Plath Again!

[Ferretfancy]

Can anybody explain the journalistic obsession with Sylvia Plath? Not so long ago it was impossible to open any broadsheet without finding somewhere a reference to Virginia Woolf and her chums, but this has long been supplanted by endless re-runs and analysis of Sylvia and Ted. Why is a minor poet and author of one novel who sadly committed suicide a long time ago given such prominence? It baffles me, but no doubt my literary perception is at fault.
I await correction.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

And here it comes!

Two points, here; Plath isn't "a minor poet and author of one novel" any more than Keats was "a minor poet with one Drama". They're both great poets who died far too young.

Secondly, the "journalistic obsession" is sadly based more on her commiting suicide than on her astonishing achievements as a poet. This is the celebridologous world in which we live: Britten = great composer of some of the most incisive, beautiful and life-affirming Music ever conceived by the human imagination? Naah; he liked little boys and might've had siphylis. Plath = the author of some of the most profoundly unsettling, psychologically explorative and ultimately life-affirming poems ever conceived by the human imagination? Naah; stuck 'er 'ead in the oven while her kids slept in the next room. Hughes = creator of some of the most elemental, honest and open-eyed poems and stories ever conceived by the human imagination? Naah; miserable Northern loony who drove his wives to suicide.

Biogs, you see; so much easier copy than any of this Arty stuff.

[Ferretfancy]

And here it comes!

Two points, here; Plath isn't "a minor poet and author of one novel" any more than Keats was "a minor poet with one Drama". They're both great poets who died far too young.

Secondly, the "journalistic obsession" is sadly based more on her commiting suicide than on her astonishing achievements as a poet. This is the celebridologous world in which we live: Britten = great composer of some of the most incisive, beautiful and life-affirming Music ever conceived by the human imagination? Naah; he liked little boys and might've had siphylis. Plath = the author of some of the most profoundly unsettling, psychologically explorative and ultimately life-affirming poems ever conceived by the human imagination? Naah; stuck 'er 'ead in the oven while her kids slept in the next room. Hughes = creator of some of the most elemental, honest and open-eyed poems and stories ever conceived by the human imagination? Naah; miserable Northern loony who drove his wives to suicide.

Biogs, you see; so much easier copy than any of this Arty stuff.

Fine, but it still doesn't really explain why certain writers and artists are featured to the extent that they and their reputations are dealt with ad nauseam in the press. As i said, there used to be a huge vogue for Woolf, now it's Plath. I'll be honest, I have read some Virginia Woolf, but I've probably been put off approaching Plath because of the endless attention to her and Ted Hughes, so the journalists have spoilt it for me and presumably many others.
I apologise for my ignorance of Plath's real stature, but the damage has been done.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Fine, but it still doesn't really explain why certain writers and artists are featured to the extent that they and their reputations are dealt with ad nauseam in the press. As i said, there used to be a huge vogue for Woolf, now it's Plath.

... and they have in common ... ?

Women and Modernists: see what happens to them? Think on!

I think that's also why Gertrude Stein is so neglected - a female Modernist who lived a long(ish), productive and emotionally happy life. Where's the "copy" there? (Cancer hasn't as yet been given the vicarious chic of suicide.)

[jayne lee wilson]

Start undoing the mediasaturationdamage here, FF...

http://allpoetry.com/poem/8498467-Ariel-by-Sylvia-Plath

It'll help you to know that Ariel is the horse she's riding!

FHG's comments spot-on. I identified almost dangerously with Plath in my teens... when I read Ariel just now, how the tears flowed, it's unbearably beautiful! But I'm in the middle of a great drama of pain and pain-management now, so have to restrict my screen-staring time...

Thankyou fhg, for all you've said about women and modernists, and the Great American poet Sylvia Plath.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Thankyou fhg, for all you've said about women and modernists, and the Great American poet Sylvia Plath.

My pleasure; and good to hear from you again - I nearly rebooted the "Missing Friends" Thread. Just Serial_Apologist unaccounted for. Hope all works out well with the drama - won't say more: that was trite enough.

[marthe]

I have been a big fan of Sylvia Plath since I first read the Bell Jar in the late 60s. Plath not only was a compatriot, she grew up in my town, went to my high school, and had an English teacher, Wilbury Crockett, who was revered by all of his pupils. I can't claim to be a major twentieth-century poet, but Plath and I had several things in common besides being alumnae of Wellesley High School!

[salymap]

My pleasure; and good to hear from you again - I nearly rebooted the "Missing Friends" Thread. Just Serial_Apologist unaccounted for. Hope all works out well with the drama - won't say more: that was trite enough.

Echoed by me. What a wonderful thread. Iknow more of Woolf than Plath but shall return to these posts in the morning. Thanks everyone.

[Ferretfancy]

My initial comments have been well and truly dealt with ! To all the Plath enthusiasts may I say that I'm somewhat chastened, and will make good by reading her at the first opportunity!
Bws.
Ferret

[eighthobstruction]

Plath's poems spoke to me in my youth (studied late 60's for O level). They lept off the page. I did not realise at the time that she had only died 4-5 years earlier. It was the bitterness that awoke my mind, the visceral snarl, the anger, the ugly images. I have carried that voice through my life (whether indeed this is an accurate take on the poems or not). I have found it in my own writing....especially so when my wife and I parted after 28 years, I found it in my letters to her, and the poems that I wrote for myself....I think Sylvia gave permission to us to let the dam break....(and a message of "look what happened to me").

The R4 book of the week is Mad Girl's Love Song (it hasn't had very good reviews) about her early life before Ted Hughes....as one critic said (para') why do we have to have these biographies that try to explain the works of major artists, by trawling through their lives (I know their are many posters here who read many Biographies of Composers etc). I know that is a simplification, and I can see already the flaws in my statement, but the 'works' remain for me more pure by not knowing the back story.

[amateur51]

... and they have in common ... ?

Women and Modernists: see what happens to them? Think on!

I think that's also why Gertrude Stein is so neglected - a female Modernist who lived a long(ish), productive and emotionally happy life. Where's the "copy" there? (Cancer hasn't as yet been given the vicarious chic of suicide.)

I think Stein got a fair dose of unwarranted criticism for being so many things that 'nice' women of her time were not meant to be - lesbian, American intellectual, Jewish female intellectual, brave and not giving a particular fig for what her detractors thought. Just look at the long list of 20th century artists whom she nurtured, as well as her own poems and writings. Her relationship with Alice B Toklas could be seen as a real fist shaken at the (male) art establishment at the time, if that's how you choose to see it.

I agree that Plath did give us permission to 'let the dam burst', but she has suffered as all suicides do from speculation - was it self-pity or punishing the living or self-hatred? We can't know and in the end who cares when the emotions are expressed so vividly and with such painful honesty.

[jean]

The R4 book of the week is Mad Girl's Love Song (it hasn't had very good reviews) about her early life before Ted Hughes...

Reviews I've read/heard of this complain that it merely disinters some early boyfriends, and does not thereby add anything we did not already know from The Bell Jar.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I think Stein got a fair dose of unwarranted criticism for being so many things that 'nice' women of her time were not meant to be - lesbian, American intellectual, Jewish female intellectual, brave and not giving a particular fig for what her detractors thought. Just look at the long list of 20th century artists whom she nurtured, as well as her own poems and writings. Her relationship with Alice B Toklas could be seen as a real fist shaken at the (male) art establishment at the time, if that's how you choose to see it.

Indeed; but it is interesting to see how her posthumous reputation fares in comparison to Plath's - there isn't the Colour Supplement obssession with Stein that Feret notices that there is with Plath or Woolf. I think that that's because the Meedja know that suicide chic sells: emphasis is withdrawn from the work except as a "pointer" to the "inevitable" suicide. And this is particularly pernicious with regard to women - there isn't nearly as much space devoted to Robert Lowell, for example.

What is most interesting about Plath is her masterly use of language; the growth of her "voice" from the Formalist intensity of The Colossus (which seems to be obssessed with the structural expression and presentation of her ideas) to the improvisatory range of the Ariel poems (which seem to be obssessed with brutally frank emotional sharing). Of course, these "seems" hide an underlying unity at the core of her work, one that invites speculation about how the Formal and the Emotional might have been melded in later work - a later work more than suggested by the original, more "upbeat" conclusion that Plath intended. (Hughes' reordering so that the volume concludes as if the work is pointing to the biography was the first event that moved the emphasis from The Poetry to The Person). But there's so little discussion of this - instead, it's all reduced to Gwynneth Paltrow proportions.

I agree that Plath did give us permission to 'let the dam burst', but she has suffered as all suicides do from speculation - was it self-pity or punishing the living or self-hatred? We can't know and in the end who cares when the emotions are expressed so vividly and with such painful honesty.

Yes; but don't forget that it was Lowell who "gave her permission to give us permission".

[teamsaint]

Its always really hard to untangle the quality of the work from the media hype.
The trick,and its really important I think, is just to trust our own judgement on the work, and to imbue the artists life events with a sensible level of significance when appreciating their wok.
Ian Curtis and Joy Division were a great and very influential band in my opinion , whose musical importance has been perhaps a little overplayed.
Nirvana were a decent band, whose musical quality, if not significance, has been generally over rated. But that is just my judgement, hopefully based on using my own senses, and not trusting the opinions of , for instance , journalists who may have some less than honest agenda .

[amateur51]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0141tfv/Witness_The_Last_Days_of_Sylvia_Plath/