April 2003 - May 2003
Helen-! How refreshing! And I thought that I was the only one who dared "drag his name through the mud!"-which is not what I had really had in mind anyway; its just that the facts speak for themselves in this case (or it seems rather obvious that they do.) Don't let the fall out get you down! Cheers to you!
Claudette Coulter
Dayton, OH, USA
Saturday, May 31, 2003
To Helen: we just have to remember that there is two sides to every story. Maybe if we look at the bigger picture, and some may think that this is blasphemous, this is tradgedy is meant for the greater aesthetic enlightenment. I doubt that anyone who knows about Plath and Hughes is able to look at life and art and death with the same perception. If we look at this situation beyond the catty "who-did-what" talk, we can pull a certain advantage from the iconic play that we have facinated ourselves with.
Sebastian
Littleton, CO, USA
Saturday, May 31, 2003
Helen! How refreshing! And I thought that I was the only one who dared "drag his name through the mud!"-which is not what I had really had in mind anyway; its just that the facts speak for themselves in this case (or it seems rather obvious that they do.)Don't let the fall out get you down! Cheers to you!
Claudette Coulter
Dayton, OH, USA
Saturday, May 31, 2003
Helle Petersen, You can find Peter Orr Interview at the Anja Beckmann's site here
Later, it was transcribed by the Department of English of the University of Illinois (as said in the last line) here
Arlindo Correia
Lisbon, Portugal
Friday, May 30, 2003
There is an article in today's issue of The Guardian regarding the forthcoming Diane Middlebrook's book on Plath & Hughes. The link is hereKristina Zimbakova
Skopje, Macedonia
Wednesday, May 28, 2003
My name, as you can see, is Helen Young. I am nearly 65years of age; however I am studying for my Higher School Certificate (Yr.12) in Advanced English. I thought it would keep me occupied and (full of myself) I thought it would be a piece of cake! How wrong. Sorry to say I had never heard of Sylvia Plath or Ted Hughes. No excuses but have spent the last 45years bringing up six children and although I was vitally interested in their education somehow the two authors never came up in my children's work.
However a detailed study of them - in particular Ted Hughes - has been set by the New South Wales Board of Education. Whilst I do not wish to be offensive, and I have been researching this topic, to a great degree, I simply have to say that no matter how brilliantly he writes and once again I do apologise for saying this - that is if anyone is offended - but honest to God What a bastard!!! He bumped off two women not to menton his little daughter. O.K. he did not personally do it but you don't have to be super intelligent to figure out what a rotter he was! He must have made Sylvia and Assia feel like total losers. He's not the only man to ever do this but to make sure that Birthday Letters was published just before he died - he is a wanker of the first water. Had to get that off my chest, 'cause I would get shot if I wrote what I really thought in my work and/or exams. I hope his children have had happier lives than their Mum did. And I'm aware that she was pretty interesting - but did not deserve the life he would have led her to and the mindset he must have put her in to kill herself. God help his mistress as well. His looking back thru 'roomy eyes' makes me want to get a bucket!!!!
Helen Young
Sydney/Guildford, Australia
Wednesday, May 28, 2003
Hi, in browsing this site for the first time, I noticed the mention of my name in reference to Sylvia Plath's 1956 trip from New York to England. In the fall of that year, I was traveling on the Queen Elizabeth (I) as one of the new Fulbright scholars going to study in England. It was on that trip that I met Plath and got to know her for the five days the trip took.
At that time I had no idea who she was, but we soon found out that we were poets and since I was working on my first book of poems, The Blizzard Ape, which would come out the next year with Scribners, she went over the manuscript with me and commented on which poems she thought should be included or excluded. She even worked up a poetry reading for me, to which the whole Fulbright entourage came. She made a rousing introduction, after which I read poems for something like 40 minutes. During our brief five-day friendship, we flirted shamelessly, praised each others' poems, and gave flatfooted critiques of work we judged below par.
In later years, news of those five days traveled to the first Plath biographers. I was called crazy, "on an ego trip," and other unprintable things, since there was no record of her ever having made such a trip. I later learned that during that summer, she and Hughes celebrated their secret marriage in Spain. Secret, because her Fulbright would be canceled were her marriage to be divulged. When she became pregnant that summer, she returned to the United States to seek help from her mother in having an abortion, The Fulbright people allowed her to return on the Queen Elizabeth for the second year of her Fulbright provided she tell no one she was a second-year grantee. Thus, her name didn't appear on the Fulbright list of passengers.
When Paul Alexander phoned me in the late 90s and said he was writing a new biography of Plath, I immediately said that I expected him to insult me as all the other biographers had. I told him my story and asked him, "Do you believe me?" He answered, "Do you still have your passport from that trip?"
I said "yes" and he asked if he could come to my apartment and look at it. When he arrived, I showed him the passport, which he immediately opened to the page stamped by the customs official at Southampton. He slapped it down on my desk, pulled out another passport, Sylvia Plath's of the same era, and opened it to the same page. On both pages of both passports was the same red rubber stamp, with the same nick out of one corner, and inscribed with the same date and time of debarking. He looked up at me. "I believe you."
There is a later twist to the Plat/Pitchford story. When "Ariel" was first published, I showed it to my then-wife the poet and feminist Robin Morgan, who fell in the love with the poems and became a principal champion of Plath's work as a feminist cause. Morgan's poem "Arraignment" in her first book of poems, "Monster," caused Random House to withdraw the book from publication until the subject of that poem, the alleged metaphorical murder of Plath by Hughes, was modified. Writers in England appealing to Morgan to suppress the poem included Doris Lessing. Morgan found a Swiftian solution to the problem and the book was published; she has since recounted this whole story herself.
When I told Alexander that the five-day romantic comedy of that Queen Elizabeth crossing was a very minor incident in both Plath's life and my own, on top of which, it was also only a coincidence that I had passed the torch to Morgan. Alexander replied, "That was no minor coincidence. You made Plath a cause celebre not only for the feminist movement but for our whole world and time." [All passages in double quotes attributed to Alexander are not exact quotes.]
Walking across Regents Park after the last Fulbright orientation session was breaking up (the speaker had been Marghanita Laski fulminating on the destructive effects of American culture on European values), I called to Plath on the path ahead of me and suggested that we go to see the new movie at Leicester Square, "War and Peace," starring Audrey Hepburn and Henry Fonda, Plath turned on the path and walked slowly back to me. She looked me in the eyes and said, "Listen, someday I'll marry a poet ... and kill myself. Get lost." I had no idea where all that hostility came from. I thought we had become good friends. We'd had such fun. But it took years for me to figure out every
(message ends here - webmaster)Kenneth Pitchford
New York, NY, USA
Tuesday, May 27, 2003
Having worked with the drafts of "The Other" I thought I would just post a small contribution to this discussion. On the first draft of "The Other" is the crossed out title "Mannequin" and the first two lines are fitting, "The bones are perfect, of course, / The nose a flying buttress. O rose-window nippples!" Plath then nails the lines that will eventually start this poem. She then fails repeatedly to follow the doorstep image, describing her color as yellow and the other's color as unnatural; attempting I suggest to continue with the idea of a mannequin.
The bad smell in the handbag, according to the first draft, was not to hold knitting but the corpses of seven small children. On the second draft the title is "The Other One." At the bottom of the first page of the second draft Plath attempts and then crosses out, "The fornications you steal on which you gallop, the stolen horses" and "On my stripe bed I hear the galloping / I have no mercy, either." There are also several places Plath writes "him" but crosses the word out.
In the third and final handwritten draft Plath writes, "And now you are inserting yourself like glass / Between me & him" but she stops and crosses out "him" and then contiues "me & the drink I am about to drink."
The last draft is typed with some heavy revision at the bottom. The title of "The Other One" is rejected for "The Other" and it is dated 2 July 1962. The number 1 is written by the first line and the number 2 is written next to the 17th line "I have your head on my wall." The heavy revision starts here and that's where my drafts end. It is completely uncharacteristic of Plath to have left this poem unfinished and not cleanly typed. Where the first version or two are is a mystery to me. She must have finished it as it was originally intended for her version of ARIEL and it was published in Encounter after her death in their October 1963 publication. In WINTERING by Kate Moses she fictionally has Plath walking around Piccadilly Circus and Jermyn Street. I trust Kate's research enough to say that she placed Plath in this shopping area for a reason; not just for her fiction but because she likely worked with the drafts of this poem too.
The first page of the first draft is written on back of "The Rival." The first page of the second draft is clearly written on the back of "In Plaster," so I don't think that Alex, of Firenze, is too far off his opinion. From all the images in the drafts, as well as the original title of "Mannequin" it would appear that Plath's "Other" is, indeed, a mannequin or a window display. That may explain the colors in the poem, which are bright and obscene, striking. The "cold glass" which inserts istelf "Between myself and myself" could then be either Plath's mirrored reflection or Plath's seeing a mannequin. Referencing to marble could be the floor of the store and she does also write the word "cosemtic" which the store likely sold.
Peter K Steinberg
Boston, USA
Tuesday, May 27, 2003
Hi everybody I recently found a link to an interview Sylvia gave to Peter Orr. However, it seems to have disappeared, and I need to quote it for my dissertation... could anyone possibly be of any assistance? I believe it was a transcript from a university homepage. Thanks.
Helle Petersen
Copenhagen, Denmark, Europe
Tuesday, May 27, 2003
Let me start this post out by saying that I know that I am not the reincarnation of Plath (whether one is instilled with the gifts they held in a past lives in current lives or not), but I did have an interesting experience as the "reincarnation of Syliva Plath."
Like most Plathophiles and a sufferer of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, when I first discovered Plath at sixteen I was consumed by her. I've always made journaling and writing large part of my life and I was stuck by Plath, seeing her golden photograph for the first time on the spine of The Uncensored Journals, I was moved to immediately inquire what this woman could have written about.
After reading the journals I could not let go. From there I read everything. Poems, letters, biography, I became a pathetic slob. Over a year later my "Plath spell" has not ended.
It wasn't until I'd spoken to my English teacher about my Plath problem that I'd been approached with the "Plath reincarnation." My teacher was a fanatical spiritualist and was set on finding each of her reincarnations and if possible, the reincarnations of others. Giving an English report to my English class on Plath I rambled on and on (much like I am doing on this post) about genius and the world and life of Sylvia Plath, when faced with the most arbitrary of questions from my English teacher: "What do you think about the reincarnation of Sylvia Plath?" I didn't know what to answer, but the more questions kept coming. "Do you think we are drawn to the habits of our past lives? Do you think that we tend to fascinate ourselves with our past lives?"
I must've said something, but I can't remember what I'd said. The only thing I do remember is being the subject of interesting or stupid matter at our small school. Slightly humilated with all the guff I received about being "Sylvia Plath," in a strange way it as kind of nice to think that for a remarkable time I was Sylvia Plath.
Sebastian
Littleton, CO , USA
Monday, May 26, 2003
Have other Plath scholars and/or academics experienced the phenomenon of teaching students who think that they may be reincarnations of Sylvia Plath?
Paul Grainger
Lincoln, UK
Saturday, May 24, 2003
To Rossana: I would agree with you that Plath deliberately left the sex of the Other and the Rival undefined, to make the poems more ambiguous, open to more readings. The rival could be a rival poet. I think it was written before the Assia affair. I have heard from someone that it is about Anne Sexton who was at that time travelling around Africa but I think the point is that it is not specifically about a particular person but stripped of any references that would narrow its meaning. But still, if I had to decide between male or female I would probably choose female in both cases. In The Other you have the handbag and the knitting which indicate a female other. My idea is that the other is her mother, because of the references to the umbilical cord. But the other could just as well be another aspect of herself, a double. The reference to the glass that "inserts itself between myself and myself" could indicate a mirror. What remains obscure to me is the reference to the stolen horses. She might be referring to a mythical story here, we have Nike in the beginning of the poem, but I know too little about these myths to find a connection.
Anja Beckmann
Leipzig, Germany
Friday, May 23, 2003
Hello Rossana - I find your posting very interesting because as a native English speaker I have a tendency to forget that there are other languages like Spanish and French in which gender plays an important role. I confess I have always considered both poems to be about a woman or about women, whether or not the poems are about actual people that Plath knew. Lines such as "open your handbag" and a reference to knitting in The Other indicates to me that the subject is a woman. Incidentally, I do think it is a poem about Assia Wevill. 'The Rival' is a bit more obscure. You are right to single out the line "Spiteful as a woman, but not so nervous", as this would seem to indicate that the subject is NOT a woman. The use of moon imagery, on the other hand, has linked this poem in my mind to the feminine, but one need only consider the old image of The Man in the Moon to refute this interpretation. I can also consider the subject, the 'rival', to be an abstract concept, but then the seemingly concrete details of the "dissatisfactions" "arriv[ing] through the mail slot with loving regularity", the fingers ticking on the marble tabletop, the subjects 'walking about in Africa', make me ambivalent about that interpretation. I suppose one might think of these details as metaphors, but I dont find that a satisfactory solution. If I were to assign an actual person to equate with 'The Rival', I can only tell you that I have always thought the poem to be about Olwyn Hughes, Ted's sister, if it was about anyone. Dido Merwin is another possibility. I dont speak Spanish (unless you count una mas cerveza por favor) and je parle franais trs mal, so I can only echo your comment that choosing a gender for translation into some languages might indeed be a necessity and therefore will effect the interpretation of a poem to those readers reading it a language other than the original.Kim
Detroit, USA
Friday, May 23, 2003
Rossanna, Thank you for this thought-provoking question. I suspect that most readers would read these poems as addressed to a female. This is probably because we know too much about the facts of the Plath/Hughes relationship, so we project this onto the poems. But there is certainly enough in the poems to suggest that the one addressed is a male--"spiteful as a woman"--but not actually a woman? It's a shame if a translator should be required by the nature of the language to violate this ambiguity and declare for one view or the other. I think, if I were the translator, I would even be sorely tempted to leave the titles in English to avoid having to make this choice, the ambiguity is so much a part of the poem.
I, myself, feel strongly that the one addressed in both poems is Hughes.Jim Long
Honolulu, USA
Friday, May 23, 2003
To Rossana: for years I thought that "The Other" was talking about Assia or Dido. Now I do think, well I'm almost sure, that this poem talks about "the other side" of the personality of Sylvia. About her alter-ego. I find it slightly similar to when Sylvia was talking about her leg in "In Plaster", calling the plastered leg "the other". Though in "The Other" we don't talk about a leg but about the double of Sylvia. At least this is what I think. I would too like to know, once for all, the truth about this beautiful poem. I hope not to have confused your ideas. I didn't want to bother. I just posted this to say "my" opinion.
Alex
Firenze, Italia
Thursday, May 22, 2003
After reading the article by Frieda Hughes that Stephanie posted, I'm frankly amazed that Frieda, who is so protective of her mother's (and her own) privacy, and personal life and legacy, and who so resents the interest of the public in it, that she refuses to let her mother's words be used in a film, even though those words have already been widely published, and who claims that she didn't even want her own poems to be construed as autobiographical, would actually make public this dispute over her father's literary estate, and actually quote from his will for the benefit of the media. Extraordinary! She seems to be trying to use the media to embarrass her stepmother into complying with the terms of Hughes's will. How mercenary is that!?
Jim Long
Honolulu, USA
Tuesday, May 20, 2003
I am a Spanish speaking reader of the Sylvia Plath ouvre and would like to post a message which regards a question that I continue to come upon in each new reading of two very well known Plath poems: The Rival and The Other. In every one of the translations that I have come upon (and I admit I have yet to read the most highly regarded one, by Julieta Fombona, because it has been out of print for some time and would be a very rare find with book dealers) these two works have been taken to, necessarily, be about (and, of course, translated accordingly) a female subject (not to dwell upon whether or not they are about Assia Wevill).
Especially as far as The Rival is concerned, I find the issue a bit controversial. On a personal note, my first readings of this text were made under the assumption that the poet wrote about a male speaker, spiteful as a woman, but not so nervous/and dying to say something unanswerable, perhaps partly due to this verse; in English, it is not necessary to make such distinctions, since the titles the other and the rival do not refer to the sex of the person they allude to. In Spanish, though, one must choose, take a stand so to speak- or translation would not be possible: el rival or la rival, el otro or la otra , but my view continues to be that affirming the poems are about a female subject, presupposes a personal judgment, or reading and, thus, robs the new reader of his own interpretation of Sylviass words.
Is it the opinion of most readers that these poems are about a woman? Especially The Rival?
I think that the assumption that would make The Other feminine, or about a female or a feminine entity, is a lot less constrictive and involves less of a personal judgment; it may even be a necessity, if the poem will be translated at all.I thank you very much for the opportunity of bringing up this discussion.
Rossana Plessmann
Caracas, Venezuela
Tuesday, May 20, 2003
I have seen Voices and Visions and I think it is an excellent documentary. During the dislay of SP's art at Indiana University during the Eye Rhymes symposium there was a backroom that played the video for weary or uneducated patrons. For anyone who has seen the video, what do you think of the thematic "vignettes" that played along with the reading of the poems? For instance "The Disquieting Muses" ballet. Or the "Moon and the Yew Tree" ringing of the bells at the North Tawton cathedral. In the capture of SP's metafor and imagery, each demonstration left me goose pimply.
Sebastian
Littleton, CO , USA
Tuesday, May 20, 2003
"Voices & Visions"--if we are talking about the same thing--wasn't the name of a program specifically about Plath, but the general name for a series of programs (each about an hour long) on American poets, including Sylvia Plath, Hart Crane, and others, that was broadcast on PBS in 1988. I was a consultant for the Plath segment, and I taped the program when it was shown on TV (can't lay my hands on it right now to check the following), but--as I know it underwent various stages of being 'finished'--I wonder whether Isabelle's tape is exactly the same as what was broadcast on PBS. Anyway, if PBS has archives, perhaps it is traceable, if not viewable, through them.
PS: There's a Voices & Visions website on the internet.
Judith Kroll
Austin, TX, USA
Monday, May 19, 2003
Ted Hughes' personal library given to Emory University: See the Ted Hughes Corner of the Mytholmroyd Net
Here's an extract:
Also of special interest are those books owned by Hughes and Plath during the years of their marriage. These include a study of nightmares which Plath presented to her husband as a Christmas gift in the first year of their marriage and a copy of Hart Crane's Complete Poems which Hughes inscribed to her. Plath often marked books as she read them, as revealed by her copies of D.H. Lawrence's Kangaroo, Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse and A Writer's Diary, Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, and other works.
Frances Robinson
Mytholmroyd, UK
Monday, May 19, 2003
I'm not sure if this has ever been posted before but I came across this interview awhile back with Aurelia Plath done by the New York Times...it is entitled "To Sylvia Plath's Mother, New Play Contains Words of Love". It is fairly lengthy, in my opinion, and is very interesting. If anyone would like to read it you can find it here
To Isabelle, I have definitely heard of the Voices and Visions documentary and have seen it on sale on Ebay a couple of times but have never seen the video myself :).
Additionally, I found an article written by Frieda Hughes for the Telegraph in late October, 2002. In it she takes about losing her father, her recent fall out with Carol Hughes, her stepmother, among other things (talks about her poems "Thief" and "Granny" about Aurelia Plath and so on). You can read this article hereStephanie
Ottawa, Canada
Monday, May 19, 2003
It is frustrating how much there is dearth of decent material in the UK. We tend to sell more xeroxed version & duplicates rather than original stuff. The VHS video, as far as I know is unavailable in the UK. I've not heard the LP either.
There is a recording of a poetry reading by Plath from 1962 whihc I have but I think that is available easily in the states since it is easy to grab hold of in the UK.
Rehan Qayoom
London, England
Monday, May 19, 2003
Stephanie, thank you once again for the Plath articles you come across!
I have a VHS called "Sylvia Plath: Voices & Visions " put out by Mystic Fire Video. It is basically a biography and includes footage of interveiws with her mother, others who knew her and a couple of annoying critics. It also includes snippets of the Orr interview Stephanie just posted which I suppose came from the LP mentioned. It was actually pretty well done; much better than I expected.Anyway, I was wondering if anyone else owns this VHS or has heard of it? It was put out in 1988.
Isabelle
Bonita, USA
Thursday, May 15, 2003
Hi Pamela, Oh, your welcome! :) I just happened to come across that interview and knew that a lot of people hadn't read it or may not have been aware of it's existence online. I always thought it would be interesting to actually hear the interview....but the LP is kind of hard to come by (it sells very fast when it pops up on Ebay). Anyway, thanks for your acknowledgement :)
Stephanie
Ottawa, v
Thursday, May 15, 2003
You can find Plath's sequence for Ariel in the Notes section to The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath and on the table of contents page of Wintering: A Novel of Sylvia Plath; the chapters of Wintering are titled after the Ariel poems in their original manuscript order.Kate Moses
San Francisco, USA
Thursday, May 15, 2003
I've just finished reading (it only took about an hour) Jillian Becker's very literate and heartfelt little memoir of Sylvia's last days Giving Up. Although I hate the title, she comes across as a fair-minded and sympathetic observer, at least while she's remembering Sylvia. She obviously had no respect for Assia Weevil or for Hughes's self-justifications. And she vilifies him scathingly in a chapter on the poem "Dreamers" from "Birthday Letters", which she calls "sickeningly antisemitic" and "a jumble of rubbish", and asserts that Hughes "fell in love" with Evil years before he ever met Assia, who is depicted as a "slightly filthy" demon in the poem. She doesn't let Sylvia get by entirely without criticism; she is unforgiving of the fact that Sylvia abandoned her children to Hughes. But she also takes pains to point out that it was not Sylvia but Assia who murdered her child by Hughes. For such a slight book it's a very intensely emotional read.Jim Long
Honolulu, USA
Wednesday, May 14, 2003
Stephanie, I want to thank you for posting the Orr interview (and for all of your intrepid web searching and the intriguing links you discover). I've never seen nor heard the discussion. It's eerie how contemporary she sounds, as if the interview took place just last week.Pamela
Boston, USA
Thursday, May 15, 2003
I found Peter Orr's interview with Plath transcribed on a University's English website. For anyone interested in reading the entire thing (the second best thing to actually hearing it)...it can be read here
Stephanie
Ottawa, Canada
Wednesday, May 14, 2003
I've just learned from a reader that an article in a recent magazine or newspaper refers to Gwyneth Paltrow reading my novel, Wintering. I'd be much obliged if anyone on the Plath Forum could identify the source of this article, which neither my publishers nor I have seen.
Also, FYI for Forum readers in the SF Bay Area and in Chicago: On Monday June 2 at 10am, I'll be discussing Wintering and its factual underpinnings on KQED's "Forum" show with Michael Krasny, aired in the SF Bay Area at 88.5 FM. For Plathophiles in Chicago, on Saturday June 7 at noon at the Chicago Tribune Printers Row Book Fair, I will be having a conversation with novelist/critic Rosellen Brown on the research that went into "Wintering." More details will be available soon at the Wintering website.
Kate Moses
San Francisco, USA
Wednesday, May 14, 2003
Saturday night, May 10, I had the opportunity to see "Committing the Conscious: Meditations on Sylvia Plath" a work written and directed by Braithe Gill. It took place at Collective Unconscious, 145 Ludlow St. in the East Village of Manhattan,and was persented by the RASH! Theatre Company (www.rashtheatre.org.).
Gillian Fallon, a 1999 graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, played a remarkable Sylvia Plath. The play's foundation drew upon archetypes in the book "The Hero Within" by Dr. Carol Pearson. Besides Sylvia, the cast included the following archetypes: magician, innocent, orphan, altruist, wanderer, and warrior. The playwright wanted these archetypes to be representative of the voices inside of Sylvia's head. Her purpose was to have the play be from "Sylvia's perspective, and a look into her world." Among the archetype characters were Aurelia, Ted, Sylvia's housewife/mother persona, fatherless Sylvia, poetress in search of fame.
The play was very short, but was quite an interesting concept. There were quotations from Sylvia's poetry which thoroughly enhanced the play. Ms. Fallon's voice in reciting the poetry was eerily like that of Ms. Plath. When Sylvia first appears onstage, she is reciting "LadyLazurus." I thought to myself, what a shame that Sylvia's poetry will not be able to substantially enhance the BBC film biopic.Carlson Fitch
New York City, USA
Wednesday, May 14, 2003
I've just finished reading (it only took about an hour) Jillian Becker's very literate and heartfelt little memoir of Sylvia's last days Giving Up. Although I hate the title, she comes across as a fair-minded and sympathetic observer, at least while she's remembering Sylvia. She obviously had no respect for Assia Weevil or for Hughes's self-justifications. And she vilifies him scathingly in a chapter on the poem "Dreamers" from "Birthday Letters", which she calls "sickeningly antisemitic" and "a jumble of rubbish", and asserts that Hughes "fell in love" with Evil years before he ever met Assia, who is depicted as a "slightly filthy" demon in the poem. She doesn't let Sylvia get by entirely without criticism; she is unforgiving of the fact that Sylvia abandoned her children to Hughes. But she also takes pains to point out that it was not Sylvia but Assia who murdered her child by Hughes. For such a slight book it's a very intensely emotional read.Jim Long
Honolulu, USA
Wednesday, May 14, 2003
I would appreciate knowing the sequence of poems that Sylvia Plath established for Ariel. It is my understanding that Ted Hughes re-arranged her original sequence.JoAnne White-Gottlieb
Long Beach, California, USA
Monday, May 12, 2003
Dear Mark Lund,My book, Chapters in a Mythology: The Poetry of Sylvia Plath (Harper & Row, 1976) contains an extended discussion of "Medusa," including discussion of the genus of medusa jellyfish 'also called aurelia' (the name of Plath's mother). This was so far as I know the first such published interpretation of "Medusa" . (Later on, after I finally met Aurelia Plath, she wrote me a letter in which she said it was a private joke between her and Sylvia that her name was the name of a jellyfish.)
The mythological and biological interpretations do overlap: seeing the Gorgon Medusa turns one to stone; the sting of the jellyfish is numbing or paralyzing. And the poem in part refers to Plath's being traumatized not only by the discovery of Ted's infidelity, but by her mother's having been witness to this discovery: Aurelia was there in Devon when Plath, having answered the phone call from Assia that was meant for Ted, later ripped the phone out of the wall. After her mother returns to America, Plath writes to Aurelia that 'what you saw and what I saw you see is between us' and that she cannot face her mother again until she has a new life. (Last line of "Medusa": 'there is nothing between us').
Judith Kroll
Austin, TX, USA
Thursday, May 8, 2003
An extract from the novel Miniatures by Labiner can be found here: It is amazing that the parallels seem to have gone unnoticed up to now.
Anja Beckmann
Leipzig, Germany
Thursday, May 8, 2003
Andy, if you check Bookfinders.com, there is a first edition copy of "The Bell Jar" (published under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas)available for $1,850. (US dollars)
Jim Long
Honolulu, USA
Thursday, May 8, 2003
Andy, if you are looking for a '63 true first edition of the Bell Jar, and in mint condition, be prepared to pay anywhere from $1500-5000.Try any internet book selling website Alibris, Amazon auctions and Z shops, Bibliofind, etc. There are usually a couple of copies for sale at anyone time and price depends on condition, although copies of this particular book sell in the 4 figures no matter what the condition.Another option is a 1964 Heinemen Contemporary Book Club edition, also with the Victoria Lucas pseudonym, which sell for anywhere from $300-1000, although the lower price is rare.There is also the Faber and Faber 1st edition, which appeared in 1966, and it is the first edition with Plath's own name attached to it - these copies sell from $500-2500, although I think the high end prices are too high for this edition. Unless the Bell Jar is of particular signifigance, I personally would go for a first edition Faber and Faber Ariel, which can be found for $150-600.Mark, there are indeed critical books on Plath which discuss the Medusa jelly fish allusions in this poem and how they relate to Plath's mother, Aurelia.
Amy, I read Miniatures recently. It's completely obvious from the get go that the basic character outlines are based on Plath and Hughes, as well as some of the plot. I'd love to discuss it with you, because I was enjoying the book for a while and then it spun off into interminable stream-of-conciousness prose (which usually doesn't bother me), and supposedly witty allusions to pop culture which left me rather cold, I'm afraid. Swann, by Carol Shields, also has some allusions to Plath's life, and I liked it much more than Miniatures.
Kim
Detroit, USA
Thursday, May 8, 2003
Mark, with reference to your reading of Medusa: in principle, you seem to be right. However, I think you're balancing Plath's clever pun too much in the one direction. There are several references to the familiar mythological Medusa ('cobra light', 'hiss', 'hair' being the more direct amongst them). Plath intended to artfully conjure both the mythological and the biological Medusa equally and the clever work of the poem is that we are happy to accept both.
Plath picks Medusa because she has long been regarded as a 'negative anima' as well as (oddly) a symbol of sovereign female wisdom. Originally Athena and Medusa were both aspects of the one goddess. Athena being linked to intelligence and wisdom of the mind, while Medusa represented the darker recesses of learning within the self (perhaps, like a lot of 'others' in mythology, that might be better expressed as the 'subconscious'). Eventually, the two split for good and Medusa (and what she represented) was reduced to a mere monster, a nightmare. Plath was aware of this...She was, of course, also aware that Medusa was made a monster in retaliation for...having intercourse in Athena's(!) temple with...Poseidon, that old god of the sea...Faced with the marvellous pun in the Latin for Medusa Jellyfish (Aurelia), she clearly thought it too good - not to mention cruel - an idea to miss.
Kathryn Gray
London, UK
Thursday, May 8, 2003
Just to let you know that a new edition of The Death and Life of Sylvia Plath by Ronald Hayman will be available from July 2003. It will contain a new chapter which addresses the events and publications which were not covered in his original book. I have always felt that this was the most balanced account of her life, and will be very glad to see it back in print. As 'The Mail on Sunday' said of it: 'Quite brilliant...His first chapter describing the last ghastly days of Sylvia's life is worth the cover price alone. I defy anyone to read it without being moved to tears.'Sarah Flight
Stroud, UK
Wednesday, May 7, 2003
Very intriguing, Joey! I've also read that there is a sealed footlocker at Emory University in Atlanta that is, on Hughes' order, not to be opened until 20 years after his death. It has been said that this locker may include Plath's final diaries...among other things.Stephanie
Ottawa, Canada
Wednesday, May 7, 2003
There was some interest expressed earlier in fictionalized accounts of Plath's life. I haven't finished the book yet, but I'm reading Norah Labiner's novel, Miniatures, which is narrated by a woman who goes to work for Owen Lieb, a famous writer, and his second wife, who have returned to the Irish country manor where Owen and his first wife lived earlier. The first wife, Frances Warren, killed herself after Owen left her for another woman; Frances was also a writer who published two books that caused her to become a cultish icon after her death at the age of 30. Frances was born October 27, 1933, followed by a brother two years later on April 27; her father (15 years older than her mother) was born in Vienna and became (hee) a Freudian therapist, while her mother ran a business teaching people to type. Frances met Owen at a college literary party, where she bit his ear until it bled, and he in turn stole from her--not a headband!--but a red lipstick. Yeah, it could all be coincidence...While I'm not that far into it, so far it's well-written and interesting. I had no idea when I bought it that the writer might be paralleling the Plath/Hughes tale. For what it's worth.Amy Rea
Eden Prairie, USA
Tuesday, May 6, 2003
When my niece asked me for information about Plath's "Medusa," I turned to Paul Alexander's Rough Magic after I read the poem. Alexander says the poem is about an imagined persona who is attacked by the classical monster that turns men to stone. While it is true that the first line of the poem has a reference to stone, the rest of the imagery of the poem suggests another meaning of the word "medusa," that is, the adult form of the jellyfish. The "eely tentacle," the "Lens," the "umbilicus" images all support the biological rather than the mythological meaning of the word. I wonder if there are published explications of the poem that agree with my interpretation.Mark F. Lund
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Tuesday, May 6, 2003
I was wondering whether anyone could help me? I'm looking for a first edition of The Bell Jar. Ideally, I would like a hardback of the 1963 edition by Heinemann, failing that a first edition by Faber. The condition must be mint as I intend this to be a gift for my partner. If anyone has any ideas of bookshops that may have a copy or has a copy they wish to sell?!! I would be very grateful for any help. since, I have to admit that I'm at a bit of a loss. Many ThanksAndy Graham.
Aberystwyth, Wales
Tuesday, May 6, 2003
On May 8th and 10th, I believe, there are two performances left of "Committing the Conscious: Meditations on Sylvia Plath." The performances will be at 10:00 P.M. I am sorry that I don't have all the details, but I do know that the theater it takes place at is on Ludlow St. in Manhattan. I will try to post more details as soon as possible.
Does anyone remember the play "Hecates Cave" which played at "The Wings" theater in Manhattan in April of 1999?
Also, thank you everyone for your e-mails concerning the upcoming film "Sylvia."
Carlson Fitch
New York City, USA
Tuesday, May 6, 2003
Re the Plath manuscript, there are rumours that the safe in the offices of Faber & Faber in London has some very interesting items in it.Joey Stobart
Lincoln, UK
Monday, May 5, 2003
Carlton, unfortunately, in the case of Plath and Hughes, it was not so much a pinnacle as a precipice.Jim Long
Honolulu, USA
Thursday, May 1, 2003
I was searching the Forum archives awhile ago for references to Double Exposure or Double Take, supposedly the working title of Plath's last novel. There was a post (I think it was by Elaine Connell, but am not sure; excuse me, Elaine, if I don't remember correctly) saying that 120 pages of that last novel manuscript were in the Smith College Plath Collection, sealed, and no one knew when they would be unsealed.
I contacted Karen Kukil at Smith and asked her about the manuscript, and she said "Funny thing, for the last couple of years people have been asking about that" and she had no idea why, as Smith does not have that manuscript, doesn't have any idea where it is (or isn't), and if and when it ever comes to light, it wouldn't automatically belong to Smith because it was not included in the original purchase: if it's found, Smith would be bidding for it along with anyone else who wanted to acquire it. I told Karen I'd write to the Forum and clarify that Smith does not have the Double Take/Double Exposure manuscript.
Judith Kroll
Austin, TX, USA
Thursday, May 1, 2003
Yes Stefania, I've seen some photographs of Assia Wevill. She was a strikingly beautiful woman with long, very dark hair. I think I've read somewhere that she had green eyes. Hughes is not buried with Sylvia nor in the same cemetery. He was cremated. He had left instructions to have his ashes scattered on Exmoor in Devon. But the last I heard about it (which was several years ago) the land he'd designated is Ministry of Defence property and they'd refused permission.Elaine Connell
Hebden Bridge, UK
Thursday, May 1, 2003
I am just curious about this. Have any of you seen a picture of Assia Wevill? I'd really like to know what she looked like. Also (a lot of you may know this) I recently found out that Assia killed herself & her child (with Ted Hughes) about 6 years after Sylvia's suicide. She also used gas from the oven. I think it's sad that two of the women he was with died by suicide. He was blamed to a degree for SP's suicide. I really feel bad for him- he had a tough life. Ditto for the Hughes kids. Sylvia was buried in England, not Mass. Is Ted Hughes buried with her? At least in the same cemetery? Thanks.
Stefania
Hudson Mass, USA
Wednesday, April 30, 2003
I would like to post on two topics here; first a correction, and then on a strange coincidence. A couple of months ago I asserted that the "When you are insane...when I was crazy, that's all I was" quote, found in Linda Wagner-Martin's biography, originally came from a memoir published in Glamour in 1966 by Elinor Klein, "A Friend Recalls Sylvia Plath." However, I have now read this article, and feel a bit foolish as it's not there! The quotes come from a conversation Wagner-Martin had with her in 1984. The memoir in Glamour, as the prefacing note states, was intended to show "there was a happy side to her nature and years when she found great joy in living."
Now, the coincidence - I read Robin Peel's fine book on Plath and wrote to him a little while ago and he encouraged me to post this here - I wasn't sure if it meant anything, but here goes. I loved finding out that there was a satellite launched in 1962 called Ariel. It was launched on April 26, 1962 (I just realized that's Aurelia's birthday. Hmm.) It was a joint US/UK effort, the first international satellite. It orbited happily until one day a nuclear test greatly weakened its ability to communicate. I found this out in Peel's book but wanted to know more, so I wrote to my engineer friend, Donald Simmons, who gave me some facts:
"I don't know anything about the specific satellite, but in the early 60s the US was conducting a series of high-altitude nuclear tests called "Fishbowl". There was still plenty not well understood about nuclear explosions, and above-ground testing was a lot cheaper and easier to monitor than underground testing.
Anyway, one of the things they were trying to find out more about was electromagnetic pulse (EMP). The short, intense burst of gamma rays from a nuclear detonation interact with the atoms in surrounding air molecules, ionizing the atmosphere and generating a powerful electrical field. This field interacts with electrical equipment and induces massive voltage spikes in it, usually burning it out. The strength of the EMP depends highly on the altitude at which it is released. At altitudes above 30,000m, it is the strongest. It is also significant at surface or low altitude bursts, but is not as effective between the two extremes.
The biggest "Fishbowl" test was called "Starfish Prime", and was set off in the upper atmosphere 800 miles from Hawaii. It succeeded in knocking out radio stations, telephone systems, and random electronics all across the islands. The Army apologized, although later documents suggested they wanted to know if such a thing was actually going to happen. This is probably the blast that took out the satellite. EMP hazards was one of the reasons the US-USSR set up the Test Ban Treaty the following year. It's estimated that a 1.4 megaton blast over Kansas could burn out all the unshielded electronics in North America."
Starfish Prime, the blast that damaged Ariel, happened on July 9, 1962, the same day that Plath famously intercepted the phone call from Assia Wevill to Ted Hughes, after which she dramatically ripped the phone from the wall (very vividly described in Kate Moses' Wintering). I'm not suggesting that these two events have any direct relation, but the coincidence is one I can't ignore, from the dates to the water/ocean imagery of the tests themselves.
Lena Friesen
Toronto, Canada
Monday, April 28, 2003
The band Odd Girl Out has written a song called Sylvia. It is an opus of my favorite lines from Sylvia Plath's poetry set to music. We would love for you to check it out and let us know what you think. You can access it directly here.Please understand that we are very respectful of Sylvia Plath's work and this song is our tribute to her great, mysterious stylings. We credit Sylvia Plath's words in all recordings.
Thank you.
Kat
Fort Myers, Florida,USA
Sunday, April 27, 2003
Hi, everybody! Could anyone in the forum post the poem "My mother", by Frieda Hughes (The one she wrote against the idea of the film about her mom), on the forum or send it to my e-mail, please? It is 48 lines long, and was published in full in the March of Tatler magazine. Thank you very much!!!Sylvia
Brasil
Friday, April 18, 2003
How wonderful to have stumbled on this site - while at a day's reception gig. I'll have to return to what appear to be some quite percipient analyses of Sivvy's work. Having scanned a few comments already, I would have to raise the caveat of not displacing her exquisite craft with historical chattel. To do so is to take your place in a long, dank line of cheese-breathed peddlers.
Scott R. Hammond
San Francisco, USA
Friday, April 18, 2003
I found an interesting article discussing Wintering by Kate Moses and Sylvia and Ted by Emma Tennant called "Dead Poets Society" in Wellesley University's monthly online magazine (March 2003.) You have to scroll down a bit to find the article:Stephanie
Ottawa, Canada
Tuesday, April 15, 2003
Kathyrn, you wrote, "She was struggling in her head with perfecting the artist and struggling with her hands to perfect clam chowder. " --you set these up as conflicting drives that didn't "make Plath anything like a feminist." Perhaps we're disagreeing on the definition of feminism. As Stephanie pointed out, feminism has become a broad term with various shades of meaning. Wanting to make someone (husband, partner, whomever) happy and being obligated to do so are two separate issues, in my opinion, and I would disagree that wanting to make a loved one happy makes someone anti-feminist. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the feminist platform, however. I would agree that living for another person and putting yourself second, as Plath often did early on in her marriage, is anti-feminist. And yes, she bought into the stereotypical roles expected of 1950's women. But she also broke with them, dividing childcare time with her husband so each could work. Again, I wouldn't agree that she is a paragon of feminism, but neither do I think she is anti-feminist.
As for her less attractive spewing in her journals, and I suppose I'm admitting a less attractive side of myself here, who doesn't spew and rant and bitch in private, in writing not intended for public consumption? Can't feminists have bitchy, jealous or insecure bouts? Plath's comments were often fueled by her insecurity. She felt threatened by Rich's talent and by Dido's charms. I do not see the leap, however, to accusing Plath of being anti-choice. True, she seems uncomfortable with lesbianism. In The Bell Jar, however, when Dr. Nolan suggests to Esther that woman are attracted to women for their tenderness, Esther says "that shut me up." For whatever reasons, many cultural I would hazard, Plath was uncomfortable with lesbianism, but if we read Plath in Esther at all, Plath seems to acknowledge her own short-sightedness or prejudice in this regard.
If we are to turn to Plath's writing to examine her place in a feminist framework, I would argue that by refusing to cloak her emotions, by letting her anger or hostility infuse her art, she challenged the traditional expression of female experience as that of the polite angel in the house, the one, who, is simply a boy's "last resort" and like an automaton "...can sew, / it can cook, / It can talk, talk, talk."
Pamela
Boston, USA
Sunday, April 6, 2003
Very good points, Pamela :). I wouldn't say that Plath necessarily makes a good poster child for the feminist movement, however, the idea that Plath was or would have been "anti-feminist" is not an entirely correct assumption in itself. I think that most women are slightly feminist in their own ways. Some of us may not identify ourselves as being feminist...however, some of our mannerisms and ways of conducting our lives indicate a sense of independence from those of the male sex (like we may decide not to ever get married, not to have children, to be a career-oriented woman or what-have-you...or some women, like Plath, want to have it all) :).Stephanie
Ottawa, Canada
Wednesday, April 2, 2003
Well said, Pamela. I don't agree with everything that's written, either (regarding any subject). At least it usually makes for good conversation, and I appreciate Stephanie posting and articles on Plath when she comes across them.
Isabelle
Bonita, USA
Wednesday, April 2, 2003
