑的慾望之轉換；2）願望實踐之完成。再者，作者也將檢視普拉斯的夢品質詩作如何慰藉著她，就像夢境護衛著夢者，讓他免於外界干擾一樣。
除了佛洛伊德的理論之外，本文也將納入拉岡與傅科的理論。他們的觀點可以將夢境的涵蓋面由個人擴及他者，由過去延伸到未來。本文將以佛洛伊德和這兩位理論家的更新觀念為研究方法，來探討普拉斯的夢品質詩作如何成為她應付生活壓力的療護聖品。據信，普拉斯藉此療護，行「文」如儀，直到她生命的最後一刻。

In the criticisms on Sylvia Plath, especially with regard to the meanings of her poetry, it is a common phenomenon that there are more disagreements than there are agreements. Controversy seems to be an inescapable part of Plath study. Very rarely can we see a critic’s viewpoint accepted by the others without disputes. More often than not, based on a distinctive aspect of Sylvia Plath, the critics manage to offer a different, if not contradictory, interpretation of the selfsame poem. In this respect, the critics’ attitude toward Plath’s poetry differs little from the Freudian dream interpretation. It renders Plath’s poetry into a dream-like work which is capable of yielding a great variety of interpretations. Needless to say, these diverse interpretations would make Plath study even harder because the readers oftentimes find themselves perplexed by the self-contradictory viewpoints of the critics.
In this thesis, Sylvia Plath’s poetry will be treated as dream-like work. However, rather than proceeding with interpreting her poetry, I will apply Freudian theory to probing the two dream features in her poetry: 1) the transformation of Plath’s suppressed desires; 2) the accomplishment of the wish fulfillment. On the other hand, I will also examine how Plath’s dream-like poetry shelters her the way dreams guard the dreamer from the outside world.
In addition to the Freudian theory, this thesis will also incorporate those of Jacques Lacan and Michel Foucault. Their concepts contribute to expanding the domain of dreams from the self to the Other, and from the past to the future. Together with the Freudian theory, the revisions of Lacan and Foucault will serve as the methodology to explore in what way Plath’s dream-like poetry functions as her therapy to cope with the distressing reality in life. Presumably, Plath has conducted this poetry-writing therapy as a ritual till the last day of her life.

Abrams, M. H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 7th ed. New
York: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1999.
Alvarez, A. “Plath’s Concern with Loss of Identity.”
Comprehensive Research and Study Guide: Sylvia Plath. Ed.
& Intro. Harold Bloom. Broomall: Chelsea House
Publishers, 2001.
Annas, Pamela. J. A Disturbance in Mirror: The Poetry of
Sylvia Plath. New York: Greenwood Press, 1988.
---. “The Self in the World: The Social Context of Sylvia
Plath’s Late Poems.” Critical Essays on Sylvia Plath.
Intro. & Comp. Linda W. Wagner. Boston: G. K. Hall &
Company, 1984. 130-9.
Aristotle. The Complete Works of Aristotle. Vol. One. Rev.
Oxford Trans. Ed. Jonathan Barnes. Trans. J. I. Beare.
New Jersey: Princeton UP, 1984.
Axelrod, Steven Gould. Sylvia Plath: The Wound and the Cure
of Words. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1990.
Bassnett, Susan. Women Writers: Sylvia Plath. London:
Macmillan Education LTD, 1987.
Bennett, Paula. “The Mother Bond.” My Life, A Loaded Gun:
Female Creativity and Feminist Poetics. Boston: Beacon
Press, 1986. 97-118.
Bixler-Thomas, Gail. “Understanding Dreams: Perspectives
From the Ancients Through Modern Times.” Online posting.
November 1998. Ondreaming: 18 June 2005
<http://www.ondreaming.com/theories/>.
Bloom, Harold. Comprehensive Research and Study Guide:
Sylvia Plath. Ed. & Intro. Harold Bloom. Broomall:
Chelsea House Publishers, 2001.
Brain, Tracy. The Other Sylvia Plath. New York: Pearson
Education Ltd., 2001.
Brennan, Claire. The Poetry of Sylvia Plath: Essays,
Articles, Reviews. Ed. Claire Brennan. New York: Columbia
UP, 1999.
Brans, Jo. “The Girl Who Wanted to Be God.” Critical
Essays on Sylvia Plath. Intro. & Comp. Linda W. Wagner.
Boston: G. K. Hall & Company, 1984. 55-9.
Buhle, Mari Jo. Feminism and Its Discontents. Cambridge:
Harvard UP, 1998.
Bundtzen, Lynda K. “Lynda K. Bundtzen on Daughter’s
Opposing Perspectives.” Comprehensive Research and Study Guide: Sylvia Plath. Ed. & Intro. Harold Bloom. Broomall:
Chelsea House Publishers, 2001. 22-24.
Burke, Kenneth. “Coleridge: Kubla Khan: or A Vision in a
Dream.” Ed. Oscar Williams. Master Poems of the English
Language. Washington Square Press Edition, 1967.
Butscher, Edward. Sylvia Plath: Method and Madness. New
York: Washington Square Press, 1976.
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. “Kubla Khan,” The Norton
Anthology of English Literature. Vol. 2. Ed. et al., M.
H. Abrams. 7th ed. New York: Norton, 2000.
Day, Martin S. History of English Literature 1660-1837.
New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1963.
Dobbs, Jeannine. “‘Viciousness in the Kitchen’: Sylvia
Plath’s Domestic Poetry.” Modern Language Studies 7.2
(1977): 11-25. Sylvia: 18 June 2005 <http://
www.sylviaplath.de/plath/dobbs.html>.
Dunn, Douglas. “Damaged Instruments.” Critical Essays on
Sylvia Plath. Intro. & Comp. Linda W. Wagner. Boston: G.
K. Hall & Company, 1984. 51-3.
Dyne, Susan Van. “Fueling the Phoenix Fire: The
Manuscripts of Sylvia Plath’s ‘Lady Lazarus.’” Modern
Critical Views: Sylvia Plath. Ed. & Intro. Harold Bloom.
New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1989. 133-47.
Evans, Dylan. An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian
Psychoanalysis. New York: Routledge, 1996.
Feldman, Irving. “The Religion of One.” Sylvia Plath: The
Critical Heritage. Ed. Linda W. Wagner. New York:
Routledge, 1988. 84-88.
Ferrier, Carole. “The Beekeeper’s Apprentice.” Sylvia
Plath: New Views on the Poetry. Ed. Gary Lane. Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins UP, 1979. 203-17.
Foucault, Michel. The Care of the Self: Volume 3 of The
History of Sexuality. Trans. Robert Hurley. New York:
Vintage Books, 1988.
---. “Dream, Imagination and Existence.” Dream And
Existence / Michel Foucault And Ludwig Binswanger. Ed. Keith Hoeller. Trans. Forrest Williams. New Jersey:
Humanities Press, 1993. 31-78.
Freud, Sigmund. On Dreams. Trans. James Strachey. New York:
Norton & Company, 1989.
---. “Beyond the Pleasure Principle.” The Essentials of
Psychoanalysis. Intro. Anan Freud. Trans. James Strachey.
Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1986.
---. The Interpretation of Dreams. Trans. James Strachey.
New York: Avon Books, 1998.
Gerbig, Andrea and Anja Muller-Wood. “Trapped in Language:
Aspects of Ambiguity and Intersexuality in Selected
Poetry and Prose by Sylvia Plath.” Style 36 (2002): 76-
92.
Gilbert, Sandra M. “In Yeats’ House: The Death and
Resurrection of Sylvia Plath.” Critical Essays on Sylvia
Plath. Intro. & Comp. Linda W. Wagner. Boston: G. K. Hall
& Company, 1984. 204-222.
Hall, Caroline King Barnard. Sylvia Plath, Revised. Ed.
Joseph M. Flora. New York: Twayne Publisher, 1998.
Hamilton, Edith. Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and
Heroes. New York: A Mentor Book, 1969.
Hawthorn, Jeremy. “The Bell Jar and the Larger Things:
Sylvia Plath.” Multiple Personality and the
Disintegration of Literary Character. London: Edward
Aronold, 1983. 117-34.
Hayman, Ronald. The Death and Life of Sylvia Plath. Phoenix
Mill: Sutton Publishing Ltd., 2003.
Hobson, J. Allen. The Dreaming Brain. New York: Basic
Books, 1988.
Holbrook, David. Sylvia Plath: Poetry and Existence.
London: The Athlone Press, 1988.
Holy Bible: Authorized King James Version. Grand Rapids:
Zondervan Bible Publishers, 1975.
Howe, Irving. “The Plath Celebration: A Partial Dissent.”
Modern Critical Views: Sylvia Plath. Ed. & Intro. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1989. 5-15.
Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. New
York: Viking, 1964.
Jung, C. G. The Archetypes And The Collective Unconscious.
2nd ed. Trans. R. F. C. Hull. London: Routledge, 1991.
Kauffman, Walter. Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist,
Antichrist. 5th ed. New Jersey: Princeton UP, 1974.
Kenner, Hugh. “Sincerity Kills.” Sylvia Plath: New Views
on the Poetry. Ed. Gary Lane. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
UP, 1979. 33-44.
Kipling, Rudyard. Bloomsbury Thematic Dictionary of
Quotations. New Ed. London: Bloomsbury Publishing
Limited, 1990.
Kirkham, Michael. “Sylvia Plath.” Sylvia Plath: The
Critical Heritage. Ed. Linda W. Wagner. New York:
Routledge, 1988. 276-91.
Kroll, Judith. Chapters in a Mythology: The Poetry of
Sylvia Plath. New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1975.
Lacan, Jacques. Book I: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Ed.
Jacques-Alain Miller. Trans. John Forrester. New York:
Cambridge UP, 1988.
---. Book II: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Ed. Jacques-
Alain Miller. Trans. Sylvana Tomaselli. New York: Norton
& Company, 1991.
---. Book VII: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Ed. Jacques-
Alain Miller. Trans. Dennis Porter. New York: Norton &
Company, 1997.
---. Book XI: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-
Analysis (FFCP). Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Trans. Alan
Sheridan. New York: Norton & Company, 1981.
---. Ecrits. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock
Publications, 1977.
Laplanche, J. & J. B. Pontalis. The Language of Psycho-
analysis. Trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith. Intro. Daniel
Lagache. New York: Norton & Company, 1973.
Lowes, John Livingston. The Road to Xanadu: A Study in the
Ways of the Imagination. New Jersey: Princeton University
Press, 1986.
Macmillan, Malcolm. Freud Evaluated. Fwd. Frederick Crews.
London: MIT Press, 1997.
McClatchy, J. D. “Short Circuits and Folding Mirrors.”
Modern Critical Views: Sylvia Plath. Ed. & Intro. Harold
Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1989. 79-93.
Miller, James. The Passion of Michel Foucault. Cambridge:
Harvard UP, 2000.
Narbeshuber, Lisa. “The Poetics of Torture: The Spectacle
of Sylvia Plath’s Poetry.” Canadian Review of American
Studies 34 (2004): 185-203.
Ostriker, Alicia. “The Americanization of Sylvia.”
Critical Essays on Sylvia Plath. Intro. & Comp. Linda W.
Wagner. Boston: G. K. Hall & Company, 1984. 97-109.
Perloff, Marjorie. “Sylvia Plath’s ‘Sivvy’ Poems: a
Portrait of the Poet as Daughter.” Sylvia Plath: New
Views on the Poetry. Ed. Gary Lane. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins UP, 1979. 155-78.
Pick, Daiel & Lyndal Roper. “Introduction.” Dreams and
History. Ed. Daniel Pick & Lyndal Roper. London: Brunner-
Routledge, 2004. 1-21.
Plath, Sylvia. The Bell Jar. London: Faber and Faber Ltd.,
1982.
---. The Collected Poems: Sylvia Plath. Ed. Ted Hughes. New
York: Harper Perennial, 1991.
---. Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams. London: Faber
and Faber Limited, 1982.
---. The Journals of Sylvia Plath. Ed. Ted Hughes and
Frances McCullough. New York: Anchor Books, 1998.
---. Letters Home. London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1983.
Quinn, Sister Bernetta. “Medusan Imagery in Sylvia
Plath.” Sylvia Plath: New Views on the Poetry. Ed. Gary
Lane. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1979. 97-115.
Rose, Jacqueline. The Haunting of Sylvia Plath. London:
Virago Press, 1991.
Sambrook, Hana. York Notes on Selected Works: Sylvia Plath.
London: Longman Group UK Ltd., 1999.
Schneider, Elisabeth. Coleridge, Opium and Kubla Khan.
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1953.
Schwartz, Murray M. & Christopher Bollas. “The Absence at
the center: Sylvia Plath and suicide.” Sylvia Plath: New
Views on the Poetry. Ed. Gary Lane. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins UP, 1979. 179-202.
Simpson, Louis. Studies of Dylan Thomas, Allen Ginsberg,
Sylvia Plath And Robert Lowell. New York: The Macmillan
Press Ltd., 1978.
States, Bert O. The Rhetoric of Dreams. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1988.
Steiner, Nancy Hunter. A Closer Look at Ariel: A Memory of
Sylvia Plath. Afterword George Stade. London: Faber and
Faber, 1974.
Stevenson, Anne. Bitter Fame: A Life of Sylvia Plath.
Boston: A Peter Davison Book, 1989.
Stewart, Charles. “Dreams And Desires in Ancient And Early
Christian Thought.” Dreams and History. Ed. Daniel Pick
& Lyndal Roper. London: Brunner-Routledge, 2004. 37-56.
Uroff, Margaret Dickie. Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. USA:
Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois, 1980
Wagner, Erica. Ariel’s Gift: Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, And
The Story of Birthday Letters. New York: Faber and Faber
Ltd, 2000.
Wagner-Martin, Linda. Sylvia Plath: A Biography. New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1987.
---. Sylvia Plath: A Literary Life. London: Macmillan Press
LTD, 1999.
Wagner, Linda W. Critical Essays on Sylvia Plath. Intro.
Linda W. Wagner. Boston: G. K. Hall & Company, 1984.
---. Sylvia Plath: The Critical Heritage. Ed. Linda W.
Wagner. London: Routledge, 1988.
Warren, Rebecca. York Notes Advanced: Sylvia Plath Selected
Poems. London: York Press, 2003.
Wisker, Gina. “Viciousness in the Kitchen: Sylvia Plath’s
Gothic.” Gothic Studies 6.1 (2004): 103-117.
Wollheim, Richard. “Dreams.” Sigmund Freud’s The
Interpretation of Dreams. Ed. Harold Bloom. Philadelphia:
Chelsea House Publishers, 1987. 77-87.
Wood, David John. A Critical Study of the Birth Imagery of
Sylvia Plath, American Poet 1923-1936. Lewiston: The
Edwin Mellen Press, 1992.