Mother Tongues: Sexuality, Trials, Motherhood, Translation

Abstract

Charles Baudelaire, Walter Benjamin and Sylvia Plath make up the odd trio on which this study is based. In the surprising and revealing links between them - links pertaining to troublesome mothers, elusive foreign languages and professional disappointments - Barbara Johnson maps the co-ordinates of her larger claims about the ideal of oneness in every area of life and about the damage done by this idea.