June 2003 - July 2003
Hi All, I just wanted to remind everyone that a brand new edition of The Death and Life of Sylvia Plath by Ronald Hayman was just published by Sutton Publishing in Britain. It contains new information and some new snap shots I, personally, have never seen before. I believe you can order it from Sutton or for those in North America, it will be published in 3 months. I already have my copy and have read all the the new info and I definitely think it is worth picking up....especially if you've read the original version of the book (or for those who haven't read it at all...bypass the older version and read this one).
Stephanie
Ottawa, Canada
Thursday, July 31, 2003
Point of Information for Peter Clayton. The second Mrs Ted Hughes, Carol Orchard, did not commit suicide. She is alive and well and living in her native Devon. When you stated that "Ted Hughes' second wife and step-daughter committed suicide", I suppose you are referring to the deaths of Assia and Shura Wevill in 1969. Assia was romantically linked to Hughes but she never married him, and Shura was Ted's daughter, not his step-daughter.
Andrew
Wakefield, England
Thursday, July 31, 2003
To Peter: I am very perplexed. What does it matter that Assia (Mrs. Hughes, - although they never formally married) was not American? Whatever the nationality of the players, two suicides and one infanticide IS unusual in any family, wouldn't you say? No attempt here to villianize, mind you! Just a highly unusual happening. Multiple suicides in one family do at times occur, but it is the blood relatives of the initial suicide most at risk.
Claudette Coulter
Dayton, OH, USA
Thursday, July 31, 2003
Peter, The pointlessness of your argument is demonstrated by the fact that it merely reinforces old prejudices and reintroduces arguments that need to be abandoned. Pitting one poet against another is fruitless, particularly when in this case the poetry can only be enriched by a genuine appreciation of both. If you truly want to focus on the poetry, why not do so. Adding fuel to a fire has never been an intelligent or indeed practical way to let one die. Your argument does Hughes no favours - think about it.
Christina
Dublin, Ireland
Tuesday, July 29, 2003This may seem like cowardly backtracking, but I admit that the ì99% of Plath supportersî statement was a gross hyperbole, nay, a completely ludicrous statement. I wish I could say ìMembers of the jury, you should disregard this statementî
I like Ted Hughesí poetry more than Sylvia Plathís, so I assumed, wishfully, that everybody should think so too. Even if Hughes and Plath were equally talented or Plath was more talented than Hughes, my point remains same: be fair to the man. Sebastian says that one should not disregard the character and take only art into account. But for the art, Ted Hughes would be like millions of other men, disconsolate, unhappy and temperamental, character in a suicide drama. Forgotten except for a space in the obituary.
We have moved on. In these forums and many others, we discuss poetry and not the tragic event of 1963. But while Sylvia Plath is the heroine, Hughes remains the villain. Because of one act of infidelity, Hughesí whole career went to waste. And here I am not exaggerating. I think the measure of a manís success is the reaction the general public has when they hear his name. The reaction when people hear the name ëTed Hughesí is ëthe anti-feminist?í
Crow and Iron Giant are the most representative of Hughesí work. Universal themes embedded, in the first for adults and in the second for children. Hughes, disdainful of human suffering, wrote ìblack-hole epicsî, poems of epic proportions three or four stanzas long. Nowhere in his poems will he come across as an anti-feminist.
I pose these question to Sylvia Plathís supporters: did not Plathís death come at a time when the feminist movement was gaining ground across the world? Did not Plathís books sell more after her death? Was not Pablo Picasso a womanizer and but for his luck, could he not equally have not been involved in the suicide of a woman?
Ted Hughes shared the trait of many other poets and artists before him. Nature seems to give these men and women fragile minds with a distinctive genius. A fragile mind was what led Plath to take her own life. A fragile mind led Hughes to become the unwitting villain of the drama. Hughesí habits would have been put off as artistic license had it not started a chain reaction that resulted in the death of his spouse. I think all you out there should think about considering the possibility that the Plath was at least half responsible for her suicide. Give the man that much.
The attitude among Plath lovers is ëletís forget it. It happened 40 years ago. Lets move on. But I still know Hughes did ití
Can you do a dead man justice and be fair?
Peter Clayton
Wichita, Kansas, USA
Tuesday, July 29, 2003
To Peter: Thems Fighting Words
Maybe this goes beyond your argument and makes a point of saying that I really have no point. Your argument comes off as an attack, and seems to want to strengthen in it saying that we know whos better and that we need to disregard character and take only the art into account. You cannot so much as mention that 99% of Plath supporters agree as to who was the greater poet: the husband. You cannot be valid when you say your point is to read Hughes but in essence come off saying that the Plath hub-ub is not worth the husband. Yes, I do agree with you that at this point, with all of our protagonists dead, we need to move on, but there is no hope in trying to justify someone in comparing their villainies (a term I use in the case that Hughes are compared to others) and ask why someone commits suicide as if it is a pathetic, unrelated matter. Beyond the invalidation, there is a connection between these subjects, but their roots have not been touched upon. You dont have to break a person in order to justify someone else. Please leave our beloved Plath alone and argue Hughes as if this was something that happened, and that Hughes (using your argument) was human, not intentionally evil (or evil at all), and should really be seen for his poetry. I admit, I love Hughes and Plath poetry, but we that come here love Plath and wont stand to have her marketed as someone who would pathetically kill herself. You of all people should recognize the reasoning behind it in such a powerful vessel as poetry.
Sebastian
Littleton, CO, USA
Monday, July 28, 2003
I am astonished that Peter Clayton could write such an unsubstantiated diatribe as this: "...99% of Plath supporters agree as to who was the greater poet: the husband."
Where exactly does that figure come from? Peter takes a lot of Plath enthusiasts to task for their lack of credibility. But he needs to turn the criticism inward. A statement like his, wholly unsubstantiated by any kind of research, is ludicrous.
Glenn
Seattle, USA
Monday, July 28, 2003Ted Hughes: Let his spirit wander free
Edward James Hughes is arguably the greatest English poet of the last century. Five years after his death, it is still appropriate to use is instead of was. Because the spirit of the man must be wandering in this world, witnessing the spectacle of the renewed debate over his role in the suicide of his one time wife and celebrated American poet Sylvia Plath.
A leading male feminist recently complained that the criticism, nay, the general vilification of Ted Hughes was restricted in the feminist circle. I disagree. Whenever one mentions Ted Hughes, the reply is ?Oh, you mean Sylvia Plath?s husband?? or ?You mean the anti-feminist?? Trivial matters like The Crow or The Iron Giant or his dozen or more works do not figure in the conversation. For 35 years, the man was doomed to live under his dead wife?s shadow. Or as one critic puts it, under the shadow of his ?more illustrious, talented and popular wife.?
More talented? Am I not hearing right? Saying Sylvia Plath was more talented than Ted Hughes is like saying Ben Johnson was more talented than William Shakespeare or Samuel Coleridge was more talented than William Wordsworth or Henry Longfellow was more talented than Alfred Tennyson.
Anyway, the point is not even debated now. 99% of Plath supporters agree as to who was the greater poet: the husband.
The point ferociously debated is the absolute lack of character, morals or decency in Ted Hughes. But Ted Hughes was a poet, not a saint.
Thousands of women commit suicide because of thousands of their husbands. They are not battered in public for 35 years. So why Ted Hughes? Just because he was a talented poet, a Poet Laureate? There might have been a fundamental weakness in Ted Hughes when it came to women. How many men don?t have such a weakness in some degree? How many men don?t think of cheating on their wives and how many actually do it? Ted Hughes was married to a woman who had psychiatric problems, who had tried to take her own life twice before. So when she does take her life, albeit successfully, let?s hang the husband. And it?s convenient that he is famous and is known to have a grouchy nature, a temper and writes particularly violent poems.
Apparently Ted Hughes actually became a public American villain after his second wife and step-daughter committed suicide. In spite of the small fact that Mrs. Ted Hughes No. 2 was not an American.
In human science, arts, literature, history has thrown up people whom we just loved to hate. Thankfully, we grew out of such hatred after a couple of centuries. Plato, Socrates, Euclid, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton (yes, Newton), Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth (the last thirty years of his life were hell), Alfred Tennyson; all these geniuses were despised in varying degrees during their life times. Newton was considered paranoid, a madman dabbling in alchemy. Wordsworth was a radical revolutionary and an ardent supporter of the French Revolution, but died bitterly conservative. It took about three years after his death for critics to start lambasting Tennyson. Pope was ridiculed as an ill-tempered hunchback. And no musical critic understood the Ninth Symphony when it was first performed by Beethoven on May 7, 1824.
Ted Hughes definitely belongs to the above category. History will remember Ted Hughes as a poet par exemplar, but Sylvia Plath as a feminist idol who was forced to commit suicide by a very evil man. In the long run (thanks to Plath supporters) Ted Hughes will remain the poet and Sylvia Plath the victim.
Suicide, in general, is a subject that can be debated endlessly. In some countries, suicide is legal. In many, it is illegal. Should suspect relatives be held responsible for the death of the suicidee? Or should the doctrine of ?nobody?s holding a gun to your head? prevail over provocation from an outside entity? Let?s face it, Sylvia Plath was a brilliant woman, a free soul, a staunch libertarian. She could have simply given Hughes divorce, gotten custody of her children (which any judge would have given her, if Ted Hughes? indiscretions were indeed so apparent) and marched off to Boston. Instead, she chose to kill herself in a cold, damp London apartment? Why, for goodness?s sake, why?
Death is tragic; suicide, even more so. And my question to Plath supporters is ? why attack Ted Hughes after his second wife went the Sylvia Plath way? The matter, for them, should have started or ended when Plath killed herself. Fierce and harsh criticism should have come then, not after the second incident. Plath supporters should have made Plath the center of the drama, instead they made Hughes the focal point. They were supporters of Plath, not this other obscure woman who tragically emulated her predecessor. For them, the case should have closed with Plath. Ted Hughes was evil, fine. But pronounce him evil the next day, not two years later. And what is all this American-British, feminist crap? At least have the guts to label it as a battle of two human beings, not a Trans-Atlantic, trans-generic battle. A woman kills herself and the husband is labeled ?murderer? for thirty five years? What sort of crooked justice is that?
Feminists were angry. Male feminists, female feminists were angry. They diverted that anger to the man, not the poet. Criticism against Ted Hughes? works will not stand ground. Either the critic will be an anonymous feminist or a disgruntled publisher. Ted Hughes wrote such a large volume of poetry, that it has stood, and will stand the test of time. If there is one Plath supporter out there who has a valid critique of Ted Hughes? work, please send them to me. I doubt if half of them have even read a fraction of the poet?s works. They are so wound around Sylvia Plath that they won?t bother reading the poetry of the second half of the most famous literary couple of this century.
I and many of the people reading this won?t be alive around 2090, when I think Ted Hughes will get his due recognition. But the man is already dead, don?t let his spirit wander more. Even if Sylvia Plath?s coveted missing journal is found, what is the worse that Plath could have written? I doubt it would be worse than what Plath supporters already think of Ted Hughes. If every woman who caught her husband cheating committed suicide, there would be a drastic drop in the female population.
I am not criticizing Sylvia Plath, nor am I supporting what Ted Hughes did. I am criticizing the hypocrisy, which has for 35 years, picked Ted Hughes among the millions of eligible men as the sole adulterer of the world.
Ted Hughes gave us many memorable poems. My appeal to Plath supporters is: read his poems. Look around you and see people committing worse crimes than Ted Hughes everyday. Read his poems again and compare them to the one mistake the man made 40 years ago. And please let his spirit wander free.
Peter Clayton
Wichita, Kansas, USA
Sunday, July 27, 2003
I must say I was disappointed with "Edge," the play by Paul Alexander, when I saw it in June. (I can only write about it now as I've had enough time to get over it, my shrink says I'll be alright!) As lovely as Angelica Torn was, she was not given a chance to really act the part. The play, filled with vicious remarks about everyone that Plath knew, babbles on needlessly. I was ready to leave shortly into it! Of course it is very clear that Alexander hates Hughes; but Plath didn't. Mr. Alexander has every right to create a play with as much venom as he choses; but it is completely inappropriate to mislead the audience. What I am most afraid of are people taking the play as non-fiction, despite it's being littered with bad facts and hokey sound effects.
Peter K Steinberg
Boston, USA
Wednesday, July 23, 2003
I would like to announce that my Sylvia Plath Homepage has moved to www.sylviaplath.de
I would like to ask everybody who has a link to this page to update the link soon as the old site will be shut down. Thank you!
Anja Beckmann
Leipzig, Germany
Wednesday, July 23, 2003
Plath Play "Edge" Reviews
Does not sound too good
New York Post
Gwinnett Daily PostSteve
Canada
Tuesday, July 22, 2003
Christina, you are exactly right in your feelings of sadness over the continuing wars in the Plath/Hughes camp, but may I tenatively offer an explanation for perhaps some of the comments, tasteless or not. Not everyone who visits this excellent forum is an exact scholar of the work of the two poets-I myself am no scholar nor pretend to be-but the "facts" of their lives (in as much as we know them through that demon biography) do tend to illicit strong feelings one way or the other. I have found my own buttons pushed (for lack of a better expression!) by some of the things I have read about in the biographys of Sylvia and Ted. It is a very visceral reaction. In so many ways their story is an achetype for certain relationships or marriages. Perhaps that is what is really at the root of all the trouble. I have come in for my share of boos and hisses for my comments and since then I have been examining my feelings as to why? Why do I feel as strongly as I do about one thing or another? These two poets continue to challenge and stretch me - it is what I love about them both and just one of the reasons as to why they endure to fascinate.
Claudette Coulter
Dayton, OH, USA
Monday, July 21, 2003
Paul Alexander's one-person play "Edge" has been playing at a theatre off of Union Square Park since the beginning of July. Angelica Torn, playing a brooding somewhat unhinged Sylvia Plath, does a terrific job in the role. She's already sitting in a stuffed chair facing the audience as people enter the small auditorium. Writing nerviously in a notebook and looking at her watch she is waiting for the show to begin like everyone else. It's the last night of her life and she has a lot to say. There are some sound effects, but the only props are the stuffed chair, the notebook, a small table, and a glass of water. For two hours--there's a fifteen minute intermission--she goes over some well-trodden events in her life, and leaves no doubt that she has been victumized and betrayed by the people she loved. Her father was a tyrant with the mind of a Nazi. Her mother was a well-meaning buffoon who couldn't protect her. And her husband--whose name "Ted Hughes" she says was a small poem in itself--was a self-absorbed "minor" poet with sadistic tendencies. From the beginning their marriage was proplelled by sex mixed with pain.
Alexander takes artistic liberties with the historic facts, but you can't expect any fairness here. His Sylvia Plath is very angry and she wants every body to know it. She's also cruel and witty, certain of her superiority over those who have hurt her. But she also recognizes that she's still in love with her unworthy husband. Overall, it's a fascinating interpretation of a complex person.
Paul Snyder
New York, USA
Sunday, July 20, 2003
Having returned to the Ariel poems recently, I came to this site in search of new views or readings of Plath's work. The discussions about the role of the Medusa are particularly interesting. I hadn't fully considered the implications of Medusa as subconcious - or as punished goddess. A split half.
It is, however, depressing to see the old Hughes-Plath camps at war as ever. Helen's comments about Hughes having 'bumped off' two wives and a daughter are tasteless and disrespectful (not least to Plath who surely was the artist in her own death as well as life). The reasons for any suicide remain by their very nature unknowable to the outsider, suicide can hold a strange fascination. Nor can we ever know enough to blame those left behind. It seems a great failure that a little empathy and subtlety of thought cannot finally be extended to those involved.
Afterall, whatever our interest or attachment she was not ours - she was not our mother, our wife or our loved one. She was theirs. Our judgements are not necessary.
Christina
Dublin, Ireland
Sunday, July 20, 2003I remember reading a review of Plath's "Ariel", I think, or perhaps a review of an altogether different collection, which was by Al Alvarez. The review was, as I remember, published in the immediate aftermath of the publication of "Ariel" in the late 1960s. It contained a phrase which likened the writing of so-called "confessional" poetry to "scrawling on your arm in lipstick and ripping it off" - or something along those lines. Does anyone know the exact phrase, or where it comes from? It strikes me as missing the point when applied to Plath, who so often uses other personae as the voices for her poems, but also as a particualarly effective description of the "confessional" brand of poetry. I would be very grateful if anyone could help me with this. Thanks
Chris Hildrew
Nottingham, UK
Wednesday, July 16, 2003It is fantastic to be able to dialogue with people who are as interested about the work of Ms. Plath as I am . . . even if that dialogue is executed electronically. I do have one question regarding her last days. I have read on this site and elsewhere on the web that she was in regular correspondence with a Jesuit priest. Where can I find scholarship or primary sources that indicate this was the case. The reason I ask is because I was interested in the a/theology of Plath in the Ariel poems. Thanks for your help.
A. Adams
San Diego, CA, USA
Tuesday, July 15, 2003I was very impressed by Angelica Torn as Sylvia Plath in the play Edge which I saw today in New York City. Her performance was an emotionally fulfilling experience and I will be sure to tell all to see it. As the offspring of two wonderful actors, she pays tribute to her parents and to herself in this one woman show. I would love to see more of her in theatre and film. Sincerely, E.Haray
Eleanor Haray
New York 10025, USA
Sunday, July 13, 2003
The august scholar and critic Helen Vendler has just published a little book called Coming of Age as a Poet: Milton, Keats, Eliot, Plath that, as the title implies, examines several (4) of Plath's poems with a view to how her work developed and matured as she did. She sees "The Colossus" as the pivotal poem or, as she calls it, Plath's first "perfect poem", comparing it, as an elegy for her father, to "Electra on Azalea Path". She also discusses "Parliament Hill Fields" and finally "Edge" as the mature "perfect poem". The chapter on Plath is, in part, a defense of Plath's stature as a poet, and an attempt to demonstrate that, contrary to the opinions of certain critics, she does have a valuable poetic "vision" to contribute to modern literature.
Jim Long
Honolulu, USA
Tuesday, July 8, 2003
Kenneth, I think if you look at Plath's conception of God she did not see Him as a "redeeming God" as you put it, but as a consuming God, if you will, demanding a blood sacrifice. "Once one has seen God, what is the remedy?" God Himself is not the remedy. In exchange for the transcendant experience God demands a burnt offering. "Once one has been seized up/Without a part left over,/Not a toe, not a finger, and used,/Used utterly, in the sun's conflagrations...What is the remedy?" "By the roots of my hair some god got hold of me./I sizzled in his blue volts like a desert prophet" The fact that she felt herself imbued, visited by God at the end was not necessarily a good thing, as Ms. Kroll points out in Hughes' warning about the dangers of being swept up in God.
Jim Long
Honolulu, USA
Tuesday, July 8, 2003
Ms. Kroll, Thank you for your prompt response--I see that on this we differ, but not terribly much, and this is a point on which reasonable people can differ. I would add to your litany, and if she had had a single friend...but she didn't.
Still, my own reading - which is my own - is that in Plath's poetry, you have someone sun-blinded, as it were, by Father-worship of an absent God, and the struggle to rejoin him, and the horror of a life without him; and the agony of the Ariel poems is literally an agon, a female Prometheus, breaking through the rubbish and into the light.
And, it would just be like Plath - as I understand her, anyway--to play a trump card of this sort over her husband, with her dying breath. Of course, this is confusion, but so is the record of the Ariel poems; lightning-illuminations of chaos. Still, I would rather see her as an arrow shot into the light, than into darkness--her discarding Hughes as a false God, a light that failed her, and trading him for a better. Given the record of the Ariel poems, any talk of a redeeming God from such a quarter--a paradigm of in extremis, in excelsis--can only be a hopeful sign - however misplayed and thwarted by cirucmstance, as she was, in the endgame...
Of course, as the memoirist had it, Plath's was a mind of "a mass of whirling fragments," like a storm of comets, and people draw what connecting lines they can, between the slashing insights. It's like drawing a constellation out of the random stars...
a bit off topic; do you know about the unpublished Ariel poems that Markey talks about in "Into the Red Eye"...? I read that, and thought, here's interesting matter - where is it? Surely not at the Harry Ransom center...?
Kenneth Jones
Berkeley, USA
Tuesday, July 8, 2003
For Kenneth Jones-- I can only try to respond to your interesting question. But first, let me clarify for other readers of the Forum that, when you mentioned my "comments in Chapters in a Mythology, about how Plath was seeing God in her last few weeks - "I have seen God, and he keeps picking me up; I am full of God" - my comments were actually direct quotes of remarks made to me by Ted Hughes.
(After handing in my Yale dissertation, of which Chapters in a Mythology became a rewrite, a copy had to go to Olwyn Hughes, to get permissions for University Microfilms; she had passed on that copy to Ted, and he made notes which he later gave me after I was invited to work on Plath's Collected Poems. In remarking that Plath said "I am full of God," he was confirming what I'd already deduced about the direction of her last poems.)
He also said something to me along the lines of having "warned" Plath of the danger in going too far, too fast in pursuing experiences of being swept up by God. Yet I would not say that Plath's suicide was a "twisted version of a Christian conversion". I think she realized she was in a race against time, that a glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel wasn't the same as actually 'getting there'. In a draft of "Paralytic," she had written "I am learning to let go"; but what if you haven't yet let go, what if the medications don't work or are the wrong meds, what if the glimpses of transformation (the overcoming of a spoiled history, the loosening of the ego's grip) haven't yet firmed into a steady vision, what if all this hasn't yet become a raft that will get you across the flood before it overwhelms you?
So she was not 'there', though she was struggling to find a way to survive; and perhaps her intellect was, so to speak, leading her heart. And she didn't have a whole lot of help from fate: If the weather had been better, If she and the children hadn't fallen ill, If she'd had a terrific and reliable nanny, If the New Yorker had accepted all of her last poems rather than turning all of them down, If she'd fallen in love, or had a lover.... If some of these things had happened, the outcome might have been quite different, even with the ghosts of her 'lost Eden' and of Ted's perfidy.
I still pretty much stand by what I wrote at the end of my chapter on Death, Rebirth, and Transcendence in Chapters in a Mythology, when I commented on how strikingly different the voices manifested in Plath's last few poems were from the earlier poems in which certain themes had been subsumed into a myth (ie the "Bee" poems; "Daddy" "Lady Lazarus"; etc.) : "Now, clearly on her own and for the first time in seven years living in a place not shared with her husband, her poetry seems increasingly to reflect a recognition that she must finally confront the patterns that had dominated her life and her very conception of self. She might in retrospect have seen in the writing of the mythic poems an attempt at self-hypnosis. Now that she was alone in London the images of mythic rebirth evaporated under the onslaught of a grim reality. The need she felt now seems not to have been rebirth or triumph in terms of the drama, but to inquire whether it might be possible to detach herself from it: another version of the false self/ true self dilemma.
Her last themes include the dissolution of the ego into a larger Self and the difficulty of integrating this experience of timeless ecstasy into ordinary life. Poems such as "Paralytic" and "Mystic" deal with 'rebirth' as an a actual experience of some sort; whereas the rebirths which occur in "Lady Lazarus" or "Getting There' do not claim to be experiences, but are metaphors which although more literalistic in form are also more literary."
Finally, the nature of the "wonderful vision" she mentioned to Trevor Thomas is anyone's guess; mine (like yours) would be that it didn't have to do with reuniting with Ted, with the family all living happily in Devon once again. But neither do I believe it was a twisted version of "dying-into-Christ". She appears to have been in a crisis that last night (not only from what Thomas says, but from Jillian and Gerry Becker's testimony), and more sleep-deprived than usual. And on medication which might just then have been kicking in enough for her to carry through a plan, to make an escape if such an action somehow seemed, at that time, the only answer.
Judith Kroll
Austin, TX, USA
Sunday, July 6, 2003
To all who have replied to me regarding future poets I can look into: Thank you very much. I have made a note of them all, and I will begin be looking into what my library holds. Again, thank you all for the nudges in the right direction :) Looking into these should keep me occupied for quite some time.
Daniel
Nottingham, UK
Sunday, July 6, 2003
Daniel, One word for you. The poet to read is genius William Blake!
Beatrice
Stockholm, Sweden
Saturday, July 5, 2003
This is my first visit to this website. As I read a few of the recent messages and some criticism of Ted Hughes as husband, I am reminded of something I read about Plath about 20 years ago. The theory proposed was that a contributor to Plath's suicide was unresolved grief over her own father's death. When a parent dies, children grieve differently at different ages and as the child gets older he/she needs to re-grieve in new age-appropriate ways.
Janet Dickinson
NC, USA
Friday, July 4, 2003
Another poet you should look at is Christina Rosetti, especially Goblin Market - similar to Plath in some ways i thinkAndy Carter
Swindon, England
Friday, July 4, 2003
I have a question for Judith Kroll down in Austin; Given your comments in "Chapters in a Mythology," about how Plath was seeing God in her last few weeks--"I have seen God, and he keeps picking me up; I am full of God"-- and Trevor Thomas's report that her last words to him in the hallway were of the "wonderful vision" she was having, do you think her suicide was, in a way, a twisted version of a Christian conversion? A dying-into-Christ?--I'd welcome your thoughts on this.--I wonder if that last letter to her mother still exists, and would answer the question...Kenneth Jones
Berkeley, USA
Friday, July 4, 2003
Rossanna Plessman-- ...to say that Harold Bloom disdainfully notes anything is a redundancy, but the comment does illuminate some of the aftereffects of leaving poetry to the universities, where it has been tightly lodged, from Dylan Thomas up till rap. (of course, rap is written in English, and therefore cannot be poetry, right?)...who was the parodist who said, "The perfection of a poem is that it not be understood?"--which was echoed by Woody Allen's line about "the most incomprehensible, and therefore the greatest, of the Irish poets."...I think I first saw the illustration of this in an old review of Tolkien in Life magazine, where the critic said, in so many words, I didn't mind Tolkien when he was the darling of a small cult group, but when he became a popular success, he made my skin crawl. There is the true mandarin-hipster-than-thou note; if everyone gets it, I lose my cachet, so I'm outta here...
Kenneth Jones
Berkeley, USA
Friday, July 4, 2003
Joanne White-Gottlieb--a perfect name for this forum--
The Trevor Thomas thing is a zine; a typed, Xeroxed pamphlet, stapled, with the author's heavy-metal-high-school-senior cartoon of Plath on the cover, and I think every copy of it landed in a University library somewhere...Berkeley's Bancroft library has a copy, University of Oklahoma in Norman has a copy...check around with your local universities; if not, try Inter-Library Loan...
Kenneth Jones
Berkeley, USA
Friday, July 4, 2003
Mr. Pitchford-- I am curious as to the missing coda to your letter to the forum; can you please send a copy to me at yarrowstalks51@hotmail.com. Thank you for your time and attention to this.
Kenneth Jones
Berkeley, USA
Friday, July 4, 2003
Shaynie of Newcastle-- The San Francisco Public Library had a copy of the record. Fill out an Inter-Library Loan slip and specify that.
Kenneth Jones
Daniel, if you want to explore other poets, I would recommend the following: a) William Shakespeare. Although mainly known as a dramatist, his book of sonnets contains some of the finest poetry written in the English language. b) Emily Bronte. Although, her main claim to fame is her novel 'Wuthering Heights', she was a truly great lyric poet. Bronte was also the inspiration for Plath's poem 'Wuthering Heights' in the 'Crossing the Water' collection.
Berkeley, USA
Friday, July 4, 2003
Andrew
Wakefield, England
Friday, July 4, 2003Daniel, I would advise you (now that you've started off by jumping in the deep end with Plath) to read Auden, Pope & Betjeman. Auden will tell you exactly what poetry is Pope would develop your taste to the limits of poetical possibility & Betjeman will give you a relish of poetry. Have Fun.
Rehan Qayoom
London, England
Friday, July 4, 2003
Daniel, keep in mind that poets are just like people--no two are the same. But you might try some of those who influenced Sylvia's work. Plath loved Yeats and jumped at the chance to live in a house he had lived in. Also Rilke, both early and late (If I recall correctly, she translated one or two of his poems from German - the Duino Elegies ("Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angelic orders?" and try even The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, which is prose but reads like a waking dream (or a nightmare). Among the more contemporary, I recommend Theodore Roethke, particularly The Lost Son and The Far Field. John Berryman's Dreamsongs - he was similarly self-obsessed and killed himself by jumping off of a bridge in Minneapolis. Adrienne Rich was a contemporary of Plath's that she measured her own work against--read her. Denise Levertov was a brilliant poet, whose work is too often forgotten. There is a group of poets loosely termed "deep image" poets, like Robert Bly. His The Tooth-mother Naked at Last is, in my opinion the lost powerful poem written about the Vietnam War. James Wright was a wonderful poet, read Two Citizens and To a Flowering Pear Tree - I love the poem "The Blessing": "If I stepped out of my body, I would break into blossom". This should get you started. ;>}
ps: Marie Howe has an extraordinary collection called What The Living Do that I found very moving and intense. The first time I read it cover to cover I immediately went back to the beginning and read it again. It's "confessional" in the sense that it's very frank about childhood sexual issues, abuse within the family, and the death of her brother, apparently from AIDS. But done with much tenderness and compassion.
Jim Long
Honolulu, USA
Thursday, July 3, 2003To Daniel: While Plath's work is brilliantly singular, the same note may be struck for you by other confessional poets. Those like Anne Sexton and Robert Lowell. James Merill is also huge on imagery and can really be a trip... While not so much a confessionalist, Billy Collins is also truly amazing. If you do decide that you like other poets your return visits to Plath with always be richly flavored and mature.
Sebastian
Littleton, CO, USA
Thursday, July 3, 2003
I have only recently gotten seriously into reading poetry, and of course I feel somewhat like I have spoiled myself by starting with Plath. There doesn't seem to be anyone else I can get properly into. I was just wondering, what other authors do other Plath fans like? And where can I go from here?
Daniel
Nottingham, UK
Sunday, June 29, 2003
I would very much encourage you to visit the web site:
There is a new one woman play being produced off-Broadway in July about Sylvia Plath. It is a limited run and I would encourage as many of you to see it as possible. The information is at the above web site. Any marketing tie ins or suggestions are appreciated. We want to keep the words and thoughts of this literary treasure alive.
David Flora
New York City, USA
Friday, June 27, 2003In response to Shaynie's message posted on 24th June, an excerpt from Sylvia Plath's interview with Peter Orr was included on a vinyl LP released in 1965. It was entitled The Poet Speaks- Record No.5. The catalogue number is Argo PLP 1085. In addition to the interview excerpt, the record also includes Sylvia reciting three poems that were included in 'Ariel'; 'Daddy', 'Lady Lazarus' and 'Fever 103'. 'Fever 103' and 'Lady Lazarus' are slightly longer in the recitals than the published versions. Sylvia's recordings were made in London on 30th October 1962. The record also includes Ted Hughes, Peter Porter and Thom Gunn reciting selections of their verse. The Ted Hughes material was recorded for the BBC in London on 29th August 1962. It consists of a group of poems that Ted eventually published in his 1967 book Wodwo, including an early, and different, version of 'Full Moon and Little Frieda', then entitled simply 'Full Moon.' The record is now deleted, but you could still obtain it from a second hand record dealer, or get someone who owns a copy to tape it for you.
Andrew
Wakefield, England
Wednesday, June 25, 2003
I've been trying for some time now to write something of my personal interpretation of Plath's poetry. I'm planning to write a work on her use of Poetic Iconography. This will form part of a larger book on the same subject.
I want, particularly to concentrate on her themes of death/rebirth/inspiration/time/history. Not to analyse the poems, that has already been done many times. Rather, to look at her own conception of these themes as depicted in the poems: for example to compare the rhododendron-stealing narrative in her journals & in the poem. Please get in touch if you have any interesting ideas, and I would be gratfeul for any help and offer due credits.
Rehan Qayoom
London, England
Thursday, June 26, 2003
Here's an interesting article in the NYT about the 1953 Mademoiselle Guest Editors recent reunion in NYC:
Kim
Detroit, USA
Tuesday, June 24, 2003
I can't stop wondering what reaction the death of Sylvia Plath had on Richard Sassoon...Where's he living now? Can France still root in his heart? Did he see her that time in N Y ???
She saw him.
Beatrice
Stockholm, Sweden
Tuesday, June 24, 2003
Hi all, I'm just posting this message to ask if anyone out there knows how I would be able to gain a copy of the 1962 Sylvia Plath interview with Peter Orr. I have contacted several people (including the BBC) and each response says that there is no record of the interview. However, despite these replies, I have managed to find a transcript of the interview. So if anyone out there knows how I can get a hold of the interview, or what I have to do to purchase a copy, it would be very much appreciated. I have listened to Sylvia read her poetry in class before, and although I have a transcript of the interview, I just love listening to her read, I think she has a unique style, and I quite like it. So, once again thanks. Cheers, Shaynie.
P.S. If anyone would like to get a copy of the interview transcript, here's the address, it's worth a look.
Shaynie
Newcastle, Australia
Tuesday, June 24, 2003
I would like to start by, belatedly, thanking each of the persons who wrote in response to my May 20th posting. Especially Anja Beckmann, for her continuing contact. Even before writing, I was very pleasantly surprised by the depth and variety of the views and interpretations expressed within this forum. That was the reason that compelled me to put forth these questions, in the first place. Knowing that a space where discussion of this sort is possible exists, is very gratifying. I believe any thorough (Plath) reader would agree, since one often finds gossip and rampant imagination, taking the place of assiduous reading and slow examination of the texts themselves. I thank you for such interesting feedback.
On the question of the poems (The Other and The Rival), Jim Long wrote that he strongly felt these two works to be about Ted Hughes. I, personally, agree with Jim. That is to say, I have long read them as love poems. Yet, I dont think it is within our reach to assert they are indeed addressed to T.H, or even to a man. That would be, to use Jim's words, violating the ambiguity of the written word. We need to remember, as readers, we do not posses the ultimate truth about a poem, much less an author.
I think, perhaps, to whom these poems are addressed is the least important of issues. Reading them and reacting to them; returning once and again to certain pages, to certain lines; that is what really matters. We do not require much external knowledge for a better understanding of the work; and are not entitled to confine any work, within the boundaries of our interpretation (however accurate any given view may appear to be).
But, needless to say, there are instances -such as translation-, where decisions that affect the integrity of the text (in its mother tongue, for example), must be made. The translation itself represents a certain infringement, but it is made in the name of a deeper truth that we believe may be conveyed, however imperfectly, in another tongue. A language often unknown to the writer himself, assuming the responsibility doesnt lie with the author. I believe translators have the obligation of attempting to render the work into their own language, as intact as possible. Inasmuch as translating means reading attentively, meticulously, it also implies some interpretation. While attempting to convey meaning and rhythm to another tongue, translators have to make choices.
My opinion is that these choices need to be made in a very respectful way. I did, however, feel (in the case of The Rival, especially) that translating the addressee of these texts as feminine involved more of a leap than translating it as masculine. The masculine form, in Spanish, may be inclusive (meaning it can be used to refer to both male and female subjects, especially in its plural form) and the feminine may not.
Lastly, the idea that the only rival in Plath's life was Ms. Wevill, appears a bit ludicrous and, in my view, involves some naivet (I much prefer the view that connects the rival in the artists life, to herself. Such as Alexs reading suggests, in linking this poem to In Plaster). This attitude towards the plathian ouvre, accounts for such narrow interpretation of the works, though it certainly does not justify them. In any case (and returning to the poems) I do believe, even as mere reader, I have a certain responsibility to comment on the fact that I have always encountered these texts translated as feminine. My view is that such translation takes away from the reader; the original form (and, for that matter, a version in any other language, in which the subject is rendered as masculine) gives each reader the possibility of his or her own interpretation. As should be.
Harold Bloom sustains, rather disdainfully in my opinion, that Plath is a poet for those who dont read poems.
"And yet Plath clearly answers a need, neither aesthetic nor cognitive, but profoundly affective. In that sense, she remains a representative writer and the phenomenon of her popularity is worthy of critical meditation. Perhaps she should be consigned to the category of popular poetry, with the very different (and wonderfully good-natured) Maya Angelou. But surely what matters about Plath, as about Angelou, is the audience. These are poems for people who dont read poems, though in Plaths case one must add feminist ideologues, who regard her as an exemplary martyr to patriarchal nastiness."
From the Introduction of Sylvia Plath: Blooms Major Poets (Comprehensive Research and Study Guide). Any thoughts on this passage, my friends?
Rossana Plessmann
Caracas, Venezuela
Thursday, June 19, 2003
Just found an article from Redlands that came out Monday... about Kate Moses and "Wintering".
Stephanie
Ottawa, Canada
Thursday, June 19, 2003
Does anyone really believe Ted Hughes destroyed the last journal???? I don't. I figure it will turn up with other "missing" journal soon, perhaps on the 50th anniversary! Or maybe I just wish that that was true. I honestly believe they are somewhere. I'd give my left arm just to be the one to find them and the first to read them.
Ciara Nic Gabhann
Monaghan, Ireland
Wednesday, June 18, 2003
I can't quite be sure if you these sources contain specific information about SP's medication and dosage's toward the end of her life, there are epidsodes in Giving Up by Jillian Becker that includes Silvia taking her medicine which may mention the name... I read the little book a few weeks ago and that detail is lost to me, but other books that would probably have the info (if any) are Bitter Fame by: Anne Stevenson and The Silent Woman by: Janet Malcom (this book is less likely, but it does tell of an interview with Jillian Becker who might know).
Sebastian
Littleton, CO, USA
Wednesday, June 18, 2003
Finally, some people who actually have something *positive* to say about Ted Hughes. I think the guy has been raked over the coals enough and I think the opinion that Hughes was an all-around "monster" is totally unrealistic. We all have our shortcomings and it's amazing how Ted Hughes can be labelled as a "murderer" and have his life constantly disrupted...whether it be through protests at his poetry readings or the damage constantly being done to Plath's grave to get rid of the "Hughes"...for something that is not uncommon (I'm talking about his affairs here).
To Joanne: The class of drug was an MAO Inhibitor....and there was a limited amount of those available at the time (as those were fairly new). This explains Plath's special diet (she couldn't eat certain foods because when mixed with an MAO...they can cause hypertension). Therefore, there is only a limited number of MAOI's she could have been on at the time. Perhaps, if you research MAO Inhibitors from the early '60s...you would narrow it down a bit...although, I don't think you'll ever know the exact drug. It's even possible that the drug she was on is still being used today...you know the saying..."an oldie is a goodie" (obviously not in everyone's case).
As far as Thomas' memoir is concerned....it is OOP. There were only 200 copies every printed...so it is definitely harder to come by.
Stephanie
Ottawa, Canada
Tuesday, June 17, 2003
Some of the comments about Ted Hughes in the Forum have been very negative, so I thought that I would share some of my experiences. The first book of Sylvia Plath's I read was the 'Selected Poems' book that Ted Hughes edited. After I had enjoyed reading this collection I went on to read all of her other books. I think Hughes' 'Selected Poems' is a first rate introduction to his first wife's verse.
A few years later when I was researching an essay on 'Hardcastle Crags', I wrote to Ted Hughes on the off chance that he would be able to provide some insights. I wasn't really expecting a reply, but he responded very quickly and was very helpful. Later, he even signed my copy of Sylvia Plath's 'Selected Poems'! I still occasionally correspond with his widow Carol.
Andrew
Wakefield, England
Tuesday, June 17, 2003
In all I have read, I have not found out the name of the medication that SP was taking and that failed her so miserably. I am wondering what medication it was, what was her dosage and for how long she had been taking it.
Does anyone have any information on the book that Trevor Thomas wrote, which was called: Sylvia Plath: Last Encolunters? I read that Ted Hughes forced this book out of print. I have looked for it everywhere. Has it completely disappeared?
JoAnne White-Gottlieb
Long Beach, USA
Tuesday, June 17, 2003
I've been an avid reader of Plath's poetry since I was 16 or so (over 20 years now) and am a great admirer of both her mind and her work. But I also wanted to share something that Ted Hughes sent me months before he died. (Background: I was in a non-helpful grad school writing program far from home, and feeling lost. I sent Hughes 4 of my poems in care of his publishing company, Faber & Faber, after I had a dream in which I sat across a wooden table from him and let him read my work. I told him of this dream in the letter I enclosed.)
The card he sent in reply has the "Court Green" address on top, and is handwritten: "Dear Cassandra---Thank you for your cheering salute. I like your poems---a real language, real inner momentum. All the best and take care. Ted Hughes."
The card was dated June 30, 1997. After he died the next year, I found out that he had just been diagnosed with the cancer that would kill him only weeks before he sent the card to me. The fact that the Poet Laureate of England took the time to write to an unknown, struggling writer despite his own difficulties speaks volumes to me about what kind of person he was.
Cassandra
San Francisco, USA
Tuesday, June 17, 2003
I am sick and tired of Frieda Hughes and her gigantic narcissism and territorial covetousness of Sylvia Plaths work. I am sure if Ms. Hughes were commissioned to direct or write such a film herself, she wouldnt have flinched. Her opposition to the use of her mothers poems in this film is transparent as she begins her legal battle with her stepmother over her fathers estate. No matter what she writes about her mother, it is narcissistic self-display. The true object of love is the poor, suffering Frieda and her artistic dilemma is not to write from pity for the child she was but to devise a language or point of view that reinhabits anguish. Alas, she writes from pity anyway, narrow-minded agendas and the schematic over any complexity or ambivalence. Genius is not inherited.
Now Frieda is working on an ambitious autobiographical project, Forty Years, using her maladroit poetry and paintings. The book will contain 40 poems and 40 five feet by four feet paintings to be exhibited in Britain and the US, to coincide with publication of the book. This project is being funded by NESTA. Her scheme is to create a poem and painting to coincide with the zeitgeist of each year of her life. No, genius is not inherited.
Milton
Los Angeles, USA
Monday, June 16, 2003
Elizabeth If you had taken the time to read the posting I made many months ago you would note that I actually said that while Plath was with Hughes the only other woman he was with (in addition to her) was Wevill (please note the correct spelling). This appears to be very likely the case. However, after Plath died and Wevill and Hughes lived together, it is certainly true to say that he had affairs with numerous women, spending large amounts of his time in London while Assia stayed in Devon - and it is also the case that he had an 'extra-curricular love-life' while married to Carol Orchard. I never said otherwise. I merely stated that when he was with Plath, Assia appears to have been the only other woman he was involved with at that time i.e. when Plath was alive.
Your second point raises the issues of The Colossus. You are quite correct to note that Plath had press for The Colossus. It was reviewed in about two broadsheets and self-evidently would have been reviewed in poetry magazines and journals (such as Poetry Review). She also appeared in conversation on the Beeb's Radio (once or twice alone and once with Hughes). But she was by no means famous. In fact - and as knowing so much about Plath, I am sure you are aware - the lukewarm response that The Colossus received depressed Plath a lot. The book was by no means a failure but it was no great hit either. It was considered to be in some ways achieved but didn't 'fly', if you will. Plath was admired (Alvarez was among the supporters of her work) but it is historically inaccurate to say she was famous. And I am talking here about famous in the literary community sense. She was primarily known as Hughes' wife and Alvarez's memoirs explicate this with great poignancy. There is no doubt about it that back then Hughes was the star. This, after the split, was a cause of real upset to Plath - understandably so. However, the Ariel poems were a turning point. As she declared 'they will make my name'. So there you have it - from the lady herself. Even then though, after her death, it was hard work for Hughes to get Ariel published - fact.
Thirdly, you note that we can't know how people back then reacted to Plath's work. Well, as I've outlined above, there is plenty of primary evidence (and a great deal of secondary evidence, too) to suggest how Plath and Hughes's work was viewed. Most biographies carry quite comprehensive info on this. So the opposite is in fact the case.
Elizabeth, I would like to stress that the posting I made several months ago was in response to an inaccurate, incomplete and insensible approach to Plath and Hughes. It was in response to a gentleman who barely knew about even the bare bones of Plath and Hughes' relationship but saw fit to defame Hughes by saying that he lived off Plath's earnings (when in fact he financially supported her and the children and rented the flat in Fitzroy Road for her) and that Plath was much more famous and generally starry (errr...untrue entirely)...that he had many affairs when with Plath (in fact, wrong again, just the one) and so on and so on.
It is despicable to pass judgement on people who have lived through such tragedy and who you don't even know anyhow - but, well, if you're going to slate people, it would be good to get at least some of your facts straight. And I'm not getting at you here. I just think people should be informed and fair!
Kath
GB
Monday, June 16, 2003
Dear Janet Peters
By your entry I take it you wish that people would stop carrying on about the rights and wrongs of Ted Hughes behaviour, and that would, for some, be nice. However if someone else comes into the Plath - Hughes world, as I did, who has no experience there, would you prevent them from learning about them and making up their own mind. Probably not. And that's the thing. While ever someone is directed to Ted and Sylvia and discovers them in all their glory, then they will be talked about, written about, loved or vilified, and that will just be how it is-unless of course you feel their works and life stories should be taken out of schools and libraries. I know you don't think that Jane. I'm just saying I was new to them four months ago and someone else will come along behind me and make up their own mind. I just hope who ever it is surfs into this forum. The people who have made this forum possible and the folk who post entries (regardless of whether they agree with me or not) give me hope for the future. It has helped me to realise that not everyone is waiting with baited breath to see who wins what game or who sings what on the hit parades- thank you to everyone it has been great!Helen Young
Sydney/Guildford, Australia
Saturday, June 14, 2003
New books of interest coming out this fall, both available for pre-order (at 30% discount) with Amazon.com: The Collected Poems of Ted Hughes, a massive tome (1200 pages!) with a retail list price of $50 (thank goodness for that 30% discount), due in November; and Her Husband, the Hughes biography by Diane Middlebrook (who wrote the Anne Sexton biography of a few years back), due in October.
Amy Rea
Eden Prairie, USA
Thursday, June 12, 2003
Hello to all subscribers to the Sylvia Plath Forum Page Would you all please accept my heartfelt thanks for your input and interest in Sylvia Plath. This is written at the time when I am almost ready to send in the assignment I have been working on about Ted and Sylvia. I use their first names because I now feel as if I know them, even when the reality is - I do not - in comparison to many of you here. The task I was asked to undertake was so difficult, as I had never heard of them before and yet was required to write so much about them. It would not have been possible without the help from many, even those who were opposed to my jaundiced view of Ted. It is this open type of thinking which heartens me and lets me know there are still young people out there (and most of you are young compared to me) who are using their mental powers for something other than the usual. To those who have been offended by my entries (and one of them has not been published here so must have been considered a beaut) please continue with your open thoughts, regardless. It is the differences, understood, that are so interesting. Some of you might like to know that my birthday is 17th August, 1938! Very Best Wishes To You All, from Helen Young.
Helen Young
Sydney/Guildford, Australia
Thursday, June 12, 2003
I wanted to respond to a few points made by "Kath" of "GB."
1. Ted Hughes probably did cheat on Assia Weavel. I have it on a good personal source. It's really irrelevant, though, isn't it?
2. *The Colossus* was being taught at Harvard University in 1961 during a course on "contemporary American poets," so it did have at least some press before Plath's death or *Ariel* was published.
3. It is hard, if not impossible, to make judgments on what the English and Americans really thought of Plath, now or then. There are too many variables of familiarity, education, class, and society.
Elizabeth
Oxford, UK
Wednesday, June 11, 2003
To Helen and other Hughes bashers--it is all too easy from this distance to assign all blame to Hughes. Life (and death), unfortunately is not that simple. There is no doubt Hughes was a womanizer. It is likely Sylvia was well aware of this when they married. That doesn't make it right--it's just a fact of life. Both Sylvia and Assia chose to put their heads in an oven, and sadly Assia took a child with her. Other women in their places don't choose to do this. Who knows what happened for sure.
I'm not about to go assigning blame for something I have no personal knowledge about. Certainly Sylvia's well documented mental disorders and her extreme problems with what is now called PMS contributed much stress to their marriage. Sometimes it isn't enough just to love someone. If the home atmosphere is volatile, for whatever reason, it may not be possible to work out a solution and save the marriage. Also we need to look at the possibility that, because both were writers and Sylvia sacrificed much time and energy to help Ted with his writing, there were professional jealousies underlying her outbursts. Anything I've ever read by or about Huges indicates to me that he loved Sylvia very much, and I don't doubt for a second that he did. With the medications and mental health support available these days, the story might have turned out differently. We'll never know. Sylvia endured a very long, difficult winter full of sickness and all sorts of unpleasant realties due to lack of a telephone, electricity (from time to time), frozen water lines, all the while trying to write and keep her head above water. Let's give it a rest and let her and Ted both rest in peace.
Janet Peters
West Branch, USA
Monday, June 9, 2003
Anthony Lane, writing in the current (June 9) issue of The New Yorker about Robert Lowell's recently published Collected Poems, has this to say about Plath:
"He is far less scathing than Sylvia Plath, say, whose poems are literally the most hateful of her generation, boiling with resentment not only at her father but even, unforgivably, at her own child ("look at her, face down on the floor,/Little unstrung puppet"), whereas Lowell keeps taking the reader aback with flushes of tenderness . . . ."
That seems to me like a caricature of Plath's poetry, and an inaccurate reading of "Lesbos" in particular.
Michael Gates
Jersey City, USA
Monday, June 9, 2003
Thought all of you Midwesterners would like to know that Kate Moses will be appearing at the Chicago Tribune Printers Row Book Fair this coming Saturday. Here is the general information:
Kate Moses, author of Wintering: A Novel of Sylvia Plath, which captures the last harrowing months of Plath's life, will be appearing at the 19th Annual Chicago Tribune Printers Row Book Fair on Saturday, June 7th, at 12 o'clock. The discussion, titled "Writing the Life of Sylvia Plath," will focuses around the extensive research that Moses conducted and the writing process that she went through as she morphed this literary history into fiction. Novelist Rosellen Brown will join in the discussion. Details about this event can be found at www.printersrowbookfair.org. The Chicago Tribune Printers Row Book Fair is located in the historic printers row district of downtown Chicago, on Dearborn, between Congress and Polk.
Emily Cook
Chicago, USA
Tuesday, June 3, 2003
Helen, you wonder how Plath and Hughes' children are getting along. Perhaps you could apply your marvellous powers of imagination to the question, and ask yourself how they would feel reading your "insightful and sensitive" comments about their late father.
E. Maguire
Leeds, England
Sunday, June 1, 2003
Claudette, what is to be accomplished by continually dragging Hughes' name through the mud? Don't you find that it gets a little tiresome?
Helen, Hughes wasn't the only one who made someone's life miserable. Assia did it to Hughes by taking their daughter along with her and Plath did it to her own mother and children by taking her life. Everyone makes someone else miserable at least once in their lifetime (unless you're a Saint and I can't think of many people who are). I just can't understand this intense hatred that some people have for Hughes (furthermore, by those who weren't affected by his actions in anyway whatsoever). The man has been dead for 5 years and the past is the *past*. As I have said before, Hughes is not unique...many people, both men and women, have had affairs. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's right...but the fact that the only thing people can focus on is what a nasty, cheating man Hughes was and how his affair just drove Plath to kill herself...it seems a bit short sighted and it also seems that some people only view things in black and white...and this is *not* a black and white situation by any means.
Diane Middlebrook is coming out with a book called Her Husband in October and I think it would be good if people who have this perpetual image of Hughes as being some kind of monster would read the book and see the relationship from *both* sides and not just the typical "feminist" type outlook on the relationship etc (and also view it fairly from Plath's side as well!).
Stephanie
Ottawa, Canada
Sunday, June 1, 2003
