Sylvia Plath Forum
Contributions from 1st-12th March 1998Since everybody and his or her dog seems to be posting stuff on these forum pages, I thought Erica Jong ought to get her licks in too. Here is a poem she wrote a number of years ago:
The Critics
(For everyone who writes about Sylvia Plath including me)
Because she was clamped in the vise of herself
because she was numb
because words moved slowly as glaciers
because they flowed from her mouth like wine
because she was angry
& knotted her hair
& wore sand in her bra
because she had written herself into a corner
& could not get out
because she had painted the sun on her ceiling
& then got burned
because she invented the stars
& watched them fall...
There is nothing to say now.
You have filled her grave with your theories,
her eyes with your sights.
You have picked her bones clean
as ancestor bones.
They could not gleam whiter.
But she is gone.
But she is grass you have trod.
She is dust you have blown away.
She sits in her book like an aphid,
small & white.
She is patient.
When you're silent
she'll crawl out.Jack Folsom
Sharon, Vermont, US
12th March 1998
I am a year 10 student at Methodist Ladies College in Melbourne Australia. As part of our English course, we are writing a poetry analytical essay. I have chosen to do Sylvia Plath's Morning Song. If any one has any comments/suggestions it would be greatly appreciated.
Natalie Forsyth
Melbourne, Australia
12th March 1998
Jack Folsom said it, and I am with him: Let's stay focused on the poetry. I, too, am working on a Plath project for graduate school and I would like to hear from anyone else who is concerned that Plath is misrepresented or underrepresented in college level courses. Are any of you enrolled in a school that offers an entire course on Plath? Also, I would like to hear more about Elaine Connell's book. When was it written/published? Is it available in the US? One last comment(for I am a teacher and I can't help it): To those who write for book lists and links, might I recommend the library? Or a web search? This site is not a research service, right?
Nicole
Irvington, New York, USA
10th March 1998Nicole, for more details of Elaine Connell's book click on the link at the bottom of this page. To order it online go to Books and Links - webmaster
I am stunned, Melissa Dobson, at the elan with which you sink your teeth into the ED-SP "connection." Certainly, this subject would be ideal for a critical study, if someone has not beaten you to it! I'm sure it has been well-noted in feminist lit crit that both poets' "clarifying moments" and periods of greatest work seem to have occurred in connection with a great romantic abandonment (although with ED, scholars are divided as to exactly what that abandonment might have entailed), but the Amazonian Camille Paglia is the only scholar, as far as I know, who has dared to unveil Dickinson's true identity as "Amherst's Madame DeSade." I recently visited the Dickinson Homestead in Amherst, MASS; at the end of the tour, after we visitors had gathered to recite "A Route of Evanesence" in hushed tones in Emily's upstairs bedroom, I attempted to engage our guide in a discussion of Dickinson's sadomasochistic persona and managed to clear the room in less than thirty seconds! However we might want to cling to a sentimental vision of ED, it is clear that, in isolation (perversely self-imposed in the case of Dickinson), both ED and Plath cast off their "feminine, " socialized masks and took up a "murderous" poetic art. ED's "Burglar" God (inextricably linked, it takes no Freudian to deduce, with her stern old Puritan of a father) and SP's "Daddy" strike me as twin reflections in a mirror -- both poets, it seems, required an angry patriarch with which to "flay" themselves into the full flower of their genius.
Stewart Clarke
New York, USA
10th March 1998
The Sylvia Plath/Emily Dickinson connection! I think, Stewart Clarke, that you are very much on track in your latest posting -- these two women, born and bred in Massachusetts and writing one hundred years apart, must have been drinking from the same well. Plath, who was ever mindful of her predecessors in the Western poetic tradition, had her eye on Dickenson as a rival to the title of Poetess of America (Journals, 28 March 1958). And there is a certain ancestral strain that carries through in Plath's work; Camille Paglia has remarked upon the recurrence in Plath's "Daddy" poem of Dickenson's "tyrant boot" imagery, for one. It's clear that both poets underwent a clarifying moment of some kind, when their real selves, or voices, emerged. For Plath it's in "The Moon and the Yew Tree"; for Dickenson it's in "I Felt a Funeral in My Brain." Thereafter there is an arrogance of self-creation that predominates in the verse. But whereas Dickenson, strange and enigmatic cr! eature though she was, can still provoke a "transport of cordiality" in her readers, Plath often leaves one with "zero at the bone." Dickenson's landscape is imbued with biblical meaning and design; Plath's landscape has undergone a desecration -- her heaven is "starless and fatherless," presided over by a disinterested moon, "bald and wild." Dickenson's "Queen of Calvary" thus becomes Plath's "Lady Lazarus."
Which leads me to the last line of "Birthday Letters," where Hughes writes that "the jewel [Plath] lost was blue." I think of the anti-Mary in "The Moon and the Yew Tree" whose "blue garments unloose small bats and owls." This language belongs to a post-Christian age; in this sense, Plath can be seen as the "inevitable extension" of Dickenson, as a Dickenson who has "fallen a long way."
Melissa Dobson
Newport RI, USA
10th March 1998
Melissa Dobson's latest posting is wonderful. I guess what I was reacting to in Kroll's quote was her wording "absorbed into a timeless mythic system." I can't imagine our Sylvia being that passive -- she takes action, and thus I prefer to see her absorbing the mythic system into herSELF. Does this then make the results "personal" or "impersonal?"
Melissa: your use of the Dickinson quote, "zero at the bone," floored me because I have always felt SP to be so akin to ED, almost the inevitable extension of ED. The same vein of sadistic/masochistic imagery and obsession with death that runs rampant throughout ED's work bursts into unimaginable flower in SP, but, because SP doesn't ever get "gushy" (like ED in her bees and flowers persona), the influence is a bit unlikely to be siezed upon by the general reader. Would love to hear your thoughts (and others) on the forum about the ED-SP connection. Am I off track?
Stewart Clarke
New York, USA
9th March 1998
Help! am trying to find a copy of "The Journals of Sylvia Plath" either published by the Dial Press 1982 or Ballantine Books 1983, 1991 - can anyone offer any good tips of where it can be found?
Lisa Haughey
Munich, Germany
9th March 1998
I'M DOING A RESEARCH PAPER ON COMMON LINKS BETWEEN SOME OF SYLVIA PLATH'S POEMS; "MIRROR", "THE RIVAL", AND "BLACK ROOK IN RAINY WEATHER". IF ANYONE HAS ANY LINKS ON CRITISMS OR INTERPRETATIONS ON ANY OF THESE WORKS WILL YOU PLEASE E-MAIL ME!! THANKS
Angie Reid
Missoula, USA
8th March 1998
I love Sylvia Plath. I, too, am a poet. When I was a teenager, my aunt read my poetry and told me my work reminded her of this poet named Plath (whom I had not heard of). I read Ariel with complete abandon and loved her at once. Then I discovered I shared her birthday (Oct. 27) which made me very excited -- and discovered, too, that she died the SAME year I was born -- on my sister's birthday (Feb. 11). Needless to say, I felt some eerie connection... especially as I began comparing our lives... her father died when she was 8; my uncle died in Vietnam when I was 8 (which affects me to this day). I gobbled up everything I could possibly read BY her and ABOUT her for years -- until it became unhealthy. I had actually entertained the idea at some point that I was perhaps Sylvia Plath REINCARNATED!
Now, years later, I admire her work, and grieve her tragic death. But I no longer hanker after some otherwordly connection with this woman, nor do I any longer despise Ted Hughes.
I recently bought Birthday Letters, though at first I didn't think I wanted to hear Ted's side of things. I must say he is a great poet, and does capture the essence of Sylvia as a human being first, and second, as a poet. It was interesting gaining a deeper glimpse into what their lives where like.
I've heard that for years people have been defacing Sylvia's tombstone by chipping off "Hughes" from her name. As if that would change anything. I think Sylvia's poetry and prose PROLONGED her life -- gave her an outlet for the dark, wild forces that stormed within her. I know what it's like, because like Plath, I've known that dark side, and I know that the indefatigable wild force can rip through like a tornado, tearing trees from their roots, houses from their foundations.
In those days, depressed people were given electro-shock therapy. Obviously, it didn't help. Ted Hughes had nothing to do with her death. I can say that now. Her suicide was somehow indoctrinated in her, as she once mentioned, "perfection is terrible, it clamps the womb". And we cannot blame "Daddy" either, even if his perfectionism and selfish death twisited the young Sylvia into painful shapes.
As women, we cannot keep blaming men for abandoning us, or loving us too much or not enough. I think this is Plath's legacy to us. Her poems are her reaching out in the darkness -- words she could use to describe what the women's movement would later give us language for.
I'll always love Sylvia Plath. I have a recording of her reading her poems, and love listening to her resonant, clear voice.
If she were alive today, she would be happily startled by all this adulation, I'm sure. Thank you.
Sheila
NEW JERSEY
8th March 1998
I need to write a paper analyzing and comparing 25 poems by the same poet. I chose Sylvia Plath, and I am having a little trouble finding 25 poems that relate fairly well together. I was wondering if anyone would be kind enough to give me a list of poems that I would be able to use for my paper. If you could, I would appreciate it so much!!!
Shanna
Richland Springs, TX, USA
7th March 1998
Why does Plath still not have a blue plaque on the flat at 23 Fitzroy Road. I have heard the LCC (London City Council) is waiting to see if Plath continues to be an important figure. It is 35 years since her death, she has been popular and taught since the mid 60's and considered on of the best poet's of the post WWII era. And she continues to evoke genuine emotions from us all. What are they waiting for and what can we do?
Peter Steinberg
Alexandria Virginia, US
5th March 1998
I never new such an interesting site exhisted!!! The wanders of modern technology!!!
I am presently studying Plath's Ariel for A levels, and am amazed by some views porrayed here. I just wanted to put across some points which i feel may be relevant to research into Plath's work;
1. I believe that Plath's self obsession is an obvious starter to a basic understanding of her life and works. You can see clearly through all her work within Ariel (the text i am studying) that most, if not all her poems evolve around her own experiences in life; the world war, her fathers death, and her relationship with Ted and her children. This lack of self-forgetfulness is Plath's trade mark in all her work. I quote Plath from a radio broadcast to verify this "personal experience is very important..........it must be relevant to the larger more inportant things"
2. Also, would it be fair to suggest that her obsession with flowers in Ariel is due to the relationship with her father? "the arrival of the bee box" and "the bee meeting" are two such examples. Her father wrote a number of books on insects which give 'attention' to flowers, attention which she craved to receive from her father after his death. 3. finally would it be fair to suggest that the way in which she left this world was to become equal with her distant Jewish relatives? i know it may be a delicate subject in the eyes of some, but by gasing herself, many people believe that by doing this she is trying to partake in what the victims of the concentration camps underwent, as she was in the right place at the right time, avoiding the nazi influence whilst in America. Hope some of these views help
Tom Hill
Birmingham, England
5th March 1998
Surely the interesting points "Birthday Letters" can raise about Plath are concerned with illuminating her prose and poetry. It is interesting to get Hughes' perspective on things but it is fruitless to continually argue about whether or nor he "killed" her and whether he was to blame for the breakdown of their relationship. Bibliographical information is relevant only up to a certain point before we have to look at Art for its own sake. Of course Art reflects life and it helps to know about Plath's breakdown to read "The Bell Jar" but bibliography is not everything. Instead of judging the artist as an individual we ought to judge their work. Hughes is telling us what he thinks; perhaps we ought to read "Birthday Letters" as a collection of poems and decide how well they are written and not whether we think that what they say is good or bad. If they help us to understand Plath's work then that is a bonus, but what they shouldn't do is give us the definitive an! swer about her life with Hughes.
Fiona
Aberdeen, Scotland
5th March 1998
Responding to Stewart Clarke's assessment that "a clear reading of Plath should frighten the reader," I'd like to suggest that one reason we get that "zero at the bone" feeling from Plath is because of the stark depersonalization we encounter in her poetry. This is, in Alvarez's expression, "a murderous art," and much of what is accomplished therein is evisceration. I agree with Jack Folsom that Plath's vanquishing of the personal leads to spiritual rebirth, but death of the self, of the personal, of what makes the poet human, is a necessary prerequisite to such transformation. The art of Plath is one of deliberate self-effacement; thus I think there is much irony in her being linked with the confessionals, and certainly in the relentless obsession with her personal life that exists today.
Melissa Dobson
Newport RI, USA
4th March 1998
Hey! First of all this is a good look'in posting board. Props to the person who wrote the long hours of HTML for it. Moving right along, I'm an honors student with the job of telling how in Sylvia Plath's "Ariel" the tone relates to the theme. Easy enough, I got that part, what I need from you Nice, Helpfull, (hopefully :) people is some links to CLC's (critisisms) about "Ariel". I'm writing the paper tommorro and the final is due Monday. Please help, yes you!
:P Thanks so much,
Johnny
Houston, USA
4th March 1998
Thank you, Jack Folsom, for that incredible posting regarding your analysis of SP's process and intentions with many of the Ariel poems. I also read today your tremendous essay on "Berck-Plage" (to be found on Anja Beckman's SP website). Elaine! Elaine! Scholar! Author! We want to hear from you! By the way, did anyone read the review of "Birthday Letters" by Katha Pollit in last Sunday's New York Times Book Review? It's a decidedly mixed one: while giving grudging praise to some of the poetry itself, Pollit doesn't buy into the premise I see as being essential (the Fatal aspect) to the work as a whole. She writes:
"Here, we are to believe, is The Truth About Sylvia, which can be summarized as: she was beautiful, brilliant, violent, crazy, doomed; I loved her, I did my best to make her happy, but she was obsessed with her dead father, and it killed her . . . The more Hughes insists on his own good intentions and the inevitability of Plath's suicide, the less convincing he becomes. . ."
A valid response, if one was critiquing a documentary. Hughes is giving us poetry -- he is bringing us into his inner landscape, his world. Pollitt criticizes Hughes for a "striking lack of inward reflection," stating that "his own psyche is left curiously unexplored." What seems to be missed by Pollitt is that, first of all, Hughes is not a "confessional" poet by nature, and thus gives us his "inward" experience in terms of symbol, event, mythological elements, etc. I think Hughes actually gives us a very deep glimpse of his psyche in these poems. It's just not what many wanted to hear, and not what was expected. After years of hating the "Man in Black" with a "Mein Kampf look," the "Fascist" of Plath's poems, we find ourselves in the company of a bewildered, brooding, and decidedly mystical young poet from the English countryside failing to keep up with, or understand, his brilliant, troubled, overwhelming, very American wife. Why is it so hard to accept the glimpse ! of himself Hughes offers us?
Stewart Clarke
New York, USA
4th March 1998
While I was working on the drafts of Sylvia's poems at Smith, I hatched an idea of what was going on, both in the initial concept for a poem that she began working out in longhand and in the typescripted drafts that followed. My idea was that the initial concept came to her because of some external "real-world" experience or stimulus (a cut finger, a ride on her horse, a child jumping on a bed)which she then transformed largely through metaphor into a different dimension of consciousness. This dimension I call "anagogic," for want of a better term. By anagogy I mean a multi-conscious interpretation of the of the experience that launches itself through the literal dimension, then the allegorical and moral dimensions to the ultimate spiritual and mystical sense of the experience. The intensity of the act of putting into words the anagogic vision she had must have been exhilarating, at times terrifying. Often her revisions delete the most personal exclamations she first made. The poem then becomes more detached and "artistic" than its first outpouring, yet many of the poems remain intensely personal if one recognizes their references.
One important image in Sylvia's mind is of that very launching forth that I mentioned -- of that breaking free from psychological fetters, of breaking through to a brilliant redness, the redness of dawn and earth, the redness of spiritual rebirth. In the poem "Ariel" the rebirth is to be at one with the horse Ariel (even in a sexual sense) and the Ariel that is "lioness of god," which appears to be an alternate title she was thinking of during her first draft, written on her 30th birthday. And that new identity is to be an agent of apocalypse and revelation. First comes the melting away, the unpeeling of "dead hands, dead stringencies." Then, as the sun begins to rise, the foaming of the horse-mouth, of her own womb-mouth, then the first morning cry of her child, melting away for a time yet as Ariel becomes an arrow, then the dew that dissolves ("flies suicidal") with the sun's first heat and fuses with "the red eye, the cauldron of morning." We are in a mystical dimension here that many of us find breathtaking.
My purpose in writing this bit of blather is to remind ourselves not to lose sight of the extraordinary vision and talent that Sylvia had just because her inner bomb went off, creating all kinds of Sivvymania in the years following, and just because her husband now makes a big splash with his "Birthday Poems." I share the view expressed by others in this forum that all this biog-o-hyping "soul butter and hogwash," as Mark Twain put it, has been crowding out our proper concern, which should be with the ART of Sylvia Plath.
Jack Folsom
Sharon, Vermont, US
4th March 1998
My thoughts on Ted Hughes are mixed, though I have to wonder if in his involvements with women he either made very poor choices or had such a malevolent influence as to send them over the edge. (Assia Weevil (sp?), the "other woman", gassed herself and Hughes' daughter just five years after Sylvia's death, correct?) In any case, I find it interesting that he objects to the public's obssession with Plath and their personal lives. Both he and Plath published highly personal (to the point, often, of obscurity) poetry that begged/required a knowledge of the actual events in their personal lives by readers in under to understand their writing. And by publishing "Birthday Letters" he is only fanning the flames and therefore acting as a hypocrite.
Can't have it both ways, Ted.
Judy Matthews
Okemos, USA
3rd March 1998
I absolutely disagree that TH is making a case for his "innocence" in "Birthday Letters," unless anything short of the message, "Sylvia, I killed you!" means he's "wimping out." He states in "Epiphany" that he failed the test of the fox cub/his marriage, he states in "Robbing Myself" that he "lost the treasure." When Bundzten used the word "innocent" to describe Hughes' self-portrayal in BL, I'm sure she meant in the sense of "naive," "young," etc.
What someone on the forum calls Hughes' "smokescreen" --- TH's fatalistic stance in the book --- is essential to the book as a work of art. It unifies it. (Although I would say that sometimes it doesn't make for a very good poem.) One of the things about this book that is so compelling is this very thing: the sense of dark fate ready to pounce, of malevolent stars inching slowly toward their inevitable conjunctions, bringing death, tragedy, destruction. It is this fatalistic element, more than the "peanut cruching" aspect, that makes the book a "page turner," because we all know that, in fact, he's right! There IS a horrible fate stalking them like a panther -- we know it, and the aged speaker, looking back, knows it, but the young characters in the drama don't. Now, the reader can take it or leave it. Those who believe in such things will accept his poetic premise with a much more open mind than those who don't, but to argue about the validity of the stance is to miss the point. These are his terms, the context of the piece. Hughes has published a story of fate pursuing tragic victims -- both SP and TH -- and you have to accept it on those terms as a work of literature before you can really begin to discuss whether the book works or not. It's not a deposition. One does not critique Sophocles or Shakespeare for their use of fate, acting through ignorant human actions, as a prime mover in Oedipus Rex or Macbeth. Yes, those are works of fiction, and this is not. But that is part of the daring of "Birthday Letters." It's a work of art more than an autobiography, and strangely it becomes much richer, we know these people much more deeply than we would have otherwise. Regarding the question of universality, I think that Ostriker was right in her remarks at the NY symposium that these poems do succeed in being universal -- they capture the pains and complexities of relationship, of life as it is lived.
Stewart Clarke
New York, USA
2nd March 1998
I am doing a research paper for school about how Plath uses narration and imagery in her works. I would really apreciate it if anyone could help me out by getting in touch with me to discuss her usage of these techniques.
Courtney
Cazenovia, USA
3rd March 1998
I'm trying to react to Melissa Dobson's posting on the forum rather than by e-mail to get a discussion going in the forum itself about the writing, not about their personal lives: Does Plath leave the Confessionals behind by "(transmuting) the everyday into something impersonal, by being absorbed into a timeless mythic system" (quoting Kroll in Melissa's posting)? I haven't read this book (can't wait), but it seems to me the other way around. Doesn't SP seize the mythic, drag it down to earch and infuse the everyday - a cut, a fever - into an absolutely personal epic drama, her mythic Phoenix-like transformation? This element is not present in Lowell, but I think Sexton is very similar, though Plath goes to far more extreme places. SP injects the mythic into the personal and transforms reality into nightmare (She appropriates not only the mythic, for that matter. Think about the debate over the legitimacy of her use of Holocaust imagery in "Daddy."). It seems two sides of the same coin, but it isn't -- Kroll's use of the word "impersonal" seems a subtle way to deflect Plath's most frequent criticism --- that she's out of proportion, too extreme, unbalanced, etc. I would never, as Kroll seems to be saying, interpret Plath as "impersonal." I can't think of a poet who is more personal -- any private grievance or incident is grist for her poetic mill. I think this lack of proportion within SP's poems is what is so thrilling and seductive about them. She dares to cross that line, triumphant, grinning, teeth bared. She is so certain. There can be no question, for her, of taking sides, shades of responsibility. She casts herself as the wronged epic heroine of her own personal drama, slaughtering her enemies right and left (husband, mother, father, aunt, neighbor, friend, basically anyone in her path). A clear reading of Plath should frighten the reader. There is a theater story about Stella Adler, a famous acting teacher! and diva in her own right. She attended a performance of Zoe Caldwel in "Medea." The moment the brilliant Caldwell stepped onstage, Adler took one look at her, stood up in the audience and screamed, "For God's sake, somebody hide the children!" For me, this is akin to what the reader should feel when reading "Ariel." Caldwell, as Medea, meant business. Plath means business, too.
Stewart Clarke
New York, USA
2nd March 1998
Is this when I go all defensive? I appreciate your disagreement Mr Clarke. Now I must stress that several of the panelists, Ms Ostriker especially, stated that Hughes is claims innocence, loyalty and ignorance through many of the poems, esp. The Shot. I agree that he is in grief, from day one through the present, and that he doens't understand much of what happened.
But, he still never assumes any, do I dare say, responsibility. He admits the failure of the marriage in Epiphany. Ms Bundtzen said, 'he walks away from life,' when he turns from the fox-cub. He walked away!!! Plath, I agree from my readings, must have been near impossible at times. No portrait is more evident than Stevenson's and Dido Merwin's. But consider the sources as well. Poor Ms Stevenson was tred upon, and Ms Merwin, rest her soul, appears to me to be the bitter woman. There is much though, in these Birthday Letters, that is under many layers of poetry-stuff, mythology, astrology, etc. If these are personal letters, why publish? Where is the universality we are taught in school? These poems do make sense as a sequence, like Alvarez said, they read like a story. But there are textures and references that after a month of reading and re-reading, I still don't get, and that is because these poems are addressed to 'you.' Not US.
Peter Steinberg
Alexandria Virginia, US
2nd March 1998
I think that sense of failure that you believe Ted Hughes feels is Hughes' smokescreen. He is a helpless victim in the poems-- to fate, to the stars, and to Plath's temperment. One thing that was brought out in the symposium was this sense that this relationship was doomed from the beginning by Plath's father complex, her inherent madness, and by simple fate. Hughes creates his own ideology, re-writes his own history, then casts himself in the role of both savior and victim-- a Christ figure. This book is his rebirth as martyr. I don't know if I agree with Pete in that Hughes was responsible for Plath's death wholly but the poem bely a sense of guilt and covering up.
Jamie
USA
2nd March 1998
In response to the comments herein regarding the mythic nature of Plath's work, I'd like to recommend a book published in the 1970s, Judith Kroll's "Chapters in a Mythology: The Poetry of Sylvia Plath," originally published by Harper & Row. I continue to find this book extremely useful in its explication of the Ariel poems in terms of Plath's main sources, James Frazer and Robert Graves, specifically the White Goddess myths. Kroll makes a fascinating critique of Plath as being outside the confessional school of Lowell and Sexton, in that where those poets dealt with the "everyday role," Plath "transmuted the everyday into something impersonal, by being absorbed into a timeless mythic system."
Melissa Dobson
Newport RI, USA
2nd March 1998
I would disagree with Mr. Steinberg's assessment that Hughes claims his innocence in "Birthday Letters." I think there are important instances that state otherwise -- I don't have my copy with me -- but definitely in "Epiphany." I think what Hughes is claiming in "Birthday Letters" is not innocence, but failure and incomprehension and grief and incredible love and the horror of being unable to undo the past. I must stress something that that came out in that symposium. It was acknowledged by Alvarez, and not challenged, that this was a divorce situation, and "everyone behaves badly in a divorce --- that's what it's all about! (I'm paraphrasing that last bit, I can't remember exactly what he said, but you get the jist). There is something so very strange underneath all this intense feeling about Hughes and Plath. Even as I myself instinctively rush to take a side in the fray --- surprisingly to me, since I have been a Plath FREAK all my life, I rush to the side of Hughes. Why do I tend to take Hughes' side? Because as much as I LOVE SPs work, I can also see that she must have been a NIGHTMARE. The absolutely palpable rage and negativity that reaches up and shakes the reader by the throat from the pages of "Ariel" is very liberating and exciting, wonderful to experience from the safe distance of art, (she speaks for the disenfranchised, the unrecognized, the rejected, even the suicidal aspects of all of us, and I think this is the key to why so many of us take her so PERSONALLY) but to marry it, marry it, marry it? The image of SP presented in so many of her biographies has always seemed such a cover-up to me, they just absolutely do not jive with the poems, the journals. I now confess to heresy by admitting that "Bitter Fame" was the first bio that remotely made sense to me, that seemed to describe the person I encountered in the poems. I understood that person, I recognized that person. Just re-read Janet Malcolm's "The Silent Woman" and again was filled with admiration for that book, and for the balanced viewpoint she presents regarding the Plath myth. I recommend it to everyone who hasn't read it -- it's essential reading!
Stewart Clarke
New York, USA
2nd March 1998
hi everyone - i have a jr. research paper due on Sylvia Plath and her insanity ... can anyone tell me the best poems that describe Sylvia's insanity ... if anyone close to Sylvia would like to talk or anyone extremely knowledgeable would like to set up for an interview ... if anyone can help me ... PLEASE E-MAIL ME
Jay
USA
2nd March 1998
I AM WRITING A RESEARCH PAPER ON SYLVIA PLATH FOR SCHOOL. I WAS WONDERING IF ANYBODY IN THIS FORUM COULD GIVE ME SOME WEBSITES, BOOK TITLES, POEM TITLES, SHORT STORY TITLES THAT I COULD USE FOR MY RESEARCH PAPER. I NEED TO READ HER POETRY AND SHORT STORIES AND COMPARE THEM FOR MY RESEARCH PAPER.
MIN
SOUTH KOREA
2nd March 1998
My thoughts on the Plath/Hughes symposium: I was amazed to have met A. Alvarez. As far as I am concerned, the others were less impressive. I thought Ms Ostriker is a woman who warrants respect, she was insightful, as were Ms Bundtzen, Ms McCullough and Mr Hofmann. Ms Costello seemed only there to read and defend Marianne Moore.
Back to Mr. Alvarez: His reading of The Moon and the Yew Tree was breath-taking. I recommend Voices and Visions (on video & audio, available from Border's) for more interviews and recordings of Plaths poems. It is well known that Hughes assigned The Moon and the Yew Tree as an exercise, and Mr Alvarez sums up Hughes' reaction to reading Plath's poem as 'being hit in the balls.' On asked is the poet (Hughes) is interested the public response, Mr Alvarez laughs and says assertively, 'NO.'
Meanwhile, Hughes' books climbs the charts in America and remains on top in Britain. I still find the book helpful in many ways, insightful into their relationship, intriguing where mythology & astrology are concerned. But, Hughes, in the latter portion of the book, never ceases to be the victim, he's humble, he's innocent, etc. He's not though I'm afraid. Mr Hughes Mr Hughes Mr Hughes... you lose lose lose.
Peter Steinberg
Alexandria Virginia, US
1st March 1998
Does anyone realize that the feeling of the "Bell Jar" is with every woman? Jessica Meyer asked on this page. Ive been thinking similar questions myself every time Ive visited here. What is the difference between confession and art? I think a cabability of showing individual experiences universal for everyone to feel them as they were mine makes a writer to an artist. That is why Sylvia Plath is an artist. Her writings stands on their own, no matter what we think about the tragic of her life and death.
Timo
Finland
1st March 1998
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This forum is administered by Elaine Connell, author of Sylvia Plath: Killing The Angel In The House who lives in Hebden Bridge, near where Sylvia Plath is buried and where Ted Hughes was born. Web Design by Pennine Pens