Using the untimely death of the poet and friend, Sylvia Plath, as a point of departure, Al Alvarez confronts the controversial and often taboo area of human behaviour: suicide. The Savage God explores the cultural attitudes, theories, truths and fallacies surrounding suicide and refracts them through the windows of philosophy,

Using the untimely death of the poet and friend, Sylvia Plath, as a point of departure, Al Alvarez confronts the controversial and often taboo area of human behaviour: suicide. The Savage God explores the cultural attitudes, theories, truths and fallacies surrounding suicide and refracts them through the windows of philosophy,

Books about The Savage God

This book is the biography of a taste in poetry and its consequences. During the 1950s and 1960s, a generation of poets appeared who would eschew the restrained manner of Movement poets such as Philip Larkin, a generation who would, in the words of the introduction to A. Alvarez's classic

When first published in 1997 this groundbreaking work on the science of mood both redefined the field and—with compassion, understanding, and scientific rigor—made it accessible to those who would most benefit from the latest findings. Now, Peter Whybrow, one of the world's most distinguished psychiatrists, has updated his definitive account