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Contributions: January-February 2000
While browsing through the collections of journals and magazines in the Library I came across the following in the Times Literary Supplement of 31st July 1969 under the heading "Early unpublished poems" by Sylvia Plath, these were `Complaint of the Crazed Queen' [The Queen's Complaint], `battle-Scene from the Comic Operatic fantasy "The Seafarer"', `Dialogue en Route', `letter to a purist', and `Dream of the Hearse-Driver' [The Dream], all of which were later published in "Collected Poems", however, in this publication there is an extra verse in `Complaint of a Crazed Queen', between stanzas two and three:
In ruck and quibble of courtfolk
This giant hulked, I tell you, on her scene
With hands like derricks,
Looks fierce and black as rooks;
Why, all the windows broke when he stalked in.Her dainty acres he ramped through
And used her gentle doves with manners rude;
I do not know
What fury urged him slay
Her antelope who meant him naught but good.[No one pale queen could quell a man
Run so amuck, but by a miracle;
Yet lest he ruin
Her whole choice terrain
She voluntary ran to halt his kill.]She spoke most chiding in his ear
Till he some pity took upon her crying;
Of rich attire
He made her shoulders bare
And solaced her, but quit her at cock's crowing.A hundred heralds she sent out
To summon in her slight all doughty men
Whose force might fit
Shape of her sleep, her thought -
None of that greenhorn lot matched her bright crown.So she is come to this rare pass
Whereby she treks in blood through sun and squall
And sings you thus:
`How sad, alas, it is
To see my people shrunk so small, so small.'
"Poetry" Volume 94 Number 6 September 1959 published three of Plath's poems, `On the Decline of Oracles', `The Death of Myth-Making' and `A Lesson in Vengence'. There are differences here too, in this version of `The Decline of Oracles' to that printed in "Collected Poems". The first, second and fourth stanzas in "CP" remain, the third stanza (which becomes the fifth in "Poetry") is very much altered, and there are two additional stanzas in between:
ON THE DECLINE OF ORACLES
Inside a ruined temple the broken statue [in italics]
of a god spoke a mysterious language.
Giorgio de Chirico
My father kept a speckled conch
By two bronze bookends of ships in sail,
And as I listened its cold teeth seethed
With voices of that ambiguous sea
Old Bocklin missed, who held a shell
To hear the sea he could not hear.
What the seashell spoke to his inner ear
He knew, but no peasants know.My father died, and when he died
He willed his books and shell away;
The books burned up, sea took the shell,
But I, I keep the voices he
Set in my ear, and in my eye
The sight of those blue, unseen waves
For which the ghost of Bocklin grieves.
The peasants feast and multiplyAnd never need see what I see.
In the Temple of Broken Stones, above
A worn curtain, rears the white head
Of a god or madman. Nobody knows
Which, or dares ask. From him I have
Tomorrow's gossip and doldrums. So much
Is vision good for: like a persistant stich
In the side, it nags, is tedious.Straddling a stool in the third-floor window -
Booth of the Alexandra House
Over Petty Cury, I regard
With some fatigue the smoky rooms
Of the restaurant opposite; see impose
Itself on the cook at the steaming stove
A picture of what's going to happen. I've
To wait it out. It will come. It comes:Three barely-known men are coming up
A stair: this veils both stove and cook.
One is pale, with orange hair;
Behind glasses the second's eyes are blurred;
The third walks leaning on a stick
And smiling. These trivial images
Invade the cloistral eye like pages
From a gross comic strip, and towardThe happening of this happening
The earth turns now. In half an hour
I shall go down the shabby stair and meet,
Coming up, those three. Worth
Less than present, past - this future.
Worthless such vision to eyes gone dull
That once descried Troy's towers fall,
Saw evil break out of the north.Stephen Tabor notes, in his "Sylvia Plath: An Analytical Bibliography" that Plath read this version at a reading and interview with Lee Anderson, Springfield, Massachusetts, on 18th April 1958, but by the reading for the Woodberry Poetry Room, Lamont Library, Harvard University, at Fassett Recording Studio, Boston, on 22nd February 1959, this had been changed to the version as found in "Collected Poems", though the "Poetry" publication with the original version was published seven months later.
I found the full text of a short piece broadcast by Plath which was referred to by Janice Markey in her "A Journey Into The Red Eye: The poetry of Sylvia Plath - a critique" (p.70). This was printed in "The Listener" on 9th May, 1968, (p.607), under the heading "Eccentricity":
The voice of the late Sylvia Plath was heard in the St.George's Day edition of Woman's Hour. `One of the things that I like most about the English is their ability to be themselves to such an extent that they're strikingly different from anything else. When I went first to stay at an English home, I remember the mother was doing needlepoint. I thought this was a charming English thing and I went over and she was doing a needlepoint of penicillin mould. Then I saw that on the footstools, instead of cosy roses or something of that sort, she had done needlepoint of rattlesnakes'backs. That night when I was going to bed, she very seriously offered me my choice of a hot-water bottle or a cat. She didn't have enough hot-water bottles to go round or enogh cats to go round, but if she used both of them, they came out even. I chose the cat.'
John Hopkins
Bridgend, S Wales, U.K.
Saturday, February 26, 2000
In response to Antti Visnen's query, I highly recommend Linda Wagner-Martin's first biography (Simon & Schuster 1987), for which I supplied information, and her SYLVIA PLATH: A LITERARY lIFE (Macmillan 1999). In addition, Wagner-Martin's (then Linda Wagner's) CRITICAL ESSAYS ON SYLVIA PLATH (G.K Hall, 1984) is a valuable resource. The two feminist studies I would recommend are Lynda K. Bundtzen's PLATH'S INCARNATIONS (Univ. Michigan 1983)and Janice Markey's A JOURNEY INTO THE RED EYE; THE POETRY OF SYLVIA PLATH (Women's Press UK 1993). I would also recommend Pamela Annas's A DISTURBANCE IN MIRRORS (Greenwood 1988).The bibliographies on Plath are now so enormous, it's difficult for newcomers to sort out what might be useful, especially if one does not live in the UK or the US.
Jack Folsom
Sharon, Vermont, USA
Thursday, February 24, 2000
In response to Antti - there is some social commentary in all of Linda Wagner-Martin's work on Plath, her best book (in my opinion, anyway) being her latest, Sylvia Plath A Literary Life. There is also a fine examination of America in the 50s in Reflecting On The Bell Jar by Pat MacPherson. A really good book on Plath's later poems is Revising Life Sylvia Plath's Ariel Poems by Susan R. Van Dyne. But I don't think I've come across anything lately as *modern* as Jacqueline Rose, or as political.Lena Friesen
Toronto, Canada
Thursday, February 24, 2000
I just found out that Anne Sexton went to McLean Hospital in 1968 and arranged a poetry workshop. I consider this to be very interesting. Why there? How many other poets and writers beside Sylvia have been there? Maybe it is true that genius and insanity are very close together. Wouldnt it be interesting to get hold of a list of McLeans visitors?By the way, I am working on a thesis about the Bell Jar. I hope to finish it by the end of March. It is about feminism, beeing a woman in the Bell Jar and mothering. It is written in German. If somebody is interested, contact me.
Tina
Mannheim, Germany
Wednesday, February 23, 2000
Has anybody read Linda Wagner-Martin's biography and her other studies on Sylvia Plath? If so, what do you think of them? Are they worth reading if one seeks information beyond the typical "traumas about father, mother, husband, etc." -approach in her poetry? What about other biographies? Personally, I've studied only Stevenson's and Malcolm's work.Furthermore, can anyone recommend any recent (1990s) studies on Plath, say, from the point of view of feminist criticism and stylistics? I personally find Jacqueline Rose's 'The Haunting of Sylvia Plath' most interesting, but it really does not focus on the poetry itself that much. What I'm seeking is a study that approaches Plath's work from both textual and cultural, social, etc. sides. Does anyone know whether such studies exist or are in progress?
I'm doing my Master's Thesis on social criticism in Plath's poetry and I'm approaching the topic from the point of view of critical discourse analysis. If anyone is interested in knowing about my study or if anyone needs help with, for example, 'Ariel' -poems in terms of their symbolism, themes, stylistic aspects, cultural and historical context, etc., I'll be happy to help.
Antti Visnen
Jyvskyl, Finland
Wednesday, February 23, 2000
I'm in my first year in college, i'm studing languages, and i have an assignment about the poem "you're" by Sylvia Plath. This is the first time i'm hearing about Sylvia Plath, and it's really difficult for me understanding the meaning of this poem, and the author's linguistic choices. I really appreciate if someone could give some help!! Thanks LisaLisa Melani Wolfenden
Livorno, Italy
Wednesday, February 23, 2000
Just bought the new paperback edition of "Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams" and happily devoured it. Anyone else new to this book have any thoughts or feelings? Not being a serious Plath scholar, but rather "just" a fan, I was amazed at how her journals, poems, stories, and essays all layered over each other rather than existing as separate entities. I know there is some debate over the impending release of more complete journals due this summer (in England only, alas, but thank goodness for amazon.uk!)--but I'm excited not at the "peanut-crunching" aspect of hoping to find more gossipy bits, but at the chance to really explore how her journals existed for trial runs at her stories and essays. Or rather--how all of her work--journals, poetry, essays, stories--are layered one on top of each other, sometimes interwoven and inseparable.Ann
Boston, USA
Monday, February 21, 2000
I have a question about "Ariel": what is the correct definition of "tor"? I have read that is a sacrificial altar; however, in my Websters dictionary and in my Norton Anthology, it is defined as "a high, rocky hill" and a "craggy hill." Thanks.Darcey
Berkeley, USA
Monday, February 21, 2000
Some lines I wrote over thirty years ago that I always felt relevant to Sylvia:
The only hope is to stick to the same
We really should never been born
We give you your moments of magic and mirth
And love you in spite of the scorn
And the `scorn' goes both ways.Douglas Clark
Bath, England
Saturday, February 19, 2000
Those readers who live in the U.K. and are within travelling distance of Bath might like to know that on 3rd March, 2000 at the Bath Literature Festival there is an event "Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes: A Literary relationship" -This evening we bring together writers, journalists and a film-maker
to offer their insights into the relationship and its unique fascination.The panel consists of Erica Wagner, writer and Literary Editor of The Times, Alison Owen, film producer, who is working with Miramax on a film of Sylvia Plath, to star Gwyneth Paltrow, Maureen Freely, novelist, and Bel Mooney, author, broadcaster and journalist.
This event is to be held at the Guildhall, Bath between 8.30 p.m. and 10.00 p.m. Tickets cost 7
The Box Office telephone No. is 01225 463362 and their e-mail on
boxoffice@bethfestivals.org.ukIt should be an interesting evening, particularly if one gets the opportunity to question Alison Owen about THAT film.
Tickets were still available when I contacted the Box Office on 17th February.
John Hopkins
Bridgend, S Wales, U.K.
Saturday, February 19, 2000
For UK readers I just bought `The Journals of Sylvia PLath' from Amazon UK at a very cheap price. This is an American book first published in the States in 1982, but withheld from the UK. It should serve as a useful introduction to the fuller set due for publication later this year. Under ten pounds!Douglas Clark
Bath, England
Saturday, February 19, 2000
I am looking for the dates of magazine articles where sylvia's work was published or articles were written on her. i know the vogue a few years ago, i have that one, and, the seventeen august 1950 issue with "and summer will not come again" i know she was in mademoiselle, does anyone know the date the magazine was published?Casey
Mansfield, USA
Thursday, February 17, 2000
Does anyone know where I can obtain a photograph of Sylvia Plath and Ted Huges for publication in a book about their collaboration? Where are her archives? Thank youTerri Mackeigan
Preston, UK
Tuesday, February 15, 2000
2. name: 3.Town: Preston I am studying sylvia plath's work in school and am writing an essay on her perceptions of beauty in paradoxically ( what some may call) morbid ,depressing and macabre events and situations. I, as i am sure the majority of people who visit this site , identify with much of her work, especially "insomniac" and am fascinated by her melancholy words and vibrant imagery.I find her work highly inspirational and would like to read other people's interpretations(both positive and negative)of poems like insomniac , mirror , the rival , edge , cut ,Crossing the water , resolve and the moon and the yew tree.
I was also wandering if anyone else could see the similarities in both the style of the narrative and the main characters in The Bell Jar and JD Salinger's the Catcher in the Rye?
Kiara
Oxted, Britain
Monday, February 14, 2000
Have you all heard about the Plath journals coming out in April - covering the years 59 to 62 and published by Faber & Faber? I'm an irregular visitor to the forum so if this has already been mentioned, I'm sorry.Secondly, Martin McGann - I have tried to email you but if that didn't get to you, it was to say I'd be happy to talk Plath anytime. My modem is a bit suspect, so if you haven't got my message, do try to email me! Thanks.
Joanna Quinn
Dorset, England
Sunday, February 13 2000
Does anyone out there find Plath's poetry disturbingly distasteful abd shocking, but can't help admire it for its technical merit? Am I the only one? And does anyone else see spiritual ectoplasm in Fever 103?Gillian
Wasington, Tyne and Wear, England
Saturday, February 12 2000
I found this in The Guardian's archive section. It was in the 15 January 2000 newspaper and is reviewing the Radio 3's airing of Plath's "Three Women." Thought you all might be interested.
There was more splendid drama in Three Women , Radio 3's adaptation of a Sylvia Plath poem about a trio of pregnant women, one accidentally and unhappily so - "I am drummed into use." Another revels in it: "When I walk out, I am a great event." A third miscarries, and there can rarely have been a more vivid account of the loss. All three must have been dimensions of Plath's own experience of pregnancy, as they are of most women's.
More strikingly than any other writer I've read, Plath identifies the connections between childbirth and death - the fear of the death of the self as well as that of the body - along with the intensity of the physical bond. The stunningly crisp text was beautifully performed by Lindsay Duncan, Amanda Root and Harriet Walter, while Robin Rimbaud, alias Scanner, provided an electronic score with a almost amniotic, womb-music power in Susan Roberts's fine production.
Peter K Steinberg
Springfield, VA, USA
Friday, February 11, 2000
"Dear Mother,I am writing from London, so happy I can hardly speak. I *think* I have found a place. I had resigned myself to paying high sums for a furnished place for the winter while I looked for an unfurnished one with a longish lease that I could then furnish...By an absolute *fluke* I walked by *the* street and *the* house (with Primrose Hill at the end) where I've always wanted to live...Flew to the agents - hundreds of people ahead of me, I thought, as always. It seems I have a *chance*! And guess what, it is *W. B. Yeats' house* - with a blue plaque over the door, saying he lived there!"
November 7, 1962
Now then, when is Plath getting her own blue plaque?
Rest in peace, Sylvia.
Lena Friesen
Toronto, Canada
Friday, February 11, 2000
I haven't visited the Forum much lately (my first child was born in July 1999, so I'm more likely to be found in the "Baby Spit-Up Forum" these days) but am trying to make up for lost time.Most of the Plath biographies mention "Patsy O'Neill," but I've never seen anything about who she was. Apparently she was a close friend of Plath (in "Letters Home," SP says she hopes Patsy will be a bridesmaid in her American wedding to Hughes). I find it interesting that most biographers have tracked down most of her close friends and classmates, but not Patsy O'Neill. Thanks, Nancy
Nancy
Virginia, USA
Friday, February 11, 2000
I am currently working on a detailed analysis of 'The Applicant' and would find anyone else's interpretation of the poem very useful. Could any analyses be emailled to me directly?Thanks.Eva Yates
Glasgow, Scotland
Friday, February 11, 2000
I have just been thinking about the poem two sisters of persephone. I think that the two descriptions of the girls could possible be the same person. I really feel that somehow they are linked. However in a sense I ask myself how can they be? because they are so different. Perhaps they represent two different sides of the same person but somehow this seems a little bit 'neat' for one of Plath's poems.At first I came across the obstacle of how can they be the same person if one is a virgin and the other is hinted at being pregnant. However perhaps one is no longer a virgin to nature - she is described as fruitful and her pregnancy could be a symbol - its by the sun and the labour in the grass, like she is becoming part of nature like an element.
The other is encased in her darkness. However she seems to be superior and have an insight into the world. The other is being 'lulled' which carries a sinister tone. Perhaps it outlines a sense of differnet personalities within life following the idea of 'ignorance is bliss'.
As you can see my thoughts are abit disorganised and are just beginning to take shape, any other thoughts would be most welcome on this or 'Lady Lazurus'
Amy
England
Tuesday, February 8, 2000
Regarding Jack Folsom's recent posting: hear, hear! I don't think there is anything wrong with students asking for some input or guidance...it's nice that they take the trouble to even visit this spot. But there DOES seem to be a preponderence of letters that do exactly what Jack says: expect this forum to provide the answers for them! I'm really dismayed by the lack of original thinking and intellectual curiosity on display.Elaine used to post a header at the top of this page asking students not to do this exact thing. Perhaps it's time for a repeat!
Ann
Boston, USA
Monday, February 7, 2000
Hi, At the moment I'm really enjoying reading some of Plath's works. However it would be much appreciated if I could have any opinions or some form of analysis on the poem - 'the 2 sisters of Persephone'. I am actually reading for plesure rather than formal study and I would loke to see how my view of this poem corresponds with others.Thankyou
Zohra
Marlow, England
Monday, February 7, 2000
I recently had the opportunity to read Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar. I found it fascinating, and thus chose to do my term paper on her. She endured a lot within the span of her short life, and I find her to be a truly remarkable woman, as well as a very gifted writer. Her poetry has the capability to leave one with chills after reading it, making Plath a poet and writer worth reading. If anyone has any thoughts on The Bell Jar, or just Plath in general, I would greatly appreciate it if you could foward them! Thanks a lot! :)Jessica Tiare
Hollywood, USA
Saturday, February 5, 2000
I am a stundent here in Macon and My English teacher is having us read "Ariel" and "Birthday Letters". At first I was just doing the assignment but lately I have found myself loving Plath's work. It is so intense and unexpected. I enjoy reading Plath's book and then comparing to Hughes view of her and their life together. It amazes me that one woman went through so much in just thirty-one years. Right now I am writing a paper on "Lady Lazarus" and "Fever". I am up for discussing it with who ever. Please e-mail me at tina_michelle_cassandra@yahoo.com.Tina
Macon, GA, USA
Friday, February 4, 2000
I'm by no means an expert on Sylvia Plath as a person, or her work. I find this forum both facinating and entertaining. I think the poems inspired by Plath in this forum are unique and moving. There is a short poem, writen by Ann Sexton, dealing with the death of Plath. I've forgotten how it goes..something like.."I say with my arms stretched out in this stone place, what is your death but an old belonging."I don't know what I can contribute to this site, but I can tell you what I find unique about Sylvia Plath.... Her work is like fire. Her words are hot to the touch. Reading her words has the same effect of standing to close to a very large fire, a bonfire, when your eyes water and you need to look away. She is shocking, disturbing, attractive, scary, and sexy. You wish she were still alive and think about what could have been. She is a "dark and willowy being", to steal a line from one of your poets on this forum. Something really attractive about that. Well, enough of my babbling...great site!! Keep it up!
Richard
Chicago, USA
Thursday, February 3, 2000
As a Plath scholar, I am a "charter member" of the Sylvia Plath Forum, having participated since its inception in January 1998 after the publication of Ted Hughes's "Birthday Letters." During the time since, Elaine and Chris have done a marvelous job with the postings, resources, and links. My only dismay is that young students continue to write in, expecting somebody to do their homework for them, and to do it NOW, because they have a paper due TUESDAY. They don't seem to have the energy even to explore the commentaries that are archived in the Forum, let alone go to the library and look for critical or biographical studies on Plath, not to mention all that can be found on the internet.Part of the problem is of course teachers who assign papers without adequate briefing on resources. But a big part of the problem too is the growing custom of students purloining (look the word up in your dictionary!) material to lather into their assigned lit papers. There may be a failure in the system here, which is regrettable, but no excuse for the "everyone else does it!" self-defense.
Jack Folsom
Sharon, Vermont, USA
Wednesday, February 2, 2000 0
Bit of a shot in the dark, but has anyone got a copy of the poem Daniel Huws wrote in response to Sylvia Plath's "Three Caryatids Without A Portico" in about 1956? It first appeared in "Chequer", a fairly minor Cambridge literary magazine. Archive trawls here have so far proved fruitless.(Typing this email from Hughes's old room, on the walls of which he charcoaled a giant hawk, now sadly long painted out. I expect Sylvia Plath must have come here at some point.)
Si Williams
Cambridge, England
Wednesday, February 2, 2000
Sorry folks, I have just recently switched e-mail accounts and got a little confused...... Any contributions concerning my previous submission need to go to octopus_16@excite.com. Thanks.Karen Bury
Tucson, USA
Wednesday, February 2, 2000
Does anybody know how to contact Paul Alexander? The Da Capo Press in N.Y. does not seem to forward any letters. A psychologist from Switzerland who is working on a book on Plath asked me for help in this matter.Anja Beckmann
Leipzig, Germany
Sunday, January 30, 2000
Pleased to announce that the new The Bell Jar should be in all American stores by 01 February. And thrilled to announce the availability of Johnny Panic & the Bible of Dreams in American bookshops for the first time in years. It's back in print and deserving.Peter K Steinberg
Springfield, VA, USA
Saturday, January 29, 2000
Hello, I am a student who has chosen to study Sylvia Plath for her final english major assignment. I am a little confused as I had intended to look at the work of feminist writers and so forth but have been told that strictly speaking she was not a feminist, is this right?? I thought elements of her work suggest that she is.Laura
Adelaide, Australia
Friday, January 28, 2000
I was wondering if anyone could send me an opinion of Death & Co. I haven't been able to find much on this poem despite trawling the net! At the moment all I recognise as themes are the predatory and schizophrenic nature of death. I need to do a presentation on it (not too substantial) and would really appreciate someone giving me a hand identifying the main issues and symbols. Thanks very much.Lucy Mitra
Bishops Stortford, England
Friday, January 28, 2000
I am a student who has chosen to study Sylvia Plath for her final english major assignment. I am a little confused as I had intended to look at the work of feminist writers and so forth but have been told that strictly speaking she was not a feminist, is this right?? I thought elements of her work suggest that she is. LauraLaura
Adelaide, Australia
Friday, January 28, 2000
Hi, for my english literature class I have just been given the complex question: "Is the intensity of Plath's poetry unable to compensate for it's narrow emotional range?". I am a self confessed Plath amateur and was wondering if anyone could assist me in my plight to answer this broad question I would greatly appreciate it.Daniel
London, England
Thursday, January 27, 2000
Many thanks to all those poeple who replied to my cry for help. Your comments are much appreciated.Judith Whitham
Rochdale (near Hebden Bridge!), England
Thursday, January 27, 2000
Could anyone provide me w/ links/articles/e-mail/whatever with an analysis of "Lesbos?" I'm writing a paper on this and I'd like to a get a good feel of this poem, besides my own analysis. Thanks,Abraham Song
Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Tuesday, January 25, 2000
I won the 'national young poet of the year award' from the poetry society and am soon to spend a week in the Hughes old home, often visited by Silvia, and would like somebody to give me pointers for local literary, espesially Plath related, if anybody reading this comes from near there. (Please mail me)The Bell Jar. This is my favourite novel ever, hence my e-mail address, and I would love to start a friendship with somebody over e-mail who can discuss this and her poetry with me. I have been looking for this for a long time and reading some of the messages here I really want to chat to somebody about this wonderfully poet cum author who only touches one other of my friends.
Thanks for reading, somebody please mail me!
Martin McGann
Newcastle, England
Tuesday, January 25, 2000
Hi, I am currently studying Plath's work and would be interested in any views anyone may have about the extent to which she is a Modernist poet, and/or her treatment of topics in a distinctly feminine way ( specifically with ref. to her poems featured in "Contemporary Women Poets" anthology). Please e-mail me directly if poss. Thank you so much.Karen Bury
Tucson, USA
Tuesday, January 25, 2000
Does anyone out there think that the intensity of Plath's poetry cannot compensate for it's narrow emotional range. If anyone agrees or disagrees with this statement, please email me and tell me your reasoning. Thanks.Jack
London, England
Tuesday, January 25, 2000
I would like to talk about a poem not, as yet, featured. It was the first on eof hers that caught my attention and despite the amazing Ariel poesm it still hold smy interest most.Stillborn seems to me to be a reflection on how she felt discomfort and depression at the progress of her poetry. I now know that this was because she couldn't get it published and was never satisfied with its construction. Its roots are held with Dick Norton and her own miscarriage. It seems to me to be a wonderfully clear and understandable view opening a window to those Ariel poems by leading us down the path of her depression and how her displeasure with the wirtings she was producing effected her.
Martin McGann
Newcastle, England
Monday, January 24, 2000
I am teaching "Ariel" to A level students at Oulder Hill Community School. I am somewhat unfamiliar with her poetry and would like any ideas to start us off - like easy introduction to her work.Judith Whitham
Rochdale (near Hebden Bridge!), England
Monday, January 24, 2000
I was wondering if anyone could help me with a quotation - I just read Ted Hughes' "The Suitor" and I know Plath said something about it being his best story, then she went on to say who are the characters in it were. Does anyone know where I can find this? Thanks!Lena Friesen
Toronto, Canada
Sunday, January 23, 2000
Thanks for the greeting, Peter! Jha does indeed veer off outright saying that Plath turned on herself - he makes the act of suicide sound like a comfort:She is reconciled that it is better to cross over to the dangerous edge of life into the eternal calm of death, the final act of salvation for which she has purified herself in "Fever 103". Purged of all the fury of fearful existence, the woman welcomes death in a touching but impassive tone...(he then quotes from Cleopatra and Lady Macbeth - the latter quote making almost no sense in context)...The tranquil composure of death in the woman's body is tell-tale eventually of the resolve in the poet's mind - a resolve that would be translated into real death all too soon....It is such a detached experience of death that sets the poet apart from others; "the only difference between artists and people like me," says Charles Newman, "is that the artists watch themselves die, while we're dead before we know it."
Well. I appreciate Jha's determination to read "Edge" as a peaceful poem, but he is mixing up the poem with real life. The writing is elegant and fierce; her actual death was anything but. And I don't like the notion that Plath somehow watched herself die: that is sentimentalizing the situation. Plath was a depressed woman with two children who was trying to survive the winter and wanted to get better. All the deaths mentioned in Ariel are there, but they are poems; I don't think she offered herself up as the last victim.
Lena Friesen
Toronto, Canada
Wednesday, January 19, 2000
Ever since I read the first poem by Sylvia Plath in 1995 i felt how the interest of knowing about her more grew faster and faster. Since then Ia have been reading and re-reading some poems from The Colossus or the Ariel Poems, as well as Letters Home. But trying to know her more, recently I have begun to read Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes, and it is impressive how strong and touching it is to stablish ralationships between the poets as well as between their poetry.Being a playwright, as I am, the conflict of the love and marital relationship strikes me so. I want to thank and congratulate this Sylvia Plath Forum for giving me and other people the chance of expresing our thoughts about somebody so enrichng and human as Sylvia Plath.
Thank you.
Silvia Pelez
Mexico City, Mexico
Tuesday, January 18, 2000
First of all, Happy Birthday Lena Friesen of Toronto!!!!!!! I just completed the Indian biography of Sylvia Plath by Pashupati Jha! The Chapters were rather like a roller coaster & it contains the worst editing I've ever had to read, with loads of grammatical errors (kind of like some of my postings, anyway.) The final Chapter on Fear in the Bell Jar, looking at the regression & aggression Plath uses to push her way through New York and everything after was one of the least interseting, along with the Chapter on the poems of the Colossus. The most interesting Chapters were dealing with the Transitional poems and the Ariel & Winter Trees poems. Jha presented something to me whic I have never thought about in reading the Ariel poems, and that is Plath's systematic, necessary killing of people. Yes, after much though Plath and the book Ariel are much like a Rambo movie (no, Sylvester Stallone will not be playing Ted Hughes or Sylvia Plath in any movie). On page 96, in the chapter dealing with The Poetry of Aggression, Jha writes ..."Thus, 'Ariel' becomes the last act of a revenge tragedy when the 'I' of the speaker runs through the 'Eye' of the sun and is extinguished for ever. The early 'I' of the protagonist (in pre-1962 poems) was a weakling, fearful of each onslaught from outside, the new 'I', forged by the flame of 'Fever 103' is strong enough to stare directly at the pivot of the universe. After metaphorically killing husband ('Purah'), mother ('Medusa'), father ('Daddy'), other tormentors ('Lady Lazarus'), and shaking off other fearful 'hooks' like 'Dead hands, dead stringencies,' the speaker assumes a new identity...'
What Jha I think was getting at, and what he did not go as far as, is that after these metaphorical killings of husband, father, mother and onlookers Plath in 'Edge' killed herself and her children and then literally killed herself. Does anyone have any opinions on this? I think it's quite remarkable.
Peter K Steinberg
Springfield, VA, USA
Monday, January 17, 2000
Thank you to everyone who wrote to me or posted here about the meaning of the rose on the cover. If there's a picture of Sylvia herself holding a rose on the back of the book, this would make sense, in a way. I've never seen that picture, gotta go and check out Peter's collection again.Just the way it is so romantically posed on the front cover - I really don't like it. It's going for a certain market, and if I hadn't heard of Sylvia Plath I wouldn't have taken a book with such a cover serious, I'm a bit oldfashioned in that. But then I'm spoiled for nice covers by the German book industry.
By placing a photo of Sylvia holding the rose on the back cover of the book the editors really seemed to stress that connection between her life and the book, so people read it as Sylvia's life, as an autobiography, not as a novel that she wrote. Could that be? When I read the book I didn't know she was describing an episode from her life, but that didn't diminish the reading experience in any way for me. If I read something that's well-written, it becomes real to me, no matter whether it is based on facts or just fictional.
Something else I noticed while looking at Peter's photo gallery - all the places where Sylvia lived or went to school or to college look so nice and idyllic, Smith and Cambridge especially. Their first appartment in London must have been a real shock to her after all that beauty before.
Anja Beckmann
Leipzig, Germany
The photograph from the August 1953 Mademoiselle (page 252) is up now. The link is http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Cafe/8648/rose.jpg I hope it's good enough for all those curiouos. I applaud the overwhelming response to Anja's question concerning the rose. It would appear that many many more are out there that are not contributing, or just contributing when they know something. It's fantastic to see such a large number! Truly, it is. Thank you!!Peter K Steinberg
Springfield, VA, USA
Friday, January 14, 2000
Anja, the rose on the cover is the rose that Plath holds in the Bell Jar scene where her photograph is being taken for the magazine. IT is just a magnificent enlargement from the original. This photograph is an actual event; in the August 1953 Mademoiselle issue there is published a photograph of Plath holding a rose. I will scan that tonight into my webpage. (The photograph is on the back cover of the first US edition & some book club editions.) Come on, give us a smile!Peter K Steinberg
Springfield, VA, USA
Thursday, January 13, 2000
Anja - re possible meanings for the hand with rose on the new American editions of the Bell Jar. When Plath worked at that infamous summer guest editorship with Mademoiselle magazine she was (like all the girls) snapped in a pose 'symbolic' of her ambitions. The photographer interpreted Plath's poetic dreams by sticking a rose in her hand (I've seen the snap in one biography or other, but forget which - maybe Linda Wagner Martin's). Think that might be it?Tanya
Bristol, England
Thursday, January 13, 2000
Anja, I haven't seen the new cover, but the 'hand with a rose' photograph was first used on the 1st American edition of the Bell Jar, in 1971. The hand is Plath's own, and the photograph was taken while she was in New York and working on Madmoiselle magazine. The back jacket of the 1st edition shows the entire photograph. The front jacket photo of the hand with the rose is a photo negative of the original print. I don't have the book in front of me to quote, but there is a passage in the Bell Jar describing the photo session. The excerpt is also printed on the back of the jacket of the 1st American edition.Kim
Detroit, USA
Thursday, January 13, 2000
I may be way off here, but in reference to the "hand and rose" photograph on the new and some older editions of THE BELL JAR, I believe there is actually a picture of Plath from her Mademoiselle days, sitting on a couch, holding a rose. I know that the first time I read THE BELL JAR I got an old hardcover edition from the library, and the whole photo, not just the hand holding the rose, was on the back of the jacket. I always thought that that photo was used because of the very similar scene in the novel, where Esther is in a photo session, holding a rose, and then bursts inexplicably in tears.Maria
Cincinnati, OH, USA
Thursday, January 13, 2000
I am an English honors high school student trying to write a comparison essay between "Daddy" and "Mirror". My problem is not as much in finding imagry in the seperate poems, as comparing them to one another. Any help would be greatly appreciated! I am having far more trouble with "Daddy" than with "Mirror"Sarah
South Carolina, USA
Thursday, January 13, 2000
Just a minor correction... "Girl, Interrupted" was filmed on various locations in Pennsylvania, mainly in the unused wing of an currently operating institution.Ann
Boston, USA
Thursday, January 13, 2000
Peter, thank you for pointing out the new edition of "the bell jar" in America. Do you know why the American editions all feature this rose or a hand with a rose? Is this referring to something in particular? If so, the reference completely eludes me. I like the cover of the first ever edition best (the picture on your homepage), it really shows you what the book is about and doesn't try to romanticise it. I don't really understand why that old font was chosen for the new cover either. For me the book has nothing that justifies a cover like that. Does anybody know more about this? I like the faber&faber editions of her works, nice designs.Anja Beckmann
Leipzig, Germany
Wednesday, January 12, 2000
I am currently studying the poem "Daddy" for my english A level course and am having trouble understanding the tenth stanza. We have been asked to analyse in particular the line "every woman loves a fascist". if you can shed light on the meaning of this stanza and what Plath means by this line in particular i would be grateful, thanks.Jack
London, England
Tuesday, January 11, 2000
Jim, re De Bellis--
Check the press kit for "Bitter Fame."Kenneth Jones
San Francisco, USA
Tuesday, January 11, 2000
Help! I am writing my MA thesis about Sylvia Plath and I badly need any resources or criticism. There are many biographies, but that is not what I need. I am especially interested in the development of the masculinity imagery in her works and in her own development as a woman writer. Please, e-mail me. Thanks a lot.Marta
Dzieroniw, Poland
Tuesday, January 11, 2000
I need someone to please send me an analysis of Plath's poem 'The Applicant' a.s.a.p. I'd really appreciate it if you could directly e-mail me the analysis. Thanks, --UzmaUzma Gilani
Lahore, Pakistan
Tuesday, January 11, 2000
For those of you interested in seeing what the new paperback edition of The Bell Jar looks like please visit amazon.com and search under Sylvia Plath Publication Date 2000. It's a bizarre looking cover indeed. The book should be out by months end! I am currently reading a tough to find biography of Plath called Sylvia Plath: The Fear and Fury of Her Muse by Pashupati Jha. I had to get this book from India, it's place of publication and there are relatively few copies out there I think. Or, it's just so good no one's selling it. The book begins with and Introduction which is small reviews of the major critical works done on Plath from the beginning in the late 1960's and early 1970's with Charles Newman's delightful book The Art of Sylvia Plath and moving through forgotten favorites such as Edward Butscher's two books, Mary Lynn Broe's Protean Poetic and Margaret Dickie Uroff's Sylvia Plath & Ted Hughes. It's a fair introduction and bashes the necessary out-of-print titles like David Holbrook's perverse psychoanalytical book Sylvia Plath: Poetry & Existence. The second chapter starts to get funky and fearful. It 'traces the sources, circumstances, and the types of fear, and reasons behind them in the life of Plath,' from all her major works. The following chapters (all five of them) deal more specifically with the fear, themes of regression and aggression and the role and presence of fear in The Bell Jar. All in all it's a highly unique approach to PLath that has heretofore been ignored by many bi!ographers critics, etc. I am sure there is material out there, in abundance, but it is I am sure in the dark shadows of libraries & archives. Jha's conclusion is that fear 'with its manigold manifestations, informs, creates, and controls, the entire Plath oeuvre.Many Plath fans will be aware that the movie Girl, Interrupted will be opening soon across the US. This is the story of Susanah Kaysen and her nearly two years spent at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Ma. As we all know Plath spent a few months there recovering from her mental breakdown in 1953. I recently had to pleasure to spend a couple hours at McLean and have placed some notes and photographs on my website (see links page). It should prove to be a decent movie paling in comparison perhaps to the book itself. But, if it was filmed on location, should give so many a chance to see one of the most famous US mental institutions.
Peter K Steinberg
Springfield, VA, USA
Friday, January 7, 2000
I'm a research assistant for Jack De Bellis who's writing a book on John Updike, and we're trying to track down the place where Updike said the following about Sylvia Plath: the best--the most exciting and influential, the most ruthlessly original--poet of her generation. The line occurs on the back of the jacket of Anne Stevenson's Bitter Fame: A Life of Sylvia Plath. We would greatly appreciate any help you can give us in tracking down the source of the quote. We suspect it comes from a review printed in Britain, but don't have any real clues. Thanks,Jim
Los Angeles, USA
Wednesday, January 5, 2000
The article by Carolyne Wright, which Lena Friesen recommended and linked, is one of the few conversations with Ted Hughes of any substance ever made public. As such, it is definitely worth reading against the background of "Birthday Letters," published almost ten years later. Much of what Hughes said then about his relationship with Sylvia reappears later in the poems. Wright's article thus becomes a counterpoint to the poems, especially when she interweaves lines from the poems with her own report of what he said in 1989 -- in Banghladesh of all places!My only reservation about the article is the overblown, gushing style in which it is written. A good reporter should not draw attention to herself by verbal posturing. On the other hand, if one enjoys highblown prose, here's a good-sized dose. To Wright's credit, she made me remember a "meet-the-famous-writer" experience of my own years ago -- in Istanbul, Turkey of all places. At a Robert College reception, I got into a conversation about literature with James Baldwin. We became so involved talking that we slipped into an adjoining room and hid under a grand piano so we wouldn't be disturbed. I wish I could remember now what he said!
Jack Folsom
Sharon, Vermont, USA
Tuesday, January 4, 2000
I am a student learning about plath and am currently struggling to write a comparison between the poems "You're" and "Winter trees", I am not even sure what the real messages plath is trying to portray in these two poems.I am almost convinced that in "You're" Plath is describing her baby, and that in the "winter trees", she seems to be implying that she has had a miscarriage in several lines of this poem. Any insight into my problems would be greatly welcome. Thanks.Daniel
London, England
Tuesday, January 4, 2000
It's 1:35 in the morning and I, an ex-patriate in Europe, am hunting HotBot for tales of one of my favorite female poets. What a luck to find this discussion forum! After re-reading and noticing the dates in Plath's "Collected Poems" I felt the desire to join the "peanut-crunching crowd" by trying to put Plath's work into perspective by getting more biographical info. But what I found (and the sketchy ideas I heretofore had) haven't really changed my opinions or understanding of her artistry. I agree with the last post. Although Plath's work is undeniably rooted in her "confessional" life story it seems a shame to relegate a discussion of her work to the confines of cultural criticism. Without knowing every lurid detail of her relationship with Ted Hughes, or the combination of anger-betrayel-loss that she felt for her own father, I was still thrilled as a 17 year old high school student when I read my first Plath poem "Daddy." This poets strength with language and remarkable style are what make her poems post-modern masterpieces.I noticed on this page a lot of people interested in the symbology the moon plays in her poetry. I haven't read the literary essay that was previously mentioned but (although I am only a senior level university student of literature) I profer a smattering of ideas and connections for those that are interested:
As has been well established, both of her parents are of a strong German heritage and Plath herself was quite fluent in the German language (note the translation of Rilke's "The Prophet"). In English we often assume the moon is feminine (the way it affects the tides, associations with the menstrual flow, and so on) and the sun is male. Even in "The Edge" Plath gives the moon the definite article "She." In the German language, however, it is exactly the opposite. Der Mond. The male moon. Die Sonne. The female sun. Something to think about. I don't think I could come to any definite conclusions from that alone but I thought it might be interesting to chew on. Especially in light of the many associations that German language and German history have concerning maleness and male authority in the poetry (I am thinking specifically of "Lady Lazarus", "Daddy", "The Munich Mannequins" usw. und so weiter, und so weiter...)
Although I have never really focused on Plath while in the University (my professors passions were rooted in the shunted 19th century American woman poets) a tattered and well worn copy of the "Ariel" has always sat on my bookshelf. Fascinated with the play of darkness and lightness found in Sylvia's poetry I wrote this poem at the tender age of 19 (hmm...bear with me...there is a point and I am arriving at it! :-)
Luminous
She lives between
Witcher and Wonder.
A midnight soul.
Hollow bells mourn
another extinguished day.Always she sings His song,
despite the call of that cold
dark side. Darkness that hides
the decay of Stars and Sons.Did you really believe
you could claim her for your own?
With those cheap play flags
and aluminum boats
that sail the ache of time?Rain cannot erase
nor Wind level the valleys
of her experience.
On this landscape,
a footprint lasts.
Forever.What I tried to explore in my poem was the not only my own existential crisis as a young woman but I was also trying to explore some of my favorite themes during my Plath phase of reading and writing. In the poem "Elm" Plath writes of the moon as being "merciless" with a radiance that is scathing. In the 11th stanza she talks of a "dark thing" that " sleeps in me." Later in the second to last stanza she connects this dark thing inside of her to the moon whose face is so "murderous in its (the elms) strangle of branches." The ability for the moon to be both "radiant" and at the same time "diminished and flat, as after radical surgery" are characteristics of the dark and light sides of the moon. Whether or not the moon was a personal symbol for the poets psyche and her own warring polarities is up for debate; meine humble Meinung (opinion) is that the moon with its capability for darkness and lightness symbolizes the polarities of submission and control. In the poems of Plath both submission AND control are demonic forces precisely because of their polarity. Total submission is unaccpetable (but characteristically feminine) and total control is likewise unpalatable. How, then, can such an entity as the moon have "anything to be sad about"? Can't the pulling and pushing by such an absolutist and irresolute heavenly body drive anyone over the "Edge" into insanity? Something to think about. Hopefully my witching hour musings aren't TOO soporific.
And thats all folks! Hope to read more on this site. Isn't poetry and all this lit stuff great!!!!
Krista Clement
Hamburg, Germany
Monday, January 3, 2000
I am currently working on a paper about Sylvia Plath's poem "In Plaster". It would be helpful if anyone could send me their thoughts and interpretations. I also have benn looking for any web sites that might contain interpretations of this poem. thanksJacqui
East Longmeadow, USA
Monday, January 3, 2000
I am currently trying to seek out information on Plath's poem "Sow". If anyone has any information at all on this topic I would really appreciate any insight. I cannot seem to find anything under this title in any web sites. Please email me with anything you know!!!! ThanksErika
Bristol, USA
Monday, January 3, 2000
I am not intending to negate the relevance of Plath's journal to criticism, but there is a difference between using that writing as a tool toward understanding and romanticizing about what the poet would think, or searching for her soul. I am not concerned with what Plath would be pleased or displeased with. I am concerned that the writing becomes lost in the fog of gossip. I agree that it is difficult to separate the life and the work. Wasn't it suggested in Bitter Fame that Plath herself used her writing to duplicate her emotional state in her readers? I am merely trying to suggest that her work, her craftsmanship, is at the very least as important as her personal experience to dispelling the perceived enigma.I have to ask myself if poetry that exists only in the realm of personal experience is relevant to art at all! Moreover, I have never considered Plath's work to be a one-dimensional case study, but more of a (yes, universal) voice of the struggle to survive (and that only one aspect). I suspect, Jan, that we quite agree on this point. Of course her work is rooted to and can be studied through her life and through her death, but there IS an element to which she is not taken seriously as a writer because of this, and after all, that is what is at stake here. When her work and reputation as an artist have less value than mooning over her biography, there is frankly nothing left to discuss. This is why I feel that we should all take care and be critical of what emerges from the unexpurgated journals. I agree with all of you that it is a crucial time for Plath scholars, but I also think it is equally important to ignore the fan club and begin picking up the poetry. This forum seems an exceptionally good place for critical thinking. Everyone here has some investment in her writing, and there is nothing banal about that. I just hope that we can all raise the bar a little and hold what critics there are responsible for what emerges in the next year, that is not to say that we all must agree with every debate that emerges, but that the debate must first be clear and sensitive to the poetry.
S.L. Pippin
St. Louis, USA
Sunday, January 2, 2000
If anyone wants to read a good, different piece on Ted Hughes, I highly recommend "Meeting Ted Hughes" by Carolyne Wright, at http://www.poetrysoc.com/review/pr89-3/hughes.htm - it's a memoir/review of Birthday Letters, from a unique perspective.I hope everyone here at the Forum had a fine, joyous New Year's Eve & Day, and by the way, is anyone else having problems with their hotmail?
Lena Friesen
Toronto, Canada
Saturday, January 1, 2000
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This forum is administered by Elaine Connell, author of Sylvia Plath: Killing The Angel In The House - second edition with new preface just out, December 1998. Elaine lives in Hebden Bridge, near where Sylvia Plath is buried and where Ted Hughes was born. Web Design by Pennine Pens. This forum is moderated - contributions which are inappropriate, anonymous or likely to offend may be edited or omitted.
