February 2003 - March 2003
Pamela, I think you're missing a lot of the salient points of Plath's character. Anyone who has read the Journals or has read her work thoroughly will realise that Plath was about as anti-feminist as you can get. Read Facelift, for instance, a touching little paean to her 'friend' Dido Merwin, who, it seems had committed a crime by being beautiful, sexy, independent (despite her marriage) and using (gasp!) birth control.
Indeed, read any number of poems or entries in the Journals (filled with spite about various women who CHOSE not to have children, marriage etc...) and you'll find the very antithesis of a woman who believes women should have choices. She bitched constantly about the looks and behaviour of the women she knew. There's a really nasty passage about Adrienne Rich which makes some pretty disgusting remarks about her sexuality and sexual attractiveness. It is precisely this polarisation of her character - artist AND bitchy 50s housewife mentality -which makes Plath a bit of a puzzle for both feminists and non-feminists alike. Plath regularly chews the bile-fat about women who espoused feminism (Go sisterhood!); Plath makes art. Conflict, conflict...Or is it?
There's a good deal of evidence to suggest that Plath was an individual who overly depended on those close to her (her mother, her husband) and resented the fact that she was subsumed so much by both of them. Her mother, a woman who had given up her life for her husband and children; her husband, a macho man and macho artist. You can see the struggle this presented and the issues it posed for her subconscious mind. You can also see Plath typing Hughes' poems away while pregnant...
Her inner life was in marked contrast to the outward pose she struck. She was sexually very voracious (nothing wrong with that!) and yet consistently attempted to play up to social conformity. She was struggling in her head with perfecting the artist and struggling with her hands to perfect clam chowder. Does this make her bad? Or unusual? No. But it doesn't make her anything like a feminist, either. She subscribed very much to the Women's Home Journal take on life.
I am not a fan of Plath or, actually, feminism, though I do find Plath psychologically interesting - though not as much as those (plenty of whom I've read postings of in this forum) who think that she belongs to them and consequently impose their ideas on to the woman.
Kathryn Gray
London, UK
Monday, March 31, 2003
Thanks for your compliments on my posts, Isabelle :). I'm glad to know that my contributions to the Forum are appreciated!
Stephanie
Ottawa, Canada
Monday, March 31, 2003
I found much to disagree with in the article Stephanie kindly provided the link for: Sylvia Plath: Anti-feminist. Where to begin?
Sylvia Plath was a confessional poet of both weight and color. Disdaining political and social subjects, Plath was a different breed from the beat-nicks of her own time.
I think Robin Peel might take issue with this blanket dismissal of politics and social subjects from Plath's poetry. Neither may have been predominant in her work, yet the Independent article implies Plath's poetry is steeped in solipsism only.
As egregious, historical and cultural perspective is absent from the article, the author judging mid-twentieth century Plath from a twenty-first century perspective. Betty Friedan had yet to publish The Feminine Mystique, and Gloria Steinem was still an unknown. Is Virginia Woolf less a feminist because she depended on Leonard? And do you have to eschew motherhood and the domestic arts to be a feminist? Sylvia wanted both: a happy marriage and a writing career. By today's standards she may not be a paragon of feminism, but I fail to see how she is an anti-feminist. I'm sure plenty of feminists who are married and who like to bake will be surprised to learn they have been kicked out of the feminist club.
At one point, Plath even quit her job after only a year as a teacher, to stay at home, creating her babies and writing the defining poems of her life.
So would a true feminist continue to teach when she found little pleasure in it? Is quitting your stable job because you dislike it anti-feminist? Is wanting more time for your writing (so you can support yourself alongside your husband) anti-feminist? Is sharing child-rearing duties with your husband anti-feminist?
A feminist would never commit suicide over a man, but a manic-depressive would. Did I miss something? Did Plath leave behind a letter explaining why she chose to take her life? Apparently the author of this article has some knowledge to which the rest of us are not privy.
Pamela
Boston, USA
Sunday, March 30, 2003
To coincide with Thirteenth Annual Conference on Virginia Woolf taking place at Smith College from 5-8 June the Neilson Library will play host to two exhibits from May to August.A Story of Their Own: Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath and Gloria Steinem will use original manuscripts and published biographies to examine the various ways women's lives are portrayed. This exhibit will be in the Morgan Gallery, Neilson Library.
The other exciting exhibit is "Her Novels Make Mine Possible": Virginia Woolf's Influence on Sylvia Plath, which is in the Mortimer Rare Book Room at the Neilson Library.
Peter K Steinberg
Boston, USA
Friday, March 28, 2003
Stephanie, I just wanted to thank you for posting all of the interesting and much appreciated articles that you've found on Plath and also for having the decency to stick up for Hughes as it seems a few people here enjoying dragging his name through the mud, despite the fact that they probably never knew him personally (I am assuming). And as for womanizing, affairs, etc., (though this comment was not in reference to an affair--only 'temptation'); I will now quote Dolly Parton: "I said I was married, not dead." Rock on, Stephanie.
Isabelle
Bonita, USA
Wednesday, March 26, 2003
Blackberrying as a term exists in Medieval English (a famous occurrence is in The Pardoner's Tale (Chaucer). It means going toward death and has the additional negative connotation of death without salvation (i.e. hell). Plath would have been well aware of this, as she studied Chaucer and knew most of The Canterbury Tales off by heart (cf. Birthday Letters)
Kathryn Gray
London, UK
Wednesday, March 26, 2003
I have some thoughts on the poem Blackberrying, but I am not quite sure on the interpretation. Is she referring to the blackberries as symbols for death and at the end she sees the light, green on the other side of the hill where the bushes from the berries lead her to the sea? Please help me out. Thanks.
Karilla
Ft Lauderdale Florida, USA
Tuesday, March 25, 2003
I was wondering if someone could convey some ideas to me about psychoanalytic readings of Plath's collection of poems entitled Ariel?Nathan
NSW, Australia
Tuesday, March 25, 2003
Interesting article called "Sylvia Plath: Anti-Feminist" can be found here: (thanks to Darwin)
Stephanie
Ottawa, Canada
Monday, March 24, 2003
All well and good, Claudia, but did you ever take a moment to realize that without Hughes Plath would not have the incredible recognition that she has acquired to this date? Had he not been willing to put her work out there....she definitely wouldn't have the huge readership that she has now. Oddly enough, Hughes putting her work out there opened the flood gates for the barrage of harassment he suffered throughout the remainder of his life.
Yes, he had an affair and yes, he did go on a womanizing rampage but if he had not been in the public eye and had Plath not achieved icon status (especially in the eyes of feminists...which, in some of the severe cases, are no better then misogynists) no one would have cared who he slept with and where and when and who he happened to be in a so-called "committed" relationship at the time.
If I were to tell you that my grandfather cheated on my grandmother after 25 years of marriage...would you care? No, of course not, because we don't care when these things happen to "normal" people. Society eats these types of situations up and makes them personal when they aren't personal at all.
Lastly, I think it is incredible how little sympathy and understanding certain people have. In my estimation, Plath was not a victim and Hughes was not a monster (and vice versa)...they were just two people whose marriage fell apart and a terrible tragedy occurred in the aftermath of that. They also just happened to be brilliant writers whose private lives were to end up being judged (same with calling Plath's suicide "selfish") by people who weren't there and only have secondary information to rely on (sometimes unreliable information with no real evidence to back it up).
Stephanie
Ottawa, Canada
Monday, March 24, 2003
Marco-as a psychiatric nurse I can say most definitely suicide is a selfish and aggressive act meant to send the ultimate message. Who says so? Every psychiatrist, psychologist and mental health professional worth their salt. If you doubt this, check it out on the net. Better yet, talk to someone in the wake of a loved one's suicide. Nothing says 'screw you' better than taking yourself out permanently! Everyone is left with their unresolved issues and truly no place to go with them.
That being said, I think its pretty well documented that Sylvia was selfish-aren't we all?-and believe me, I am a staunch supporter of her. I find it very difficult to see Ted as anything but culpable. Look at the guy's history with women! It speaks for itself. Frankly, I find the similarities between his reaction to Sylvia's and Assia's suicide disturbing, like he's got the "act" down pat now, knows what to say to the aggrieved. Letters sent to Aurelia and the family of Assia so very much the same, his defense of himself and his actions "If only I had known!"
Known??? Come on! He knew how much these women loved and adored him, how much power he had in their lives! He was a snake, like the one he wrote about in Crow! He says he was going to get back with Sylvia. He says he was looking for houses with Assia. It's so easy to say that. What he was really doing is having affairs with other women. What a guy.Claudette Coulter
Dayton, Ohio, USA
Sunday, March 23, 2003
Forgive me! It was 0400 and in the last minutes of my 12 hour shift when I wrote my comment...
Stephanie-OK, Ted was probably a misogynist? How about most definitely? What are the thougts on Crow? Even Christianity refrains from accusing womankind of out and out intercourse with the serpent! And you can't blame Ted's witchcraft roots, either, because that particular tradition holds the female in high esteem.
He led Assia on, conducting an affair with a social worker right under her nose, then left the social worker for Carol and continued to break those marriage vows with numerous other women throughout his life. I know this behavior. This is a man so fearful of women, so completely dependent on them and he hates them for it. He also sounds like a sex addict! Now, I know that won't win any points, but methinks it true! Please don't tell me he acts like a lot of men do, "typical behavior", because that is just plain sad. Men, including poets, are responsible for their lives. Yes, Sylvia, too.
I am frustrated, really, because I so wish she were here, in 2003, writing poetry and prose and delighting us all with her triumphs over her demons. I did not know her, but, strangely, I miss her.
Claudette Coulter
Dayton, Ohio, USA
Saturday, March 22, 2003
I don't know what "experts" Beth M. is referring to, when she says that the experts say that suicide is a selfish act. Nor am I an expert on psychology or psychiatry. But it seems to me that it is misleading to characterize her suicide as revealing Sylvia's selfishness. It simply reveals she was depressed. I think it would be good for some of the forum contributors to read up on this condition. There is typically little or nothing the sufferer of depression can do to help themselves. Sylvia was getting professional help, and under medication, when she died. Tragically, it was the live-in nurse coming in for her first day of work who discovered her lifeless body.Marco Ribeiro
Columbia, Maryland, USA
Saturday, March 22, 2003
Claudette C: Re Ted: Another reply, a re-think, if you will:
I saw Ted speak at Commons College in 1966. Sober, yet witty in a way. I was too nervous at the time to meet him. My wife at the time advised me not to approach him ... maybe a feminine telepathic early-warning-system.
Anyway, I regret the momentary 'shyness'-- but am older now; as the years go by you become bolder. I see many of my peers have already 'clocked-out.' --- Don't go gently into the night!!
Like to hear more of your 'input' (as my uncle Skeeter would say!!)
Hester T. Broggs
Peru, Indiana, USA
Monday, March 17, 2003
Anyone who hasn't yet read Robin Peel's book Writing Back: Sylvia Plath and Cold War Politics: this is an extremely important book, in that it provides a very much needed counter to the view that Plath was, in her life and work, pathologically self-involved, and cut off from the real world. Although it reads like a Ph.D. dissertation (he seems compelled to use the word 'discourse' at least twice on every page :>} [slight exaggeration])it draws out the political opinions expressed, sometimes obliquely, throughout Plath's work, both poetry and prose, exposing both the depth and breadth of her political concerns.
It is easy to forget, in the years since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall, just how heated the Cold War sometimes became. The 1950s was a time when air raid drills were as common as fire drills in American schools. And it is well to remember that Plath's adolescence and adulthood encompassed post-War knowledge of the Holocaust and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Korean War, the execution of the Rosenberg's, the McCarthy era, Eisenhower's warning of the dangers of the military-industrial complex, the invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs and the subsequent nuclear threat of the Cuban missile crisis, the American frenzy of building fallout shelters, the building of the Berlin Wall, the beginnings of war in southeast Asia, a nuclear accident in England that contaminated the country's milk supply with Strontium 90, nuclear disarmament protests in England, and on and on. The dust-jacket of the book features a collage done by Plath in 1960 that depicts the bland, white-bread face of Pres. Eisenhower, wearing a lapel badge that says 'SLEEP', with a note on his desk that reads "Change your thinking", over-laid by a fighter plane aimed at the crotch of a swimsuit model on a pedestal. This is a side of Plath's consciousness that we don't hear much about in the critical literature. Peel traces her political consciousness from her naively middle-class and idealistic opinions formed by her somehwat cloistered upbringing in New England, through her initiation to the dangers and fears of the real world of New York City, to her new perspective in London, gained by exposure to European views of American smugness and arrogance. Peel's is a perspective that gives new meaning to many of Plath's familiar themes and images.
I recommend this fascinating book highly to anyone who wants to expand their understanding of Plath's range of interests and accomplishment.
Jim Long
Honolulu, USA
Saturday, March 15, 2003
In regards to the article Stephanie linked us to about Elizabeth Sigmund & Gwyneth Paltrow.... Didn't anyone else "bristle" at the title of it?? Gwyneth perfect to play poet's wife - Oh, and Sylvia Plath is not a poet in her own right? They could have just said Gwyneth perfect to play poet(ess, as you wish). Period!Amber
Hendersonville, USA
Saturday, March 15, 2003
She is as intense as any. Her writing is very influencial. She writes with her thoughts, and not with what she thinks the public wants to hear.David Gallagher
Yuma, USA
Wednesday, March 12, 2003
The only reason Hughes had control over the Plath estate was because Plath died without making a Will specifying who she wanted to have control over her belongings, writings, etc. I think this was a mixed blessing for Plath. On one hand, he got her work published and helped to bring her to the level of fame that she is at today but on the the other hand, her estate was sometimes mismanaged (like when he "lost" one of her last journals and destroyed the other...the main problem here is not that Plath's readership and scholars would miss out on what she was really thinking during those periods in her life...but that he would destroy something that essentially didn't belong to him and that he had no right to even think about destroying). In some ways, Hughes was only doing what Plath had done for him. If not for Plath's efforts in the early days of their marriage Hughes would not necessarily have sky-rocketed to the fame he experienced throughout his writing career.
Was Hughes a misogynist? Probably, but a lot of men still had a misogynist way of thinking in the 50's and early 60's (before the feminist movement really kicked in). I think Hughes was more a product of the time period he grew up in and his sometimes misogynist way of thinking was certainly not isolated to him. However, I wouldn't say he was entirely misogynist. Afterall, when Plath was writing who was looking after the children? It was Hughes. From all accounts, he did so willingly and people were often amazed at this domestic abilities. A lot of men during that time period had little to do with the day to day care of their children and it was always left up to the women because it was their "God-given job"...so in that sense, I would say that Hughes was unique. His children have both gone on to be successful and from what I've read, especially from Frieda Hughes, he was a good father and he loved his children very much (despite that fact that he left their mother for another woman.....which, again, is not unique to him and him alone).
Stephanie
Ottawa, Canada
Saturday, March 15, 2003
In Reply to Claudette Coulter: Mysoginist??
I agree with your insight on Ted. Sometimes, the 'sensitive poet' thing is a bit of self-absorption, isn't it?Great commentary, Ms Coulter. My late uncle, "Skeeter" (from Missippi) use to say that the man in the mirror is the one with too much time...
Hester Boggs Peru, INHester H. Broggs
Peru, Indiana, USA
Wednesday, March 12, 2003
Suicide is a selfish act (so the "experts say). Leaving your wife and two very young children for another woman is definitely a selfish act. After her death, Sylvia Plath could no longer speak for herself or defend her actions, unlike her estranged husband, Ted Hughes. I just think that it's tragic and ironic that it was the cheating husband who had control over the Plath estate, and maninipulated the estate to his advantage.And as far as celebrity goes concerning issues of privacy, I say poppy-cock! If Ted Hughes was so concerned about "public voyeurism" into his life, then he should have just written his poetry for the sake of writing it and never sought to have it published.Ego, fame and fortune come with a price..."inquiring minds want to know"!Beth M
Severna Park, USA
Tuesday, March 11, 2003
I am re-reading all I can find on Sylvia and Ted, and must admit, I get a bit queasy thinking of it all. Despite Birthday Letters, does anyone else see Ted for the controlling man he was? I feel manipulated by Birthday Letters, and when I read some of the letters he wrote, first to the grieving Aurelia and then to the grieving family of Assia, I feel it all the more. He tells Assia's sister, Celia, if only he had known how distressed Assia was, he would have married her. Hhmmmmm. Apparently, he was in the dark about her feelings, this great, sensitive poet. I will admit, I just started reading him, but I feel the fingers of a mysoginist on my neck. Just read Crow. We women do not come off very well in his mytholizing. Does anyone know if Olwyn is still around? And does anyone find it so like Sylvia that Freida is having disagreements with Carol Orchard over her late fathers estate? She is probably more like her mother than she will ever know. Lastly, I want Kate to know I made the cake...and it was wonderful!Claudette Coulter
Dayton, Oh, USA
Tuesday, March 11, 2003
I don't understand why people think it has to be either one way or another....that you either have to love Plath, think she was the victim and hate Hughes or love Hughes and feel that he was a victim of Plath's emotional illness. I've been told in the past that you can't be "neutral" on the topic and perhaps one can't but I have read biographies of Plath and Hughes and both their works and I think what happened in their marriage was quite typical and happens more often then anyone wants to believe (except that most men or women who have been cheated on don't commit suicide). Relationships fail...people have affairs and it certainly doesn't mean that the person (or people) involved loved their children any less just because the marriage didn't work out (if Hughes can be accused of not loving his children by leaving Plath then what does that say about Plath for committing suicide? and it is very clear that she deeply loved her children). The whole situation is very tragic for both Plath, Hughes and their children and I think a little understanding needs to be given to both Plath and Hughes and what they both must have gone through.Stephanie
Ottawa, Canada
Tuesday, March 11, 2003
The esteemed critic and Winthrop native Helen Vendler has just published a book called Coming of Age as a Poet which has chapters on Milton, Keats, Eliot and Plath. Helen Vendler, nee Hennessey, grew up in Winthrop and "knew" Plath as a baby (Rough Magic 23-24). The chapter on Plath is called "Recontructing the Colossus" and is a modest 39 pages. The book is $22.95 and should be readily available online or at most bookstores.
Peter K Steinberg
Hebden Bridge, UK
Sunday, March 9, 2003I am by no means a scholar of Plath, simply an appreciator of her work. I read The Bell Jar back in the early 70's, went on to the Ariel poems, and eventually to Letters Home. It wasn't until resently that, in helping my highschool age daughter research a report on Plath for school, that I began delving into everything that's happened since my all to brief flirtation with Plath i.e. issues concerning control of the Plath estate, controversy between "the libbers" and the Hughes family, controversy over biographers etc. I keep reading articles stating Ted Hughes past concern for his children, Ted Hughes having to leave his marriage to Sylvia because he didn't know how to help Sylvia and could no longer handle her jealousies, her mood swings, her mental illness. I also have come across many articles about Ted Hughes and his beautiful "love letters" to Sylvia in his book of poems Birthday Letters. Well, I gotta tell you, I can't stomach it anymore! If Ted Hughes, brillant,intelligent man that he was, knew Sylvia to be so volatile, if this man who so loved his children and has been so concerned about them since their mother's death, why did he in deed leave Sylvia at all, especially for another woman? How could he not know that Sylvia's reaction to his leaving would not be racked with psychosis? If he had just left her "because he didn't know how to help her" I might be able to buy into that a teeny tiny bit, but the bum left her for another woman! Where was his concern for Freida and Nicholas then? Especially if the woman he was leaving his charished children with, their mother and his wife, was so messed up? Sorry, I just don't buy any justification the Hughes family can come up with that portrays Ted as anything akin to a victem in his relationship to Sylvia Plath and her suicide and what has followed as a result of her suicide. Bottem line, Ted Hughes put himself first before Sylvia's death, and continued to do so afterwards.
Beth M.
Severna Park, MD, USA
Sunday, March 9, 2003
A very interesting article about Elizabeth Sigmund, Gwyneth Paltrow and Ted and Sylvia can be found here:
Along with the article is a nice picture of Sigmund sitting with Paltrow in costume as Plath.
Stephanie
Ottawa, Canada
Saturday, March 8, 2003
Here's a review of Wintering from (9 March) New York TIMES:
It's generally not advisable for a first novelist to imagine herself into the mind of a famous poet, particularly one as famously complicated and adored as Sylvia Plath. But if the writer is as discerning and talented as Kate Moses, then what should be an impossible project is not only viable but significant. A fictionalization of the grueling months following the dissolution of Plath's marriage to Ted Hughes and leading up to her suicide at the age of 30 in 1963, ''Wintering'' is beautiful and moving. The narrative voice is a distillation of Plath's diaries, letters and poems; with lyrical dexterity and great economy, Moses portrays a demanding, pitiless woman struggling against the stark fact of her husband's infidelity and her own inner demons. At the same time, Plath is a devoted mother nursing her two children through a cold and lonely London winter, all the while writing feverishly. Even the asides -- ''She wondered, while she turned the pages of Dr. Seuss, why she shouldn't just amputate this misbegotten day and knock herself out?'' -- ring true. This is a novel about ambition, motherhood, identity and love. The real story, though, is that of a woman finally finding her muse.
Richard Larschan
Wellesley, MA, USA
Saturday, March 8, 2003
Here is the link to an article from The Observer (March 03) written by Zoe Green on Kate Moses and "Wintering" called "On a Suicide Mission".Stephanie
Ottawa, Canada
Friday, March 7, 2003Amy: I think that the real value, or 'merit' of WINTERING is not just that people like it--the fact that a lot of people like something doesn't make it excellent. Obviously, people like a lot of things that are patently trash. The real value of Kate's book is that it gives us an alternative view of Plath's last months, focusing on the small, day-to-day details of her life and work, and depicting her as engaged in what was, for her, the creative and life-sustaining activities of caring for her children and writing poems that moved toward a loving and promising future. It acts out, as it were, the content of the poems -- that love is what sets us going through the cold, fallow winter of loneliness toward the taste of spring. And, even without depicting that last deperate act, it makes clear how, in the face of so much love and brilliance and promise, her ultimate failure to endure it was that much more tragic.
Jim Long
Honolulu, USA
Tuesday, March 4, 2003
Can you tell me where can I find Sylvia Plath's work (essays etc.) on Dostoyevski. I am looking for anything waht she wrote about that Russian writer. Thank you in advanceMichal Kowalski
Poznan, Poland
Tuesday, March 4, 2003
There is a brief but interesting article entitled "Seeing Sylvia Whole" in the "Must Read" column of the February 2002 Elle magazine (page 176). I have attempted to locate this article online but it appears Elle posts only larger features at its website. The article is written by Carlene Bauer (who also writes for Salon.com) and includes a short interview with Kate Moses. The main thrust is the varying "versions" of Plath which are becoming visible.
I hope anyone interested is able to locate the article; I'd imagine local libraries are likely to have back-issues readily available.
I apologize if this article has already been mentioned on the forum. I attempted to locate references to it but found none.
Ellen
Buffalo, New York, USA
Tuesday, March 4, 2003
Responding to Amy Hicks' comments about using real people in fictional settings: if you think you might like thinly veiled or more deeply fictionalized portrayals, you might want to find a copy of Fay Weldon's novel Down Among the Women, which includes a fictionalized version of the Plath/Hughes/Wevill triangle. Also, for more of a metaphoric view, try Carol Shields' novel Swann. Actually the latter is more satiric than metaphoric. It takes on the academic establishment and how they come to view the work of one controversial (and dead by tragedy) poet. While it's about a fictional poet, there are enough academic references to Plath that it becomes clear Shields is writing about her in a symbolic way. It's always just a good, fun novel, with a good shocker at the end. But no spoilers from me!Amy Rea
Eden Prairie, USA
Sunday, March 2, 2003
Michael - regarding A Winter Ship: Stephen Tabor's excellent, hard-to-find and when-you-find-it-it's-relatively-expensive Sylvia Plath: An Analytical Bibliography lists this first edition as being published in 1960 by The Tragara Press of Edinburgh. The proof is said to have been made of a single folded sheet, (pages 1-4) consisting of a title page, the poem 'A Winter Ship' (2 pages) and a blank fourth page. Tabor received the following quote in a letter from Alan Anderson, the owner of the Tragara Press:
"I had written to Ted Hughes after the appearance in the London Magazine of his short story 'The Rain Horse', ...I offered to print something of his as a leaflet poem if he ever had anything suitable. He wrote in reply sending a poem of his wife's, she being at that time quite unknown to me..."
In mid 1960 Plath then wrote to Anderson:
"...We thought we'd like the date, place and press in upright letters,..., and my name deleted--as I'll write that on the inside myself, with Christmas greeting too."
The final product was roughly 8 pages in length with wrappers. Plath requested four dozen be printed and she apparently sent many of these out that Christmas as cards to friends, see Letters Home
Peter K Steinberg
Hebden Bridge, UK
Sunday, March 2, 2003
Sylvia Plath was the first poet I ever read. Now after over a decade of reading everything she ever wrote and everything ever written about her I have finally arrived at the point where my thesis is due in 2 months time and it's title is "The self as depicted in the poetry of Ariel". I'm thrilled. Due to alot of different factors it has taken me quite a while to arrive at this point and to be honest writing this thesis doesn't even really seem like work. It feels more like spending quality time with an old friend. I know this really has nothing to do with the previous discussions taking place but I just thought I'd share my experience with everyone and invite other Plath fans to feel free to email me.
Caroline
Dublin, Ireland
Sunday, March 2, 2003
The Boston Globe today reviewed WINTERING by Kate Moses. Like most of the media they favor Moses' book for its "lush, luminous prose" and for its portrayal of Plath as "a woman who ...grabs on to her despair and rage and wills herself to spin it into brilliance." I have placed the article online here.
For those of you who haven't visited the Kate Moses web site please treat yourself. If you live in the between Washington DC and Greater Boston areas you may wish to treat yourself to one of the several appearances taking place over the next week weeks as Kate city-hops to promote her book.
Peter K Steinberg
Hebden Bridge, UK
Sunday, March 2, 2003
This is in reply to Loren's message, posted January 26th; as it is a somewhat delayed reply, it may no longer be applicable to her specific coursework. However, I wanted to suggest that you examine the character of Irwin, both in The Bell Jar and in Nancy Hunter Steiner's A Closer Look at Ariel: A Memory of Sylvia Plath. Irwin serves a similar but strikingly different role when the two are compared; specifically, Esther's sexual encounter differs from Plath's, in noteable ways.Ellen
Buffalo, New York, USA
Sunday, March 2, 2003
Can anyone tell me who said of Sylvia Plath, 'I see her as a kind of Hammer Films poet'? ThanksDawn Thornton
Leicester, UK
Saturday, March 1, 2003
I have recently begun a study on the influences of Gnosticism and the Occult on authors writing during the Period of Confession. I have read that Plath has vague ties to the Golden Dawn people, as well as Crowley. I have only heard vague speculation about this, and was wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction to find this type of information.Jeffrey Bryan Bissett
Las Vegas NV, USA
Friday, February 28, 2003
I have occasionally seen references to the first book Plath published, A Winter Ship, published anonymously in 1960. Does anyone know what this book contained and why she published it if she didn't want to put her name to it?Michael
Jersey City, USA
Wednesday, February 26, 2003
I have occasionally seen references to the first book Plath published, A Winter Ship, published anonymously in 1960. Does anyone know what this book contained and why she published it if she didn't want to put her name to it?Michael
Jersey City, USA
Wednesday, February 26, 2003
To Mr. Larschan: I believe there is a huge difference between the Greeks recycling Homer and their mythology and expanding on it for their dramas, and Kate Moses writing a fictional account of SPs last year. Of course all writers are inspired by what came before, if they realize it or not. But we are not the ancients. The events described here are very recent, and as far as I know no names have been changed. A fictionalized life of a long-dead person is more acceptable to me because they are no longer in living memory.
And to Mr. Long: After discussing this with others offline I must take back my statement that the book has no merit. By chance, I just heard yet another glowing review (2/24) on NPR. If so many truly love this book, then that is its merit.
As a reader of biography, the only analogy I can think of that is contemporary enough would be the film Citizen Kane, which I think is wonderfully good art. But I think it speaks as much about Orson Welles as it does its thinly veiled subject. But at least Welles changed the names, as libel demanded. Had Wintering not borne the actual names Sylvia and Ted etc., I would have liked it much better.
As it stands, I think this genre of literature (including E. Tennant) appears to ride on those celebrity names too much for my taste. With the names attached to Wintering I feel invited to assume the fictitious details were possibly facts that Kate Moses dug up in her research. This genre translates much better to film than literature for me (G. Paltrow aside) as this biographic illusion making (thanks, Jack) somehow seems better suited to film in my opinion.
So I'll wait for the next offering on SP to come along, and I have a wish-list if anyone is interested.
Amy Hicks
San Jose, California, USA
Wednesday, February 26, 2003
To Stephanie, apparently Warren and Margaret Plath still live near Eastham, MA. He's listed in the phonebook. According to an article that was mentioned on this forum in 2000 he visited their old home in Winthrop once, briefly talking to the new inhabitant. If you look at this old letter from Olwyn Hughes, he was at least in the 70s aware of the publications about Plath and the errors and fabrications they sometimes contained.Anja Beckmann
Leipzig, Germany
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
Another commentary on Kate Moses's WINTERING for possible Forum interest, this time by National Public Radio book reviewer, Alan Cheuse ("All Things Considered," 2/24/03):Richard Larschan
Wellesley, MA, USA
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
I wonder if anyone knows what happened to Sylvia's brother Warren? If he is alive he certainly has kept a low profile.Stephanie
USA
Monday, February 24, 2003
Rehan, I think with your posting we have reached the limit!!! We have taken under our curious eye every aspect about Sylvia. Now, please, should we want to leave to her at least her very private moments??? And then... does it change something to you if she recited poems or not while making love????!Alex
Firenze, Italy
I read a while ago somewhere but I have been searching for the exact reference again in vain. Is there any evidence that Plath and Hughes recited poetry while making love? Can anyone direct me to where I might have read it? It was on the internet and most probably from a link or post on this site.Rehan Qayoom
London, England
Saturday, February 22, 2003
Judith: I wasn't comparing Sylvia's writing abilities to Hughes'. I have read "The Hanging Man" and it is a powerful poem, but it seems to me that Sylvia is "...Holding in [her] entrails." The reason I say this is because Shock Treatment targets the part of the brain that affects non-verbal communication. In the same sense, that is probably one of the reasons why Sylvia's journal writings and poetry were so prolific. This makes it very difficult for a shock recipient to express their very real mental and emotional losses after the treatment. (How convenient for the pro-shock industry). It also shows what a natural genius she was that she was able to go on writing for as long as she did after the treatments.
The shame, humiliation and very real terror of the experience typically makes the recipient understandably reluctant to complain about it. A good analogy would be: someone who survived the gas chamber and then complaining to Hitler about it. Most shock treatment patients are told that their permanent amnesia and other cognitive defects are part of their mental illness and then are usually given more treatments. Many shock survivors I've spoken with or read have found comfort in reading the journals of holocaust survivors, myself included.
Ted Hughes wrote "The Tender Place" as if he had received the treatments himself. So it's obvious to me that Sylvia must have spent much time trying to convey to him the experience that probably put tremendous strains on their relationship. The fact that Hughes borrowed some of her lines shows that he is paying homage to her and also supports my theory. It is also my opinion that "The Tender Place" was truly affectionate poem written by a man who was -- to me -- obviously deeply effected by the needless destruction on an already fragile mind of a true genius as well as a lover and friend.
Tony B
Pompano Beach, USA
Thursday, February 20, 2003
In responding to Amys question about what makes Kate Mosess Wintering more praiseworthy than, say, "[Emma]Tennant's offering in the same vein," I can suggest a few key differences: First, Moses is just a plain better writershe knows how to use language in a way that conveys the conflict, sensory experiences and mental states of her characters a lost more persuasively than does Tennant.Second, she manages to narrate the story of Plaths final year with remarkable tact, neither sentimentalizing nor villainizing any of the principle characters. Third, Amys assertion nothwithstanding, Moses clearly has done a tremendous amount of research-more than any Plath biographer Ive read (and Ive read them all). Fourth, and last, Moses continually brings us back to the poetry itself, subtly explicating as she narrates circumstances surrounding its origins. To me, these combined elements certainly comprise "creativity," even originality, but Im not quite sure why thats such an important criterion. When Aeschylus wrote "The Agamemnon," he certainly wasnt being "original," but he was clearly being "creative." As for "the merit in writing such an exercise in speculation," is there any more or less merit than in memorizing Plaths journals? Arent both activities ways of getting closer to whatever truths Plath had to impart about her own circumstances and perhaps the circumstances of her readers? Ultimately, however, well have to trust in the wisdom of the Roman poet Horace, who reminds us "de gustibus non disputandum est."Richard Larschan
Wellesley, MA, USA
Thursday, February 20, 2003
Judith (and I feel a little uncomfortable with this informality because I so much respect your work in Chapters in a Mythology, which is, in my opinion, the major work on Plath's poetic opus, but we're all on a first name basis here, so...), that said, I agree with you about most of the poems in Birthday Letters, a work heavily weighted toward self-justification and a defensive fatalism, but I must say that I think "The Tender Place" one of the strongest poems in that book, because it seems to me that in it Hughes is actually making a sincere attempt to understand what that experience meant for Sylvia and how it must have changed her perspective and her personality. Of course he cannot bring to it the intensity that Sylvia could--it was not within his experience. But I think the contemplation of that experience brings out the strongest feelings of sympathy with Sylvia's experience that he shows in the whole book.
As far as Rosenthal's comments on "The Hanging Man" I fail to see how he can possibly find the soporific Whitman, of all people, in those amazing super-charged lines. (Is he thinking of "I Sing the Body Electric"?)
Amy, my suggestion to you is to read Wintering as if you had never read anything else about Sylvia Plath. Your comments suggest that you're looking 'through' the words, seeing only what you already know, not hearing the language, and resisting the total act of identification with Plath that the book represents. I personally think it's about time that someone has tried to see her situation from the inside, rather than analyzing and criticizing her life from a totally uninvolved distance. Tennant's book was a very prosaic and unsympathetic view of their situation, with no real attempt to understand the inner drives and motives of the people involved. On a literary level, there's simply no comparison.
What I most like about the book are the little moments of intimatcy between Plath and the children. The small details of things like potty training and the other acts of loving care that only someone who's experienced the daily routines of child-rearing can portray with such accuracy. Tennant makes no attempt to show this side of Sylvia at all. And the range of emotions that Moses is able to conjure makes certain scenes absolutely agonizing--like the scene in the car with her mother, where Sylvia tries to convince Aurelia that, yes, that time when she tried to kill herself she really did want to die, and that's all she wanted. And her mother leans away from her cringing and starts to cry. You cannot tell me that conjuring such scenes is not a creative and imaginative act. How painful it must have been sometimes to force oneself to stay inside Sylvia's mind for all the time it took to write this book--what an act of love. We should be thanking Kate Moses for it.
Jim Long
Honolulu, USA
Thursday, February 20, 2003
Thank Ted Hughes for communicating the words Sylvia Plath could not say for herself? I think that his poem on her shock treatment is just another fairly boring exercise, as are quite a few in "Birthday Letters"-- as well as somewhat self-serving (again the 'I was a hapless bystander!-- everything bad happened because of Daddy' subtext). He takes an event, talks about it a little (and more than a little flatly), and weaves in some of Plath's own lines, and points to Daddy or to Fate.
It's interesting that when Plath incorporated that material in her book "Ariel", she writes a real poem, and one which allies itself with the point of view of a man: that of the hanging man Tarot card. She's taking it to another level, implying something much more about her experience than the humiliation or suffering that were undoubtedly part of it.
M.L. Rosenthal (some of whose comments on Plath, such as that in "Lady Lazarus" she "could not distinguish between herself and the facts, of, say, Auschwitz and Hiroshima", seem off the charts), does have something to contribute about "The Hanging Man" that is worth keeping in mind:
"Some of her last poems ("Poppies in October", for instance) are cries of joy despite some grimmer notes. There is rhythmic experimentation looking to the future, in particular with an adaptation of Whitman's characteristic line:
[Wish he'd kept that in view when writing that Plath couldn't distinguish between herself and the facts of Auschwitz, but you can't have everything.] I don't mean to say that Plath had a fun time when given electroshock therapy. But blessing Ted Hughes for telling the sad little episode that she could not tell isn't getting the point either. "I sizzled in his blue volts like a desert prophet"-- what a line!
By the roots of my hair some god got hold of me.
I sizzled in his blue volts like a desert prophet.
....The buoyant Whitman line and the energetic impression of external forces and sense-impacts invading the private self and taking it uncontrollably in new directions of awareness should remind us that a poem is an aesthetic projection of the psychological motives behind it, perhaps, but is not the same thing as those motives."Judith Kroll
Austin, Texas, USA
Wednesday, February 19, 2003
Thanks for the link (to Buffalo News), Stephanie. I always smile at these kinds of articles, written by someone who has only a cursory knowledge of SP's life and work- unlike those of us who (for better or worse) know the Journals by heart (you know who you are).
Which leads me to the reason why I'm posting now: I just read the interview with Kate Moses in Salon, and I feel compelled to say that I do not approve of her new book. Wintering is not a work of fiction, because she lifted the story whole. There was nothing creative about it. Nor is it a work of biography, as there is no real research required.
I'm frankly suprised that this book has gotten favorable remarks here in the Forum (plus Syndey's dissent, which I echo). I'm sure some of you will wildly disagee with me, and I'm very interested in discussing it further.
What is the merit in writing such an exercise in speculation? How does Wintering differ from Ms. Tennant's offering in the same vein? I see little difference.
Also, since I know Ms. Moses checks in here from time to time, I must be snarky and say that SP wrote about lots of parties she went to in her Journals ...the fateful one on Feb 25, 1956 springs to mind immediately.
Amy
San Jose, CA, USA
Wednesday, February 19, 2003
Here is a link to a recent lengthy and interesting article by Kate Moses entitled "Baking with Sylvia"
Stephanie
Ottawa, Canada
Wednesday, February 19, 2003Tony, Sylvia did write about her experience of ECT--most notably in the short poem "The Hanging Man":
By the roots of my hair some god got hold of me.
I sizzled in his blue volts like a desert prophet.The nights snapped out of sight like a lizard's eyelid:
A world of bald white days in a shadeless socket.A vulturous boredom pinned me in this tree.
If he were I, he would do what I did.Jim Long
Honolulu, USA
Wednesday, February 19, 2003
Here is a new article on Plath entitled "Plath grows larger in death then life"
Apparently, the author of this article thinks its just a "hoot" that Plath is so popular on the "net".
Stephanie
Ottawa, Canada
Tuesday, February 18, 2003
God Bless Ted Hughes for communicating the words Sylvia probably could not express by herself. As a recipient of the barbaric "therapy" known politely as ECT, (or more to the point, shock treatment), I was brought to a state of tears when I read his poem written to Sylvia, entitled "The Tender Place". I can imagine only too well the incredible burden this assault must have added to her already tormented emotional life.
Hemingway stated in his suicide letter, "What is the point of robbing my memories and my trade? Congratulations, doctor, it was a brilliant cure, but you lost the patient." However, I've never read a more poignant and heart-felt observation of a procedure that continues to be administered to this day and whose recipients are an overwhelming majority of women.
My admiration of Sylvia Plath only grew stronger after reading this poem.
Tony B
Pompano Beach, USA
Sunday, February 16, 2003
I found a brief rather poignant sketch of Assia Wevill in William Trevor's memoir Excursions in the Real World (Knopf, 1993). He reveals a vulnerable yet sophisticated woman with a penchant for exaggerating truths, lying to herself as much as to others. It sounds as if Trevor was with her when she mailed the blade of grass to Hughes.Pamela
Rockport, USA
Saturday, February 15, 2003
I can see that you must have many students bothering you to help analyze SP's poetry, because of all of the stipulations you give before you submit a comment. I apologize in advance if I am upsetting you in any way by asking for help. However, I am currently researching Black Rook in Rainy Weather, a poem that is less well-known and is very rare information-wise. I am a high school senior who works very hard, and I am definately not trying to get you to write an essay for me. I am an avid fan of Ms. Plath's immediately after finishing The Bell Jar, one of my all-time favorite novels. If you could give me any insight on the poem in question, I would be very grateful.Erin Poglits
Birmingham, USA
Friday, February 14, 2003
Tonight, in between reading various things on the computer, I google searched for images of Plath. Basically the same dozen or so pictures, (along with gifs of book covers, etc.) kept turning up. But near the end I came across this one that I'd never seen before.
The image is quite small, but looks like the quality is good enough to withstand a bit of enlarging. Among the common/oft' repeating ones, here is the best version I've seen of this particular picture.
I also found the this one, which most here are probably aware of, showing 3 paintings Plath had done. The middle image, one finds out by following the link, was done circa 1950-51. That's all for now. Take care.
Mark Sink
Bluefield, VA, USA
Thursday, February 13, 2003
The website for Wintering: A Novel of Sylvia Plath is now live at www.katemoses.com. For those of you interested in the factual underpinnings of the fiction, be sure to see especially the photo galleries and essay "I write as if an eye were upon me," which is adapted from a talk given at the 70th year Sylvia Plath symposium at Indiana University last November. Coming soon are maps of the North Tawton/northern Dartmoor area, the Primrose Hill neighborhood, and Court Green's buildings and grounds.Kate Moses
San Francisco, CA, USA
Thursday, February 13, 2003
Jack, First, I guess I can't help but be picky and point out that, of course, Robert Lowell did not edit "Ariel", Hughes did and published it with a Foreword by Lowell.
Second, I guess I really don't have much to say on this anniversary--it's such an unutterably sad day. I would rather commemmorate her life.
"The little grasses crack through stone,
And they are green with life."Jim Long
Honolulu, USA
Tuesday, February 11, 2003
Thank you Jack for your very excellent, considerate posting. I have the honour of being in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire today, for the 40th anniversary of Sylvia Plath's death. The weather this morning started out gray after a night's rain and struggled to progress to a perfectly clear day by sunset, which is happening now as I type. I have been here since Friday seeing the many sites and rich, beautiful and vast landscape in which Plath had visited and has rested for nearly 40 years. Having travelled so many miles to get here for this special day I thought it would be best to send a special thanks to Elaine for starting the Forum just over five years ago. Over the last few days she and I have travelled all over Heptonstall and Mytholmroyd and Hebden Bridge seeing significant places and having many good conversations. Heptonstall is a quiet town atop a steep hill. The new church dominates the village from nearly every direction. From Scout Rock in Mytholmroyd and from the A6033 road to Haworth one can see the church tower in dark silhouette. Tomorrow I will be travelling down to North Tawton to spend some time around that area as well. I hope that the great discussions that have kept this Forum active and accessible and helpful will continue for months and years on end. Even amidst fierce flames the golden lotus can be planted...Peter K Steinberg
Hebden Bridge, UK
Tuesday, February 11, 2003
I wonder how Plath would have further evolved as a Poet and author of novels (which she so desired to be) had she lived the 40 years that are landmarked today? I hope that she would have found just as much recognition for being an amazing writer had she lived that she has acquired since passing away so tragically.Stephanie
Ottawa, Canada
Tuesday, February 11, 2003
As we come up on the fortieth anniversary of Sylvia's death, I think back on my early study of her life and work, beginning with the American edition of The Bell Jar in 1971, with that marvelous biographical note by Lois Ames. Shortly thereafter I found the already published Ariel poems edited by Robert Lowell. Many Plath fans nowadays might not appreciate how difficult it was then to understand Sylvia's poems before more biographical and critical material appeared. I still refer to Judith Kroll's study, Chapters in a Mythology (1976), which even now outclasses the efforts of many later scholars and critics. Linda Wagner-Martin's first biographical study, published by Simon & Schuster in 1987, set the tone for many to follow, but at times these were books and articles with unfortunate biases related to the suicide cult and the "Ted-wars." More credible to me were the feminist perspectives of Lynda Bundtzen (1983), Pamela Annas (1988), and Janice Markey (1993).
The most recent works, by Tracy Brain, by Tim Kendall, and now in an impressive fiction by Kate Moses, assure a bright future for Plath studies, and for the pleasure of readers like me who will always love her for what she as a member of my own generation faced , what she did in response as a person and as an artist.
I look forward to reading what others have to say on this anniversary.
Jack Folsom
Sharon, Vermont, USA
Tuesday, February 11, 2003
I have been trying to locate the "When you are insane..." quote, and as far as I can tell it first appeared in Linda Wagner-Martin's Sylvia Plath: A Life. Here is the whole paragraph:
Sylvia spoke to her new friends about the sheer pain connected with her illness. She said that "everything hurt," that she was "on fire under her skin." She vowed that if she ever were insane again, she would kill herself because "the pain is just too great. I cannot live through it again." She spoke, too, about the supposed connection between writing and madness, and made clear that so far as she was concerned, there *was* no such connection. Her writing, she said, came from her sanest self. As she repeated, "When you are insane, you are busy being insane - all the time...When I was crazy, that was *all* I was." (pp. 111-2)
This quote either came from Wagner-Martin's conversation with Ellie Friedman, or from Friedman's (then Klein) memoir of Plath in the November 1966 issue of Glamour magazine.
I discovered Plath in 1988 and have been reading (and lately) writing about her ever since. When I started she was regarded by some as a 'cult' author, a 'women's' author, who presumably only spoke to a small number of people. I am happy to say that this is no longer the case - even Harold Bloom, who doesn't particularly enjoy her, calls her 'popular' - which could be seen as just a different epithet. My reaction to this label is to say that she is popular because she is a great writer, a genius. The new works of criticism by Brain, Bundtzen, Kendall, Peel etc. are signs that writing on Plath is continuing stronger than ever, finding new connections, new views - quite new, quite exciting as she herself once said.For today:
Gray skies today, and chilly; the first clouded sky since arrival a week ago; so much has happened; now I am un peu fatiguee because I washed hair last night and it was almost two until it dried. Life has been a combination of fairy-tale coincidence and joie de vivre and shocks of beauty together with some hurtful self-questioning. I feel I could write and write if only I sat down alone for a few months and could let things come instead of always having a short time; such moving about and problems with people. I have walked for miles and miles and seen much and wondered much.
SylvLena Friesen
Toronto, Canada
Tuesday, February 11, 2003
Indeed Sylvia Plath did apparently make a statement about her own insanity, referring to her first suicide attempt. Unfortunately my efforts to find the exact citation is thwarted now by a lack of time, though I recall that this quotation appears either in the memoir by Nancy Hunter Steiner or possibly in one of the memoir/essays written by friends of Plath's in Charles Butscher's collection "Sylvia Plath: The Woman and the Work." In any case it was a statement made in conversation between Plath and a friend regarding her breakdown and suicide attempt at the age of twenty.Kate Moses
San Francisco, CA, USA
Tuesday, February 11, 2003
References to the Plath quote (When you are insane...) are ubiquitous, however none are reputable enough to use as a reference source. It may be that this is a myth.Janet Taylor
Cambridge, MA, USA
Tuesday, February 11, 2003
Jim, though I am not the person who was curious about citations in regards to that particular quote, I did take it upon myself to locate it since I myself recalled reading it somewhere. I found a number of sites that featured the quote, "When you are insane, you are busy being insane - all the time... When I was crazy, that's all I was." Below is a list.
You can find the quote toward the very end of the page.
2. http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/
The quote can be found at the end of the third paragraph.
.....This moderate view, underscoring the need for balance in an effectively creative person, has since characterized much thinking on the subject of creativity and mental disturbance. As Sylvia Plath later said, "When you are insane, you are busy being insane - all the time... When I was crazy, that's all I was"(5).
3. http://www.mentalhealthconsumers.org/
The quote is in the seventh paragraph, again at the end.
....Yet mental disorders and emotional suffering can also interfere with creative activity. As Sylvia Plath said, "When you are insane, you are busy being insane -- all the time.... When I was crazy, that's all I was."
There were a few other sites that featured the quote, but I decided to keep the list to a minimum. So, as you can see, the quote appears valid. And you can't really doubt that Sylvia wouldn't say something like that. This was a woman who was severely mentally disturbed and talked lovingly with Anne Sexton about her previous suicide attempt.
Stephanie
USA
Tuesday, February 11, 2003
I'd be interested to know where you found this "quote" in which Plath describes herself as "insane". I don't recall ever seeing Plath describe herself this way, and I would be surprised if she ever did, unless she put these words in the mouth of a character in a short story. Although, not that I think about it, it's possible she might have said such a thing in a letter to either Dick Norton or Eddie Cohen (who she corresponded with until sometime in 1954).Jim Long
Honolulu, USA
Saturday, February 8, 2003
Can anyone place a date on the S. Plath quote "When you are insane, you are busy being insane - all the time... When I was crazy, that's all I was"? Any sort of citation information would be most appreciated.Janet Taylor
Cambridge, MA, USA
Friday, February 7, 2003
Hi Sydney,To my knowledge (and it might not be as vast as I like to think it is :) there have only been two books that fictionalized the Plath/Hughes story. The first being "Sylvia and Ted" (the upcoming film is *not* based on this to my knowledge) by Emma Tennant and the second being the most recent, "Wintering" by Kate Moses. If you do plan on reading one of the fictionalized accounts, I suggest you stay away from Tennant's book. It is glaringly obvious that she is merely trying to capitalize on the relationship between Hughes/Plath. Tennant had an affair with Hughes and I suppose that gave her the idea that she had the divine right to turn their relationship into, exactly what you said, a potboiler.I suggest you pick up Moses' "Wintering", if you're interested, and give that a read. It is really beautifully written and although I find it a bit awkward to read a fictional account of any person's life, I think it is especially interesting to see the original ordering of the "Ariel" poems. I'm currently reading A.S Byatt's "Possession" and there is a part in the book that I think is relevent to the biographers and writers who have ever tried to catch the "essence" of Plath (or of any famous writer) and it goes:
"...if you read the collected letters of any writer-if you read her biography- you will always get a sense that there's something missing, something biographers don't have access to, the real thing, the crucial thing, the thing that really mattered to the poet herself." :)
Stephanie
Ottawa, Canada
Thursday, February 6, 2003
Dear Plath Forum, Thank you for your interest and kind comments to date about Wintering: A Novel of Sylvia Plath, which indeed has hit bookstore shelves in the US and UK. Later this year there will be translated editions in Italy, France, Norway, Sweden and Holland. Also, on February 11 the Wintering website will go live at www.katemoses.com, where you'll be able to find detailed information on the research that went into the book, an original photo gallery of sites depicted, maps, a discussion area, a list of readings and other appearances in the US and England, reviews and media coverage, more original writings on Plath, and various links. Salon.com will have several book giveaways coming soon. In addition to The Readerville Journal that features Plath -- on the stands now - you can also find a review of Wintering in the Sunday January 26 Los Angeles Times Book Review.
Thanks again, and I welcome your comments about Wintering.
Kate Moses
San Francisco, CA, USA
Sunday, February 2, 2003
Stoneboy with Dolphin, a film
I 've made a film about a short story by Plath (on Video DV and in English) - "Stoneboy with Dolphin" and I planned a second film about another short Story: In the mountains
My first and important question is if anybody know and good place for showing this first film - is 20:50 min. and only shown in the ORB - a TV Chanal in Berlin, where everthing is shown. Than mail me.
Andreas Jacke
Berlin, Germany
Sunday, February 2, 2003
I was wondering what everyone's opinions were on the recent surge of fictional accounts of Sylvia and Ted. There have been three novels published, if I'm not mistaken, of fiction regarding the last few months of Plath's life, or the turbid relationship between Plath and Hughes.
I was reading The Hours, and that fictionalized account does not seem to make judgments on Woolf's life. I personally haven't read any of the books about Plath and Hughes - how are they? Are they merely soap opera-esque potboilers that just cash in on the rocky relationship?
I have mixed feelings about this trend ...
Sydney
I have a question. I've recently been told that the term "head in the oven poet," used to refer to Plath, of course, but apparently to other poets who have committed suicide, is a commonly-used term in reference to such poets and is not (as I would have thought) a term meant to indicate disrepect or used dismissively, but is actually used to indicate a particular kind of reverence. The person who used the term actually dismissed the "head in the oven" poets, as she called them, suggesting she couldn't relate to them, but when it was pointed out that such a term was perhaps harsh and dismissive, she quoted from a text in which the term was used specifically in reference to Plath, suggesting that those who use the term use it respectively and that I simply misunderstand. As I read her quote of the text, it appeared to me, especially since the term was in quotes, that the author was simply making reference to those who *do* dismiss Plath's poetry, particularly in relation to her fragile emotional health. I'm having a hard time swallowing that it's actually a term of reverence. Is this actually a term currently and commonly used to refer to Plath? Am I that far out of the loop?
Hanover, NH, USA
Sunday, February 2, 2003
Elaine
Columbus, USA
Sunday, February 2, 2003
