The Letters of Sylvia Plath Vol 2
Page 125
*Richard Wilbur won the 1957 Pulitzer Prize for Things of This World.
*Richard Wilbur was married to Mary Charlotte Hayes (Ward) Wilbur (1922–2007).
*Due to drought conditions, severe forest fires broke out in Massachusetts and throughout New England.
*See Letters of Sylvia Plath, Vol. 1, 946n, 952, 955–6.
*Marion Freeman. The Plaths used the term ‘aunt’ quite loosely.
*T. S. Eliot, ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’, Complete Poems and Plays of T. S. Eliot (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1952): 4; SP slightly misquotes: ‘To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.’
*It is possible ASP planned to hear Wilbur read at Brandeis University on 7 June 1957 as part of a ‘Living Anthology’ of poets honouring William Carlos Williams or a reading Wilbur gave at Wellesley College on 13 June 1957.
*‘of his Wilbur’ appears in the original. SP did not cancel ‘his’, but did add ‘Wilbur’ by hand.
*The corrected page proofs are held by Lilly Library.
*Otto Emil Plath (1885–1940); German instructor and biology professor at Boston University, 1922–40; SP’s father. Author of Bumblebees and Their Ways (New York: Macmillan, 1934).
*American art historian, author, and editor of Harper’s Magazine, Russell Lynes (1910–91). Russell Lynes to TH, 17 May 1959; held by Emory University.
*Ted Hughes, ‘The Dove Breeder’, Harper’s (August 1957): 65.
*Robert Frost read at the Mill Lane Lecture Hall, Cambridge.
*English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679). SP had written ‘Some Notes on Hobbes’ Leviathan’ on 8 November 1956; held by Lilly Library.
*TH’s poem ‘Song’; both the Faber and Harper & Row editions of TH’s The Hawk in the Rain contain forty poems, though the order differs.
*‘Cambridge Opinions’, Cambridge Review 78 (28 May 1957): 585–6, 607, 609. The anonymous critique discussed SP’s ‘Epitaph for Fire and Flower’, Chequer 11 (Winter 1956–7): 3. After quoting the first seven lines of the poem, the reviewer writes, ‘What is persuasive here is the success with which Miss Plath has struck a rhetorical pose: the opening couplet has a vigour reminiscent of the seventeenth century, forceful enough to carry one over the following lines and conceal for the moment that “crack your skull”, for example, is no more than tough verbiage. By the time the end of the stanza is reached, however, the hollowness behind the impressive-sounding gesture at the start has become clear and is only confirmed by the rest of the poem: Miss Plath simply dissipates the effect of her opening by dragging in one image after another, never giving space for them to carry any but the barest scrap of meaning. Donne, one feels, would have confined himself within the opportunities offered by the opening metaphor, would have concentrated his thought and produced a corresponding richness of meaning instead of the disconnected sparks of Miss Plath’ (585–6).
*Other writers discussed with SP were Robert Symmons, Kenneth Pitchford, and Christopher Levenson.
*Henry James, The Lesson of the Master and Other Stories (London: J. Lehmann, 1948). SP’s copy held by Smith College.
*The corrected page proofs are held by Lilly Library.
*Daniel Aaron to SP, 11 June 1957; copy held by Smith College. English 11, Freshman English. From the course guide: ‘Practice in expository and critical writing in connection with the study of selected literary forms’ (76).
*SP meant Southampton, from which city the letter was postmarked.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*SP’s signature and postscript are at the end of a letter begun by TH, which has not been transcribed. TH mentions receiving a telegram announcing The Hawk in the Rain as Poetry Society Book Choice, and discusses the wedding party hosted by ASP.
*Robert Bagg (1937– ); B.A 1957, Amherst College.
*Possibly economist Pauline Lesley Cook; member of staff, Newnham College, Cambridge.
*American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809–49); his poem ‘The Raven’.
*See Charles Monteith to TH, 29 June 1957; held by Emory University. See also Eric Walter White to TH, 3 July 1957; held by Emory University.
*David N. Keightley (1932– ); B.A. 1953, Amherst College; M.A. 1956, New York University; Ph.D. 1969, Columbia University; editor 1957–60, World Publishing Company, New York.
*Catherine C. Yates; resident of 333 Elm Street, Northampton, Mass.; SP’s neighbour.
*Constance Linko Whalen (1928–2011) and her husband, Northampton police sergeant James J. Whalen (1916–98), who lived in the house with their their three children: David, Lawrence, and Sara.
*Virginia Corwin (1901–96), religion professor, Smith College, 1930–66.
*Ruth W. Crawford (1892–1959); director of admissions, Smith College, 1932–56; lived at 69 Prospect Street, Northampton, Mass.
*William Albert Bodden (1903–73), treasurer and controller, Smith College, 1946–65.
*Daniel Aaron (1912–2016); English professor, Smith College, 1939–72; director of the freshman English course (English 11) taught by SP, 1957–8. Daniel Aaron lived at 85 Washington Avenue, Northampton, Mass.
*American sculptor and graphic artist Leonard Baskin (1922–2000); founder of the Gehenna Press, 1942–2000; art professor, Smith College, 1953–74; SP’s colleague, 1957–8; friend of TH and SP.
*Anya de Markov Viereck (d. 1972), twice married and divorced to American poet Peter Robert Edwin Viereck (1916–2006), history professor, Mount Holyoke College, 1948–87.
*Ted Hughes, ‘The Good Life’, ‘Things Present’, ‘Witches’, and ‘Everyman’s Odyssey’, published as ‘Four Poems’, Sewanee Review 66 (Spring 1958): 256–8.
*‘People Are Talking About . . .’ is a recurring feature of Vogue. T. S. Eliot was one of the writers featured on 15 September 1957 for his book On Poetry and Poets (New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1957).
*Date assigned from internal evidence; likely misdated by SP.
*Hathaway House Bookshop, 103 Central Street, Wellesley, Mass.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*SP’s journal entry for this day mentions Jacob’s Room; she also read The Waves; SP’s copies of both books held by Smith College.
*Probably Sylvia Plath, ‘The Trouble-Making Mother’. See Journals of Sylvia Plath: 288.
*According to SP’s journals, one of these was ‘The Day of the Twenty-Four Cakes’. Another story referred to as ‘the Eye-Beam story’. See Journals of Sylvia Plath: 288 and 292.
*See Howard Moss to Frances Lindley, 17 July 1957; held by Emory University. Ted Hughes, ‘The Thought-Fox’, New Yorker (31 August 1957): 28.
*See James Michie to TH, 15 July 1957; held by Emory University.
*TH published four poems in The Spectator that summer: ‘Meeting’, Spectator 199 (19 July 1957): 111.; ‘Parting’ (later titled ‘September’), Spectator 199 (2 August 1957): 166; ‘Secretary’, Spectator 199 (30 August 1957): 279; ‘Two Wise Generals’, Spectator 199 (6 September 1957): 311. Acceptance and solitication letters from Anthony Hartley held by Emory University.
*Ted Hughes, ‘Bullfrog’.
*According to SP’s journal, she mailed ‘The Trouble-Making Mother’ to the Saturday Evening Post by 25 July. Journals of Sylvia Plath: 290.
*Dated from internal evidence.
*For English 11 (Freshman English), SP taught two chapters of William James, Varieties of Religious Experience: ‘The Religion of Healthy-Mindedness’ and ‘The Sick Soul’, which are heavily annotated in SP’s Modern Library (1929) edition held by Smith College.
*Lithuanian-born American artist, muralist, social activist, photographer, and teacher Ben Shahn (1898–1969). Leonard Baskin published drawings by Shahn in Wilfred Owen, Thirteen Poems (Northampton, Mass.: Gehenna Press, 1956).
*Ted Hughes, ‘Incompatibilities’, The Nation 185 (20 July 1957): 34.
*Ted Hughes, ‘The Hag’, Times Literary Supplement (16 August 1957): xvii.
*
Ted Hughes, ‘Thrushes’, Encounter 10 (March 1958): 45.
*Irish writer James Joyce (1882–1941).
*Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–81).
*SP taught the following: by Lawrence: ‘The Blind Man’, ‘The Princess’, ‘The Prussian Officer’, and ‘The Rocking-Horse Winner’; by Joyce: ‘Araby’, ‘The Boarding House’, ‘Clay’, ‘The Dead’, ‘Grace’, ‘Ivy Day in the Committee Room’, ‘A Little Cloud’, ‘A Painful Case’, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and ‘The Sisters’; by James: ‘The Beast in the Jungle’ and ‘The Pupil’; and by Dostoyevsky: Crime and Punishment.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*On 29 July 1957, SP was working on ‘the cake-story’, probably her ‘The Day of the Twenty-Four Cakes’. No known copy is extant. See Journals of Sylvia Plath: 292.
*American writer William Faulkner (1897–1962).
*English writer E. M. Forster (1879–1970). E. M. Forster, Howard’s End (New York: Vintage Books, 1954); SPs copy held by Lilly Library.
*The Spauldings had two daughters, Annabelle and Lesta.
*See Howard Moss to TH, 30 July 1957; held by Emory University.
*Ted Hughes, Lupercal (London: Faber & Faber, 1960).
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*SP, ‘Dialogue Over a Ouija Board’.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Operation Valentine’.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*‘the opening for of the Poetry Center’ appears in the original.
*24 December 1957 was a Tuesday.
*Katherine Gee Hornbeak (1897–1985); English professor, Smith College, 1930–62; SP’s colleague, 1957–8. SP and Hornbeak shared an office (room 59) in the William Allan Neilson Library, Smith College.
*The English department was located in Seelye Hall, room 511. It is possible SP taught in both Seelye Hall and Hatfield Hall, which are on either side of the Neilson Library.
*SP’s colleague Charles Jarvis Hill (1904–99); English professor, Smith College, 1932–66; acting chairman of the English department, fall 1957.
*Ruth E. Hill.
*English 314 ‘The Development of the English Novel. Daniel Defoe to D. H. Lawrence’.
*Possibly Marion E. Dodd (1883–1961); B.A. 1906, Smith College; co-founder of Hampshire Bookshop in 1916, served as the store’s Chairman of the Board, 1951–7.
*Elizabeth Lawrence to TH, 17 September 1957; held by Emory University.
*Lynne Lawner to SP, [13 October 1957] and 18 October 1957; held by Lilly Library. Lawner misdated her first letter as 26 October 1957; date here assigned from postmark.
*University lecturer and Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge, Muriel Clara Bradbrook (1909–93).
*Ibsen scholar and university lecturer in English at University of Cambridge John Richard Northam (1922–2004).
*Christine Abbott, Newnham College Secretary.
*Poet and professor John Holloway (1920–99); fellow and lecturer of Queens’ College, Cambridge.
*Dr Isabel Murray Henderson (1933– ); B.A. archaeology and anthropology 1957, Ph.D. 1962; Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge.
*Margaret Roberts (1933–2007); B.A. Rhodes University; B.A. Newnham College, Cambridge.
*Possibly Dr Edward Vaughan Bevan (1907–88); his surgery was at 3 Trinity Street, Cambridge.
*SP played Alice in Bartholomew Fair by Ben Jonson, ADC Theatre, Cambridge University, 24 November–3 December 1955.
*Joseph Mallory Wober (1936– ), British; B.A. 1957, natural sciences, King’s College, Cambridge; dated SP, 1955–6. Wober lived at 7 Peas Hill, Cambridge.
*English poet and priest Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89).
*Probably May Collacott Targett (1931– ); B.A. 1952, economics, Smith College; B.A. economics 1958, Newnham College, Cambridge. Targett took over SP’s room in Whitstead when SP moved to 55 Eltisley Avenue in December 1956. See Rhoda Dorsey and Sophie Consagra, compilers, Memories of Whitstead (2007): 51.
*See Letters of Sylvia Plath, Vol. 1, 1154–7.
*SP’s British colleague Joan Maxwell Bramwell (1923– ); English professor, Smith College, 1957–92; married to British writer James Guy Bramwell.
*American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–64). Plath taught the following stories by Hawthorne: ‘The Birthmark’, ‘Ethan Brand’, ‘Goodman Brown’, ‘Lady Eleanore’s Mantle’, and ‘Rappaccini’s Daughter’.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*See SP to Warren Plath, 5 November 1957.
*Newton Potters, 1021 Boylston Street, Newton Highlands, Mass. Purveyors of contemporary pottery, Swedish stainless flatware, and porcelains.
*American poet W. S. (William Stanley) Merwin (1927– ). W. S. Merwin, ‘Something of His Own to Say’, New York Times Book Review (6 October 1957): 43.
*Bluestone sculpture entitled Hawk by Norwegian-American sculptor Trygve Hammer (1878–1947).
*Irving H. Bucher, ‘Praise For A New Poet’, Baltimore Sun (6 October 1957): FE6.
*SP skips a sentence, giving no indication via ellipses: ‘Too much brilliance can compromise a poem’s unity of meaning’.
*Artemesia Bryson, ‘Poetry Marked by Power, Sensibility’, Fort Worth Star-Telegram (6 October 1957): 4.
*American poet Howard Moss (1922–87); his A Swimmer in the Air (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1957). Moss was poetry editor of the New Yorker, 1950–87.
*Graham Hough, ‘Landmarks and Turbulences’, Encounter 9 (November 1957): 83–7.
*English literary critic Graham Hough (1908–90).
*Graham Hough, The Dark Sun: A Study of D. H. Lawrence (London: G. Duckworth, 1956).
*[Patric Dickinson], ‘Poems of Substance’, Times Literary Supplement (18 October 1957): 626.
*A. Alvarez, ‘Tough Young Poet’, The Observer (6 October 1957): 12. English poet, novelist, essayist, and critic Alfred Alvarez (1929– ); poetry editor of The Observer, 1956–66.
*Alvarez writes, ‘It goes with a passion for Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, from whom Mr. Hughes twice steals—once disastrously trying to rewrite the Bard himself’ (12).
*English poet Andrew Marvell (1621–78).
*Alvarez writes, ‘And often he seems to need other literature to give him his start: one poem plays variations on a theme by Marvell, two on bits of Lawrence’s prose; whilst Robert Lowell prowls about’ (12). There is no reference to Chaucer.
*SP slightly misquotes Alvarez, whose review ends ‘. . . his successes seem to me to be impressive’ (12).
*Scottish poet Edwin Muir (1887–1959). Edwin Muir, ‘Kinds of Poetry’, New Statesman (28 September 1957): 391–2. In the last paragraph of the review Muir wrote, ‘The Jaguar is a better poem than Rilke’s much admired Panther’ (392).