Sylvia Plath Forum

Contributions from 9-30th April 1998

Welcome to the Sylvia Plath Forum which began on 20th January 1998 following the surprise publication of Ted Hughes' Birthday Letters. The forum is moderated and administered by Elaine Connell.

Books and Links Poems Poem Analysis/Discussion

If anyone has any information on where I could find criticisms and what critics have said about Sylvia Plath's poem 'Daddy" please e - mail me. It would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Rachel
 Mattituck, USA
30th April 1998

As Jack Folsom is wont to say, Zut alors! Trouble on this grim reaper's Olympus! While reading a wonderful interview in the New York Press between Norah Vincent and one of my idols, the magnificent critic Harold Bloom, imagine my consternation when I came across this passage, Bloom on Plath:

Q: Where do you stand on this dispute that's come up again, with the publication of "Birthday Letters," between feminists and Ted Hughes over the death of Sylvia Plath?

Bloom: Since I don't think either of them on their best day could write a poem to save themselves, I'd rather not talk about it.

Q: Really, you think neither of them is a worthy poet?

Bloom: No. I don't think either of them has ever written a poem. I'm sorry.

Q: I'm glad to hear you say that, because I never got Sylvia Plath.

Bloom: At her best there's some controlled hysteria. There's also a lot of uncontrolled hysteria. I don't take her seriously as a poet. I'm sorry. I'm aware that 90 percent of people these days will disagree, but then what does that matter? We are at a time when the standards of public taste and judgment in and out of the universities is abysmal. In fact, that is an understatement of the most extraordinary sort. To call it abysmal is almost absurd. It's extravagantly bad.

Oh dear! Well, I understand Bloom's point about Plath actually (he is certainly not the first to express this view of hysteria), although her extremity is one reason I adore her. He equally disdains Lowell and Sexton, probably for similar reasons. I was taken off guard by his view of Hughes, however. Perhaps he might change his opinion if he dipped into "Tales from Ovid."

Trouble of a different sort, this time with Paglia's Hera to Bloom's Jove. Thanks to Melissa Dobson (currently in Paris, waving to us from atop the Arc de Triomphe) for this tidbit: Paglia on the Meg Ryan Plath project. "The prospect is too horrible for words," CP told the Times of London. "The cutesy role model who set American women back twenty years wants to play a real woman who helped us forward? It's too depressing."

It seems Camille sees Plath as a feminist icon. I feel faint. How did Plath help women forward? Suicide how-to tips? (See Elaine's excellent posting of 30 March for an examination of Plath's value as feminist role model. I disagree with this feminist view of Plath on one major principle - in my view, Plath was a personal, not a political, poet and I cannot accept the dictum that "the personal is political," certainly not in Plath's case, the victim of her own psychological problems, not patriarchal oppression. Hence, I find her extremely problematic as a role model.)

Nancy, in response to your posting, I'm sure we'd all appreciate any discussion of Plath's prose --- I personally have never come across the stories in the bookstores, and, knowing how she catered each piece to the tastes of her target mag (and reading Plath's own vehement disclaimers), I haven't pursued them. I, for one, would be interested in any insights you and others would care to offer about the prosey Plath.

Stewart Clarke
 New York, USA
30th April 1998

Please Help! I am a history major who is being required to take english lit.. I have selected Plath's poem "Daddy" to write a term paper on. I am required to identify poetic devices- repetition of sounds, metaphors, phrases, etc.. Although I have my own interpetation worked out I would welcome others. Please respond as soon as possible as my deadline is approaching. thanks in advance for your time and effort.

W. Smith
 Dover Arkansas, USA
30th April 1998

I have read numerous biographies and have extensively studied the latter poems (the Ariel collection) of Sylvia Plath and have discovered what a multifaceted individual she truly was. I love the poetry, and I have been monitoring the page for quite a while and find that my own analysis of her works are truly shallow when compared to the amazing insight that some of you (Melissa, Stewart, Jack F.) have to offer. Therefore, I am wanting to extend my knowledge of the poet by reading more of her prose. I have read the journals, The Bell Jar, am about to begin Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams, but I would be very interested to find her earlier short stories that appeared in Seventeen and other magazines. Where would I find these, and where else could I gain the necessary info to begin to scratch the surface of this fascinating woman? By the way, this is not for a research project. I have already done my senior thesis on the roles and personas of Sylvia Plath, my only motivation in this posting is personal enrichment. Thanks so much!

Shan
 Texas, USA
30th April 1998

Although Sylvia Plath's duality, good girl/bitch, is obvious in almost all her work, I was wondering if anyone could direct me to some poems that strongly exhibit either one or both sides. Please email me with any suggestions. Thanks in advance.

Jessica of New York, USA
29th April 1998

Would anyone be willing to sell a copy of the April issue of "Vogue" magazine with the short article concerning Plath? I've checked with various stores in town, and they've already been pulled and discarded. I will pay double the price plus postage. Thank you!

Steve Gorrell
 Urbana, Illinois, USA
29th April 1998

Stewart Clarke's generous gift to the Forum of the 1995 Ted Hughes interview brought up a point I had been discussing with him (among other things) one-on-one over the past two days. I had confessed to Stewart that I don't yet feel up to analyzing Plath's poetry online as it's been a few years since I had participated in intense literary discussion -- and poetry as a genre has never been my strong suit. However, I'm confident in opening a discussion of her prose and hope some like-minded Plathologists there will feel the compulsion to jump in with their own thoughts.

Hughes says that he believes Plath's journals were 'practice' for longer works of prose. For example, in the American version of 'Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams,' Hughes and/or editor Frances McCullough placed a short story, 'That Widow Mangada,' alongside a journal entry about Plath and Hughes' own short relationship with a Benidorm landlady while on their honeymoon. The story follows the same dramatic structure as the journal entry but tidies up what undoubtably was an unpleasant blip on the couple's wedding trip. The woman in the story is more lucid and composed than was Plath in her journal -- don't we all wish we could go back and rewrite history? So Plath did.

Anyway, my point to Stewart and now to the Forum was that the blatantly pastiche prose Plath so diligently worked on in hopes of being published in the slick women's magazines offers an interesting glimpse at the insecure young woman/writer/wife that preceded the polish and intensity of the 'Ariel' poet. Works such as 'Day of Success' and even the well-known Seventeen magazine prize-winner 'Initiation' offer a fascinating and often-hidden glimpse into the evolution of the Sylvia Plath we revere today. When I argue to bring out 'the lighter side of Plath,' I'm not looking for someone to interpret 'Daddy' as a love letter or Warner Brothers animated musical, but trying to see if anyone else -- Peter Steinberg? Christy? Shona? Melissa? Stewart? -- recognizes Plath as something other than the bitch goddess or the victimized woman scorned. Any takers?

Nancy
 Falls Church, Virginia, USA
28th April 1998

Plathologists! Eureka! Thanks to Claas Kazzer, keeper of the Ted Hughes Pages, I am able to provide us all with quite a jewel: an interview in the Paris Review of Spring 1995 with Mr. Ted Hughes. Since the interview is forty pages long, and few visitors to this forum will probably have any interest in this incredible poet's work or what he could possibly have to say about creativity, art, or anything but where the bodies are buried, I have posted only his remarks about Plath. And wonderful remarks they are.

Dig in!

Stewart Clarke
 New York, USA
28th April 1998

I hadn't realized the number of Sylvia Plath's devote fans. It is very touching. It has been a year since I picked up The Bell Jar, the first I had ever heard of her, and have been been so in love with her work ever since. She is truly my favorite poet.

Madeline Kircher
 Halifax, Canada
27th April 1998

I am still seeking more interpretations on the poem Ariel. Anyone with any opinions on whether this poem is an indicator of her plans for suicide are especially welcome. I know that requests for information for research are common on this page, however, I have already done extensive library research so I'm not looking for people to give me the information. I'm just in search of a real fan's interpretation. Something a little different from a critic's point of view. Everyone is welcome to submit their opinions and they will all be greatly appreciated. Please feel free to e-mail me

Elizabeth
 Batesville, Arkansas, USA
27th April 1998

Hi! I am writing an essay about Sylvia, and especially about how her life and illness infected on her work. I would really appreciate if anyone could help me. So, if you know anything about this topic, pleeeease send me an E-mail.

I am in a hurry too, since the essay has to be finished on Thursday, 30 April. Thanks in advance!

Maria
 Stockholm, Sweden
26th April 1998

If anyone has an interpretation of the poem Daddy I would greatly appreciate any thoughts on it. I have to interpret the poem for an English class and my instructor will surely find fault with my explanation.

Jennifer Glassel
 Vista, CA, USA
26th April 1998

I was wondering if anyone had any information on two sites that seemed to have disappeared: the Plath and American Dream and the Multiple Selves of Sylvia Plath. Let me know please.

Jessica of New York, USA
26th April 1998

There is a reissue of the Journals set for May here in the States, in quality paperback form, partly cause they are nicer and don't fall apart, and there is more money to be had. The mass market book is on it's way out.

There are plans to publish, in Britain, for the first time her Journals. This is set for late this year, and I believe is to be un-edited. The same un-edited edition is scheduled for the US nect year, so buy stock in Virgin Atlantic and plan to que up for sales during the winter months. This is going to be big.

As for the destroyed Journals, I don't think Hughes would lie to us about that, his character at the time leads me to believe he had a nice marshmellow camp fire with that inky book he allegedly destroyed. another volume of Journals, remember, disappeared, and may still presumably turn up. This might be what the Frenchy man was speaking about. Parlez-vous veracity, mon ami? those French...anyway... being a worker in the book world, I'll try to keep tabs on what's coming out...

Peter Steinberg
 Alexandria, Virginia, USA
24th April 1998

Finally I too have gone out and spent that palatial $3 on the April Vogue. Unfortunatley is isn't going to help me much on my research paper but i did get a few laughs out of it. Aside from the occational chuckle I did pick out a few things that made me question the person who wrote this article. What kind of a horrible analogie is "She had so many angles she made an octogon look like a circle." or, the comment "...it's pretty obvious she's always been a line short of a sonnet." I don't like either attempt at describing her. An octogon has 16 angles (right?). So, how does that at all compare to a circle? Maybe I'm not reading enough into it or over looking the whole point of it (the analogie) but i think it was pretty lame. Your thoughts? And her being one line short of a sonnet reminds me of an e-mail I got a few days ago about creative ways to descibe stupid people. Why didn't she say the cheese slid off her cracker or that her sewing machine was out of thread? Any way, I guess what I'm getting at is that I think the article was not very good. It had its highlights, but those were outweighed by impracticle comparisons between she and Ted and John and Paul, or the Prince and (late) Princess. But please, send me your thoughts.

Martha
 Kokomo, USA
24th April 1998

If what we read from Nash Mosbey of Boston is true, once again we find truth to the old adage that fact is stranger than fiction. The bizarre combination of the screenwriting talents of Meg Ryan and the dazzling playwright Tom Stoppard, coupled with the pop-Gothic, neurotic vision of "Batman" director Tim Burton, can only render one helplessly intrigued (it comes as no surprise that the too-dark-for-Disney Burton claims a deep personal connection with Plath). Perhaps we will be presented with Sylvia as a schizoid, leatherclad "Catwoman" of the literati, fetchingly wrinkling her nose and flashing us a gummy grin while she expounds on the pitfalls of the New Criticism and eyes the gas jets.

True or not, the prospect of a Plath biopic sends a chill down my spine, if only because of the inevitable fact that the Hughes marriage will be sensationalized to a degree heretofore unimaginable. A script needs drama, and drama thrives on a villain. Since some of the direst dramas of the film's real life heroine occurred at her typewriter (not a promising subject for a visual medium), one can only anticipate that Hughes will find himself putting in villainous overtime to take up the slack: Joker, Riddler, and Penguin combined. If true, Stoppard's involvement is promising; it is to be hoped that this most ironic and cerebral of playwrights will find a way to confound any conveniently neat-and-tidy interpretation of this very messy subject.

Stewart Clarke
 New York, USA
24th April 1998

Without being accused of telling tales out of school, I have some information regarding this whole Meg Ryan movie project. My friend, who is an AD in Los Angeles and an alumni of CalArts, told me that Ms.Ryan is currently working with playwrite/script doctor Tom Stoppard on the final draft of her project. The director, fresh from a foundered Superman movie, is none other than fellow CalArts alumni - Tim Burton. Burton it seems has had a long and deep personal connection with SP. My friend is reporting for work sometime in late July.

Nash Moseby
 Boston, USA
24th April 1998

Disappointing. I am referring to the NPR special on Plath and Ariel. It's great she's been chosen as there Book of the Month, in the company of some of the greats. I had never before listened to one of these programmes (dealing with books), and fing myself now, not eager to listen to another.

The topic at hand was Plath and her Ariel poems, and began calmly enough with...is it art? can one die from art? Nice enough, but quickly shoved aside to talk about The Bell Jar, her psychosis and how she could have done this to her children (i.e. the suicide with them in the house...what...of all the nerve...).

Notable contributors were, from Stanford, Eavan Boland the Irish wonder. And also a former Smith College friend of Plath's...Enid (sp?) something-or-other. The college roommate was imformative...Plath was active, social, but hiding under several masks, never showing any rage or nervousness to the public. we know she kept that to the Journals, happy one moment, it a pit of dispair the next...

The poetry was discussed for maybe 7 minutes, tops. And even then, wasn't too imformative/impressive. The conversations on this Forum shed more light and thought into Plath's poetry. They aired the 1962 famous recordings of Daddy, Ariel and and excerpt from Lady Lazarus, which for all intents and purposes, stole the show. Call NPR for free tapes/transcripts...1-800-NPR-NEWS.

NPR is sponsored by...

Peter Steinberg
 Alexandria, Virginia, USA
24th April 1998

Noooooo, not Meg Ryan.....

A few years ago, after "Rough Magic" was published, there was talk of a film based on this book with Molly Ringwald slated to play Plath. Initially, this seemed like a bit of miscasting to me (all right, a LOT of miscasting), but the more I saw of Ringwald the more I realized she would make the perfect Sivvy. There's a physical resemblance (eyes, smile, facial structure) and Ringwald seems to have that duplicitous blend of strength/vulnerability.

I took it upon myself to "cast" some other key players...I came up with Daniel Day-Lewis for Ted Hughes and Sigourney Weaver (slowly aged to a nice turn) for Aurelia Plath...and then I waited...and waited....and there never was a "Rough Magic" movie.

I'm not sure if Day-Lewis would still be my pick for Hughes (too gaunt? rangy? old?), but I still vote for Ringwald and Weaver.

I sure hope they film it this time.

Nancy Howell
 San Francisco, USA
23rd April 1998

I am doing research for an english project. I am looking for explications of the poem Ariel. I have numerous critics' opinions but I would love to have the views of true fans to include. Anyone interested please e-mail me.

Elizabeth
 Arkansas, USA
23rd April 1998

Well, guess what I am also doing a Research Report on Sylvia Plath. I have never heard of her until my teacher suggested doing my report on her. I have come to find that really she is a lot more popular than I thought. For my report I need critiques and what Sylvia's writing stlye is. If anybody out there can help me with this it would be greatly appreciated. I am having a hard time finding books in my area that critique her and I am aloud to use others opinions. Thanks for all the help.

Jessica of Cincinnati, USA
23rd April 1998

I think that what was meant by the new journals is a re-release. I remember reading on the amazon.com webpage that in 1998 or 2000 (not sure which one) there is a new edition of the journals. Stewart, I think you are right. there would be a much bigger deal made of the whole situation if it was the missing journals. I doubt those will resurface because of their content, maybe after TH is no longer with us. Birthday Letters was one story, since it is his subjective story of her, but the journals would be a different thing altogether although, we can all hope and pray :)

Jessica of New York, USA
23rd April 1998

Jessica, the painting by Frieda is on the cover of the English edition of Birthday Letters by Faber and Faber. The American edition seems to have some poppies on the cover.

Anja Beckmann
 Leipzig, Germany
23rd April 1998

Plathologists and Meg Ryan Fan Club:

WHAT to make of this? I found it on one of the links in the Ted Hughes pages. Could it be true, or is this French journalist deluded?

A new edition of the Journal of Sylvia Plath is said to be due to come out at Fabers' by the end of this year. Following up on the success of Birthday Letters, Ted Hughes may have made up his mind to publish those parts of Sylvia's bulky journal which he has so far suppressed, alledgedly to protect his family. The main focus of attention is on the text of Plath's diary for the three days previous to her suicide, part of a book which he had let out to have "destroyed", apparently because of the sharp-tongued or acrimonious remarks that Sylvia made about her own mother and other people, and also because they contained private things related to her supposedly "exacerbated eroticism". More morbid gossip is abroad, about Assia and Shura, etc.... ( The Independent, The Observer)."

Without being able to find any further details with my limited resources, I tend to think this is a misunderstanding. Apparently, there is to be a re-issue of the already published Journals, but this writer believes it to be the "lost" journals. Can ANYONE shed light on this? One would think that, if the long lost and "destroyed" journals had made their reappearance, the news would be treated with a little fanfare, and all Plathologists would be dancing in the streets like bit players in The Bacchae.

Stewart Clarke
 New York, USA
23rd April 1998

The Guardian article I mentioned is the same article you have just quoted from. I admit it was a bit extreme to accuse the Hughes children of running away from their "daddy" but as we all know the whole plath/hughes story is filled with dualities/extremes.

As for Frieda's art work if anyone is interested type her name into alta vista and there is a website with some of her paintings. Her work seems to be rather good. As for the cover of birthday letter you refer to do you mean the flowery one?

Jessica
 New York, USA
23rd April 1998

I have in front of me the April issue of Vogue, for which I spent a pretty palatial $3. Peanut-munchers will be peanut munchers, I guess. Meanwhile, my co-workers keep passing my desk, looking at the Vogue, looking at my own modest attire and wondering what's up with my reading habits.

I agree with Stewart's review of the Vogue article, and it seems inevitable that a Princess Diana comparison would crop up by now. (Hey, I'm 5' 10", blondish and occasionally have a deep thought or two; my own 15 minutes in Vogue must be coming up soon.) However, the full-spread photo of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes was almost worth the newsstand price. It seems to have been taken at the same sitting in which the famous photo wallpapering this Forum was shot -- but the wide, sincere smile is quite a departure >from the Sylvia the journalists usually allow us to see. Apparently the world at large equates being depressed and intellectual with having a perpetual hang-dog expression. I've mentioned to a few Forum people that I'll fight to defend "the lighter side of Plath" -- and that photograph is an apt illustration of what I've been talking about.

As for the Sylvia Plath biopic starring Meg Ryan -- I discussed the matter with my husband (who's not a Plath fan and therefore objective), and he urged me to take a second look at Ryan's body of work. Indeed, Ryan has done more than giggle and bubble in recent years. Maybe she will have the necessary intensity to do justice to the role (once they do something about her height and blue eyes). Does anyone else have any other suggestions?

Nancy
 Falls Church, Virginia, USA
21st April 1998

I think it extraordinary to suggest that Hughes' children have fled their father, the reincarnated Otto Plath, simply because they choose to live their own lives far from Devon. I cannot seem to access Frieda Hughes' Guardian article on Anja's SP website; however, it is interesting to note that the cover of the British edition of "Birthday Letters" features a very striking piece of artwork by Miss Hughes. Certainly, it's possible that Hughes drugged her, tied her to a chair, and forced her to sign over the painting -- however, evidence seems to the contrary. A perusal of the Ted Hughes Pages, for instance, (see the Forum's Books and Links section) uncovered a letter to the editor of the Sunday Times by one Libby Purves, a ten-year friend of Frieda Hughes, which shed a much more benign light on the relationship between Hughes and his children. She writes:

Purves also implies in the letter that it is the stupid controversy surrounding their parents' relationship that has sent her far from England:

Purves writes, "Look at Frieda Hughes's paintings and you see a fierce, springing vitality, a raw brave ebullient belief in resurgent life which is hers alone. One of her Fire paintings is on the cover of her father's book in honour of his first wife, which is just as it should be. This week old griefs and old lives and old hatreds are exorcised and the new generation can step forward, with its own face on."

How it must gall the Plath industry to have let this prize initiate slip through its fingers. Oh well, not much harm done. It seems to be doing quite well without her.

Stewart Clarke
 New York, USA
21st April 1998

Elaine - thanks for your heplful information on the Hughes children. I read the article on Frieda from the Guardian. However, it left me wondering if both kids were trying to escape Hughes by outting so much physical space between them. and also if perhaps Ted is really the "Otto type" man that sylvia had thought he was at the end of her life.

As for the article in Vogue, I thought it was a journalist's attempt to get her name out in the public, by referring to as much pop culture as possible. In that way it succeeds, but in shedding any new light or new perspective on the subject, it miserabley fails.

Jessica
 New York, USA
20th April 1998

I'm doing a research paper on SP, and how her life affected her work. Also on how the events of the 50's and early 60's influenced her. If anyone out there as any info. please email me. Thanks!

Wendy
 Baldwinsville, USA
20th April 1998

Hi again! everyone is doing research projects, me included! I have to give an oral for english on how the ERA she lived in affected her work, and since that was the feminist era, I need how that affected her. I'm doing pretty good but any info anyone has would be SO SO appreciated. so you can email me...

ps: I was going to but the poem "The Applicant" on my visual aid but the teacher made me censor part of it...gawd. ok bye:)

Monica
 Philadelphia, USA
20th April 1998

Thanks to -Monica's tip, this grim reaper was recently seen in a Manhattan newsstand engrossed in the latest issue of Vogue, mouth agape at the bizarre article within about our Sylvia, written by Julie Burchill, the 'bad girl" British journalist, critic, and upcoming novelist. To gain insight into Burchill's perception of Plath, one must examine the blurb about her in the Contributor's column, in which she writes, "I used to think Sylvia Plath's tragedy was glamorous. Now I think it's sad. .. If she'd moved here (Brighton, where Burchill now resides) we'd have taken her out and pushed her fully clothed off the pier into the sea, and she'd have been born again, happy." Apparently, there was nothing wrong with Plath that a little romp in the Atlantic couldn't cure.

Burchill attempts to get to the bottom of the Plath Phenomenon, and while she does cover the bases, she loses her way, having no clear understanding of Plath to begin with. That Plath is a fantasy figure for Burchill is apparent in every paragraph of her article, "Not Quite Through." "What could be cooler?" she writes. "To be Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller rolled into one?. . . All that was needed was an affair with a Kennedy . . . to put her right up there in the Rat Pack canon of Camelot; Sylvia and Anne Sexton as the Marilyn and Liz of manic-depressive, three-martini academe."

A faithful Maenad, Burchill soon gets around to the inevitable trashing of Ted Hughes. Comparing it to the Profumo affair and the vicious murder/suicide of Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell, Burchill characterizes the Hughes' marital breakup as "one of those black sixties cautionary tales that transformed the world's image of Englishmen forever . . . to that of deviant swingers thrashing about in a subterranean London vortex of sex and death." Steamy stuff indeed. A run-of-the-mill case of adultery hardly seems to fit this spicy prototype; but what does it matter, as long as we can carry away the image of a leering Hughes, perhaps clad in black leather, tearing through the streets of London on his Harley with Assia Wevill clutched to his chest? Burchill then goes on, of course, to critique "Birthday Letters," the most shockingly willful misreading I have yet encountered of this book. The idea that Plath might have been "mad" (not the word I would choose, nor, I think, would Hughes) before and during her marriage seems a surprising "spin" on the story to Burchill, who is apparently unfamiliar with Plath's novel, poetry, journals, or biographies. But to suggest that Hughes implies he left Plath because he felt "thrown over" for Plath's father is a deliberately malicious misreading of this tragic work, the central conflict of which she reduces to a witty little bon mot: "He builds her a table; she still won't smile for the camera. Women, eh?"

Burchill then analyzes Plath herself, prefaced by this revealing statement: "The idea of the good dying young is still a powerful one . . . pop icons are best when they are transitory and a bore when they stick around." On the troublesome subject of Plath's work, Burchill offers this assessment: "Were her poems great? Yes, despite themselves." Plath the person? "Man-pleasing:" Plath as "suck-up artist" who was "quite surreally competitive with other women." Plath's legacy? We are offered this strange summation, more revealing, perhaps, of Burchill than Plath: "Essentially, Plath remains a great role model of how not to do it. If you're an artist, don't kid yourself that you're a housewife. If you can help it, don't get married or have children at all.. . As long as women are torn between their muses and their hormones, Plath's work will live." Burchill then closes the article with a portrayal of Plath as the "victim of male desire." Drawing a comparison between Plath and actress Jayne Mansfield ("the ultimate man-pleasing woman") she decides to forgive them both: "Until very recently, women just didn't know what was being done to them."

For all its effort to provide us with an irreverent revisionist Plath, Burchill merely gives us more rosy, victimized propaganda. For a much more valuable, compelling discussion of Plath, I recommend Elizabeth ("Prozac Nation") Wurtzel's newest, "Bitch." A discussion of "difficult women," Wurtzel (who is often compared with Plath) focuses a great deal of attention on Sylvia the "maniac" with unsentimental understanding, respect, and personal insight.

With the publication of "Birthday Letters", it is perhaps inevitable that the Plath myth should resurface from the grave cave once again in all its former intensity. However, the current metamorphosis of SP to 1990's "Pop Icon" is something new. With Plath now plastered across the pages of People and Vogue, and with an apparent film career in the offing, the result will be an even more insidious canonization of this disturbing poet as a sensitive, victimized martyr. Now, thousands who never heard of Plath will feel they "know" her, only this time around there will be little need to actually read or study her poetry. They can now take for granted, because People and Vogue tell them so, that Plath, latter day Romantic transforming into art the maelstrom of her own uniquely daemonic psyche, was writing about the injustice of changing nappies, the victimization of women, and the terrors of "male desire." Forthcoming re-issues of her journals and "The Bell Jar" notwithstanding, her new readers will have little chance of encountering the real Plath, naked in all her insecure, arrogant, bitchy, self-destructive, self-absorbed glory, in their reading of these works, filtered as it will be through an ever more firmly fixed, "official," rose-colored lens.

Stewart Clarke
 New York, USA
20th April 1998

Jessica - Frieda Hughes is an artist and when I last heard of her she was living in Australia. Nick Hughes is a marine biologist based in Alaska. It is only recently that Frieda has read her mother's poetry and as far as I know, Nick still hasn't done so. Last November Frieda gave an interview to the "Guardian" which also published a rather good poem of hers which dealt with her feelings about Sylvia. If you're interested you can read it on Anja Beckman's Sylvia Plath page which has a link from this forum.

Elaine Connell
Hebden Bridge, UK
20th April 1998

I'm doing my junior honors research paper on SP and how her live took effect on her writting, but I'm having a really hard time finding information in the libraries where I live. If anyone has any information they think I could use (magazine articles, newspaper clippings, ect.) please e-mail me (mardodd@aol.com) also, if you have any suggestions on what something that should not be left out plese send those too. Thank you so very much,

Martha
 Kokomo, USA
20th April 1998

I'm doing an independent study on Sylvia Plath this term. I was wondering if anyone ha any info on Frieda and Nicholas. I just read an article from the guardian that she wrote in november that said up until recently she had never read any of the work parents' work. Good luck getting in touch with Ted Hughes. Biographers have had a hard enough time talking with him, althoughi think it is a noble attempt. The closest you could get to a public comment is his new book. Yes I do think that living with a depressed person can be hard on the spouse as well, but his silence coupled with his affair are a bit unforgiveable.

In response to the whole movie idea, I think its a stupid idea. turning Plath into a Hollywood melodrama defiles the whole spirit of Plath. The only redeeming quality is Jane Campion's involvement.

Jessica
 New York, USA
19th April 1998

Can anyone give me an interpretation on Sylvia Plath's "Lady Lazarus"? Please email me. Thanks in advance!

Erin
 Boston, USA
17th April 1998

I am doing an independent study project for my Writing Center class, on Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes' relationship. Sivvy is my whole dream. She is a beautiful, inspiring, and deviating poet, and I have decided to devote my fourth quarter of my senior in high school to researching her. I was wondering if anyone knew where ted Hughes lived ,so I could write to him, perhaps. I do not think he is a criminal--I think he is as much of a victim as she was. If you have ever lived with a depressed person, you know where I am coming from. You do all you can to help a person, but when they continue to push you away for years, you give up hope. It is not his fault. No matter how dearly I love Sivvy, I cannot blame Ted for her death. So if anyone knows whereabouts in Devon, Engladn he lvies, please help me out. This project is important to me.

Renae Hodgkins
 Rumford, USA
17th April 1998

Meg Ryan to play Plath? Uh, no. Goldie Locks should stick to faking orgasms and Barbie makeup. Sivvy would never approve.

Dena Tooma
 Toronto, Canada
16th April 1998

Regarding Peter and Jannette's visit to Sylvia's grave in Heptonstall. I tried to visit it approx two years ago and couldn't even find it There was no headstone at that time and no directions as to where the grave was. I have often wondered why she was buried in Yorkshire and not close to her home in North Tawton where, presumably, the grave would have been more accessible to those who knew and loved her. Does anyone have any ideas about this. With regard to Meg Ryan portraying Sylvia I think she may do very well. She has, after all had her own relationship problems with her mother and this could give her a deeper insight into Sylvia's complexities.

Lynne Penny
 Exeter, England
16th April 1998

Girls! Girls! There will be a symposium at New York's Town Hall on May 1st at 7 pm : "Should Meg Ryan Play Sylvia Plath?" Mediated by E! Entertainment Network, the panelists will include A. Alvarez, British literary critic and Plath personality, Billy Hopkins, Hollywood casting director, Erica Jong, author and feminist critic, actor/comedian Billy Crystal, who co-starred with Ryan in "When Harry Met Sally," Barbara Walters, noted television personality who once interviewed Meg Ryan, and New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who read "The Bell Jar" in law school and claims to have "an intense spiritual connection" to Plath. The symposium will feature clips of Ryan's past film performances, samples of her own poetry about Sylvia, and a discussion of a possible dimples/Plath connection! See ya there!

Stewart Clarke
 New York, USA
16th April 1998

Nothing against Meg Ryan, but I can't imagine her playing Plath. I don't know if the idea of a movie on her thrills me that much. Did anyone see the article on her in the april Vogue? Lovely picture of her and ted hughes. It said how she died before all the messiness of the sixties and the world and stuff etc, bringing it back in a mainstream movie doesn't do it for me. I got interested in her work only about 6 months ago but I adore it. Btw-whatever happened to her two children? toodles.

Monica
 Philadelphia, USA
13th April 1998

Meg Ryan's not tall enough or intense-looking enough. Her eyes aren't dark. I like all the other picks for the cast, though. I vote for Gary Oldman to play Hughes.

Susan Rossbach
 Sedalia, MO, USA
14th April 1998

23 April 1998, on NPR (National Public Radio) at 2 pm EDT. There is to be a one hour long discussion of Plath's work, namely Ariel, which NPR has chosen as it's book of the month. I am sure their home page has more infor on it, I haven't yet been there. If anyone is out of range and would like a copy, contact me with name address and all that important postal stuff.

Peter Steinberg
 Alexandria, Virginia, USA
14th April 1998

Jannette and I visited Sylvia's grave today (Easter Monday), in the tiny village of Heptonstall.

Her grave is not well kept, and bore an old Christmas wreath and a few dead flowers. The simple headstone names her as Sylvia Plath Hughes. From time to time anti-Hughes people chip off the word Hughes; but today it was intact.

It was bitterly cold and snowing, high above the Pennines. We hope she is at peace.

Peter and Jannette
 Mexborough, South Yorkshire, UK
13th April 1998

Yes, it's true, rumor has it that perky starlet Meg Ryan is slated to play Plath in Ryan's own screenplay (co-authored by Erica Jong), entitled "Mad Girl's Love Song " to be released summer 1999 from Columbia Pictures. Director: Jane Campion. Among actors under discussion for the role of Hughes: Al Pacino ("The Scent of a Woman"), Dennis Hopper ("Blue Velvet"), Jack Nicholson ("The Witches of Eastwick"), John Malkovich ("Dangerous Liaisons") and Gary Oldman ("Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula"). Olwyn Hughes to be portrayed by British stage actress Billie Whitelaw (best known to American audiences as the satanic nanny in the 70s horror classic "The Omen"). Faye Dunaway ("Mommie Dearest") is campaigning for the role of Aurelia Plath, while the ghost of Otto Plath has been offered to Kenneth Branaugh ("Dead Again."). Special cameo appearance by Angelica Huston ("The Adaams Family") as Anne Sexton. Ryan, in recent interview, claims "intense spiritual connection" to Plath since reading "Bell Jar" in college. Plath estate said to be in uproar over scene in which TH is depicted pushing a manacled SP into gas oven at Fitzroy Street.

Meanwhile, it is rumored that for National Poetry Month: psychic Kenny Kingston will appear on the Larry King Show, channeling SP's spirit in a reading from Maya Angelou's Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Die. A mass suicide of freshman English majors is expected at Smith College in protest of Hughes' poem, "The Dogs Are Eating Your Mother." And Garrison Keillor will recite "Lady Lazarus" on the April 18th broadcast of "A Prairie Home Companion."

Stewart Clarke
 New York, USA
13th April 1998

The answer to the riddle in Metaphors is that these are all euphemisms for pregnancy. And there are nine lines to the poem and I think, though I haven't counted, there are nine syllables in each line. And there are nine months in pregnancy. I think one of the reasons Plath enjoyed her pregnancies so much, or seemed to is because the academic year is also approx. nine months long...it was something she could really relate to, time-wise.

Susan Rossbach
 Sedalia, MO, USA
13th April 1998

I was just wondering had anyone heard about actress Meg Ryan's recently written screenplay on the life and times of Plath, and her desire to star in it? Ted Hughes is blocking her going through with it, as he is afraid he is put in a bad light in it (isn't he always?). Personally, i can't see miss sunshine doing the role well, and I fear to see what the script looks like- any ideas, thoughts, comments?

Jill
 New York City, USA
13th April 1998

O Melissa Dobson, perhaps, due to the season, redemptive spirits are at work. Over the weekend, one of them led me to my dusty copy of Rilke, where I opened to a message that perhaps can offer us both the possibility of synthesis: here in this passage, the opening lines of the Duino Elegies. Benedictus. .

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? And even if one of them pressed me
suddenly against his heart: I would be consumed
in that overwhelming existence. For beauty is nothing
but the beginning of terror, which we still are just able to endure,
and we are so awed because it serenely disdains
to annihilate us. Every angel is terrifying.

Stewart Clarke
 New York, USA
13th April 1998

Please don't take this as a Hughes bashing . . . . But, I wonder when each of the poems in "Birthday Letters" were written. I found I kept wondering "was this one written before or after??"

Anyone else get the same feeling?

Emma Rowden
 Sydney, Australia
11th April 1998

I think, o grim one, that that long scythe of yours may be digging you into a big hole. Exactly what is it that's being affirmed by Plath, art or life, you ask. In your view, by choosing one you must choose both, since you say in your 6 April posting that "her writing is her life." You also say there that "Plath as a poet is interested in Plath." Doesn't this, then, present us with the question "toward what end?" What was she doing, in writing poetry? Why didn't she just kill herself sans pronouncements, kill the kids and Hughes too, for that matter; maybe even take Assia down with her -- just have done with it? Does the fact that art is "intrinsically amoral" contradict the understanding that the IMPETUS toward creation is affirmative? The view that Plath's work -- or the work of any great artist -- is affirming of life has less to do with what they say than THAT they said it. That in the face of alienation, great devastation, the Void, there is human response commensurate with the event itself is amazing, and is, YES, life-affirming. Could we live in a world without art? Would we want to? Why not? I would not disagree that Plath's work is largely ABOUT suicide, about the urge toward self-destruction (the ultimate act of will). The art that came out of the world wars speaks of unspeakable horrors, of the quenching of the human spirit -- but it SPEAKS. It is not silent. To say "No," aren't you making an affirmation of some kind? I would say yes.

Melissa Dobson
 Newport RI, USA
10th April 1998

Your view is your view. Right on. I have recently been discussing with an e-friend in Germany the area of 'how men and women read poems.' A story...the other day at work, (I work in a bookshop), a young man came up to me and asked me a question. First you need to know what shirt I was wearing. An Oscar Wilde shirt. He asked me if I were gay. I asked him, 'Do you have to be a woman to read Sylvia Plath?' He left the store. So, it is amazing to know how many people in this world are reading Plath, the response on the Forum I think is impressive.

I recently took the liberty of typing and binding Sylvia Plath's Ariel for my own pleasure. It was tedious to flip the pages of the Collected Poems to read Plath's Ariel. And I am dumbfounded with what a different read the book of poetry is. I told a friend of mine to read it that way, he opted to flip the pages, and he came to me a few days later with the same sense of life that has been mentioned by Jack and Melissa.

One thus has to wonder if, for literary value or monetary, Hughes will publish Sylvia Plath's Ariel? Could the manuscrpit Plath left maybe be honored as a last wish?

Peter Steinberg
 Alexandria, USA
10th April 1998

What is the answer to the Riddle in Metaphors?

Stacy Stapleton
 Morristown, USA
10th April 1998

Ye Olde Grim Reaper here, speaking to you live from my Gothic woodcut. In response to Jack Folsom's posting, yes, I wholeheartedly agree that SP's objective in arranging the 1962 poems for the prospective "Ariel" was to create an arc toward renewal, or "spring," (sort of a poetic twin to "The Bell Jar"), which gives us a perfect example of the poet's role as "editor," imaginatively creating an overall arc or structure out of the raw material of the poems themselves. My comments regarding Plath's "trajectory toward suicide" are solely concerned with the arc of the poems in the order they were actually written from September 1962 to the final poem in 1963, the true story they tell. I would agree that October poems could be viewed as "rebirthing" poems, although I personally find them more convincing as "self-preservation" poems, the slashing claws of a cornered wild animal. The enemy gains ground, however, after her birthday, upon which her downward spiral continues until! the last poem, "Edge." In other words, chronologically the Ariel poems are analogous to a flare, an SOS, which blazes, peaks, and then plummets into "dark water."

Cunning Melissa Dobson! Your mention of Picasso set me thinking. Picasso, in my opinion, is not very analogous to Plath: "Guernica" aside, his work strikes me as the equivalent in paint to the witty, synchopated modernism of Prokofiev or Stravinsky, still carrying, though dismantled like a jigsaw, the last flicker of the belle epoque. Post-Auschwitz Sylvia Plath (whose work, like all art of the last fifty years, must find its meaning in the shadow of the death camps) puts me immediately in mind of Francis Bacon's "Screaming Popes" or the revolting nudes of Lucian Freud. And I wonder, what exactly is being "affirmed" in art such as this? What is being "nourished?" What relationship does art, in fact, have to affirmation at all? Standing before these horrific images or reading, say, "Contusion," my authentic reaction is sheer awe and admiration for the artist's genius at capturing, wrestling down, and subduing into word or image a truth about existence that can only appall --- but is there cartharsis? Redemption? Or is the ugly truth these artists present simply absorbed by the viewer or reader, ingested, and held inside like a tumor? The point I've been trying to make about Plath so vehemently on this Forum seems to be this: art is not intrinsically life-affirming at all. It is amoral; it is only well-done, or not well-done (even these obvious standards have become quaintly old-fashioned in postmodern 1998). But we PREFER our art to be life-affirming, and thus perhaps we misread Plath or romanticize Plath. I think that what is really being affirmed when art stirs us is art itself. Genius. The momentary triumph of the true artist over chaos. If any rebirth can be applied to Plath, surely it can only be her unequivocal rebirth or transformation as a poet, not as a human being. So what, exactly, is being affirmed by Plath? Life? Or Art?

Stewart Clarke
 New York, USA
9th April 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. This forum is moderated - contributions which are inappropriate, anonymous or likely to offend may be edited or omitted.