The Letters of Sylvia Plath Vol 2

by Sylvia Plath

  *Bohemian-Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926); his ‘The Panther’, written in 1902.

  *Stanley Sultan (1928–2013); instructor of English, Smith College, 1955–9; SP’s colleague, 1957–8; married to Florence Lehman Sultan (d. 2013); divorced 1964. Father of James Lehman and Sonia Elizabeth.

  *Paul Roche.

  *Sallie Harris Sears (1932– ); instructor of English, Smith College, 1957–61; SP’s colleague, 1957–8.

  *Ted Hughes, ‘Bullfrog’, New Yorker (8 August 1959): 26.

  *Books by Robert Graves, Marianne Moore, Daniel Abse, and Thom Gunn were also reviewed.

  *The Bess Hokin Prize, established in 1947. See Henry Rago to SP, 3 October 1957; held by Smith College.

  *SP’s letter follows three paragraphs by ASP, which have not been transcribed.

  *The Fassett Recording Studio was located at the home of Stephen and Agatha Fassett at 24 Chestnut Street, Boston. Stephen B. Fassett (1915–80); married to Hungarian pianist Agatha Illes Fassett (1911–90); head of the Fassett Recording Studio, where SP and TH recorded their poetry for the Woodberry Poetry Room at Harvard University, 1957–9.

  *John Lincoln (‘Jack’) Sweeney (1906–86); professor of English, Harvard University; sixth curator of the Woodberry Poetry Room at Harvard University; married to Celtic literature scholar Maire Sweeney (1904–87); lived at 51 Beacon Street, Boston.

  *Dido Milroy Merwin (1912–90); married to American poet W. S. Merwin, separated in 1968 and divorced in 1978. Dido Merwin’s maiden name was Diana Whalley.

  *American poet Robert Traill Spence Lowell, Jr (1917–77). In 1959, SP audited writing of poetry (English 306), Lowell’s creative writing course at Boston University where he was lecturer in English.

  *The Merwins lived at 76 West Cedar Street, Boston.

  *WHMP is a Northampton, Mass., radio station.

  *Joseph Paul DiMaggio (1914–99); American baseball player for the New York Yankees.

  *The letter was sent care of the Benottis at their Weston, Mass., home.

  *British writer James Guy Bramwell (1911–95), who published under the pseudonym James Byrom. SP read Byrom’s autobiography The Unfinished Man (London: Chatto & Windus, 1957).

  *Sylvan Schendler (1925–2002); assistant professor of English, Smith College, 1956–67; SP’s colleague, 1957–8.

  *Marie Edith Borroff (1923– ); associate professor of English, Smith College, 1948–60; SP’s colleague, 1957–8. Boroff won the Fiske poetry prize issued by University of Chicago in 1943.

  *Elizabeth Ann McFadyen Graham (1907–97), married Edward Kidder Graham, Jr in 1935.

  *Edward Kidder Graham, Jr (1911–76); Dean of College of Liberal Arts, College of General Education and Graduate School, Boston University (1956–60), a resident of Wellesley, Mass., who lived around the corner from the Plaths at 7 Ingersoll Road.

  *Probably SP’s cousin Esther Schober McCue (1912–80) and her husband Paul L. McCue (1908–85).

  *From the poem ‘I Heard a Bird Sing’ by Oliver Hereford. SP also quoted these lines in her journals on 29 January 1953. See entry 166, Journals of Sylvia Plath: 168.

  *‘those 6 700 pages of papers’ appears in the original.

  *Probably Ted Hughes, ‘Billy Hook and the Three Souvenirs’.

  *Edna Rees Williams (1899–1992); English professor, Smith College, 1930–64; SP’s colleague, 1957–8. Williams co-directed freshman English (English 11) completed by SP, 1950–1.

  *‘Yuletide Checklist’, Saturday Review (7 December 1957): 39.

  *‘A List of 250 Outstanding Books . . . A Christmas Guide’, New York Times Book Review (1 December 1957): 73.

  *SP’s cousins Robert J. Benotti (1945– ) and Nancy Benotti (1947– ).

  *Date supplied by Warren Plath.

  *Book Review Digest (December 1957).

  *Date supplied from postmark.

  *Christmas card printed by Katydid cards.

  *E. Lucas Myers, ‘Journey in the Tessellated Corn’ and ‘Ballade of the Early Seas’, Poetry 91 (December 1957): 181–4.

  *Dated from internal evidence.

  *Esther Cloudman Dunn (1891–1977); English professor, Smith College, 1922–60; SP’s colleague, 1957–8. Dunn taught Shakespeare (English 36) completed by SP, 1954–5.

  *Date supplied from internal evidence.

  *Christmas card produced by Carol Cards.

  *Charles Jarvis Hill.

  *Ted Hughes, ‘Shells’, New Yorker (1 August 1959): 61.

  *Ted Hughes, ‘Billy Hook and the Three Souvenirs’, Jack and Jill (July 1958): 26–32. Illustrated by Joy Troth.

  *The idea for ‘Changeabout in Mrs Cherry’s Kitchen’ appeared in SP’s journals on 4 January 1958; Journals of Sylvia Plath: 304. Published as ‘Mrs. Cherry’s Kitchen’ in Sylvia Plath, Collected Children’s Stories (London: Faber & Faber, 2001).

  *In the 1958 spring semester, TH taught three courses in the English department at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, which included ‘Masterpieces of Western Literature’, freshman English, and a creative writing class.

  *American fiction writer Leonard Michaels (1933–2003); B.A. 1953, New York University; Ph.D. 1967, University of Michigan; English professor, University of California (Davis and Berkeley), 1966–94; friend of Elinor Friedman Klein.

  *Citizen Kane played at Sage Hall at 7:15 and 9:30 p.m. Admission was 50¢ and benefited the Smith College Relief Committee.

  *The Lady Vanishes was shown at Sage Hall at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. Admission was 50¢ and was sponsored by the Community Service to benefit the Hampshire County Public Health Association from Christmas Seals.

  *Newton Arvin’s English 321b, American Fiction 1830–1900. SP took this course in the second semester of the 1953–4 academic year.

  *Newton Arvin (1900–63), English professor, Smith College, 1922–60; SP’s colleague, 1957–8.

  *American writer Herman Melville (1819–91).

  *Date supplied from internal evidence.

  *Pickwick Papers showed in Sage Hall at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. on 7 February 1958. Admission was 50¢ and benefited the Smith College Relief Committee. SP’s journal entry for 8 February 1958 indicates she and TH saw Pickwick Papers with Smith College colleague Paul Roche.

  *German poet Heinrich Heine (1797–1856).

  *Edward Estlin (E. E.) Cummings (1894–1962), often styled as e e cummings: American poet.

  *English philosopher John Locke (1632–1704).

  *D. H. Lawrence, ‘The Rocking-Horse Winner’.

  *TH to Edward Weeks (Atlantic Monthly), 21 January 1958; held by Yale University.

  *J. A. Skinner State Park in Hadley, Mass.

  *In the 1958, the Art Library was located in Hillyer Hall.

  *French artist Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (1848–1903).

  *Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978).

  *Modern Art taught by Priscilla Paine Van der Poel (1907–94); art history professor, Smith College, 1934–72.. The course description reads: ‘Contemporary art and its backgrounds from Jacques Louis David and the French Revolution to the present. Open to sophomores by permission of the instructor. Open also in the second semester to students who have had a course in nineteenth-century art abroad’ (49).

  *Greek dramatist Sophocles (c. 497–406/5 BCE). SP taught Oedipus Rex and Antigone.

  *SP taught The Duchess of Malfi by Webster and Tourneur and The Revenger’s Tragedy by Middleton and Tourneur.

  *SP taught Ghosts, Rosmersholm, and The Master Builder by Ibsen; and Miss Julie, A Dream Play, and Ghost Sonata by Strindberg.

  *English poet John Milton (1608–74).

  *French playwright Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière (1622–73).

  *German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832).

  *French painter Henri Rousseau (1844–1910).

  *Shakespeare scholar Stephen Booth who was at the University of Cambridge as a Marshall scholar.

  *Jess Ivy Brown Bishop (1934– )
; from Durban, South Africa. B.A. 1954, University of Natal; 1956–8, English, Newnham College, Cambridge.

  *The Glory of Goya with music by Andrés Segovia; a film about Spanish painter Francisco Goya (1746–1828).

  *Torero! (1956), about the bullfighter Luis Procuna (1923–95).

  *See Janet Adam Smith to TH, 5 February 1958; held by Emory University. Ted Hughes, ‘Crow Hill’, New Statesman (15 March 1958): 352.

  *TH read his poems with colleagues David R. Clark (1920–2010), Robert G. Tucker (1921–82), and Leon Barron (1923–98) on Tuesday 4 March 1958 at 8:00 p.m. in the Student Union Norfolk Room. The event was sponsored by the Literary Society.

  *Letter misdated by SP.

  *Spanish painter Pablo Picasso (1881–1973).

  *French painter Raoul Dufy (1877–1953).

  *Swiss–German artist Paul Klee (1879–1940).

  *Ted Hughes, ‘February’.

  *Added by SP in margin; probably Ted Hughes, ‘Of Cats’, Harper’s (June 1958): 30; and ‘Relic’, Harper’s (November 1958): 36.

  *Sylvia Plath, ‘November Graveyard’, Mademoiselle (November 1965): 134 and Ted Hughes, ‘Pennines in April’, which was printed with Sylvia Plath, ‘The Times are Tidy’, in Corrine Robins, ‘Four Young Poets’, Mademoiselle 48 (January 1959): 34–5, 85. The other two poets and poems featured were Howard Hart (1927–2002), ‘When she is back’, and Kathleen Fraser (1935– ), ‘Winter Beach’.

  *Sylvia Plath, ‘Virgin in a Tree’, inspired by Klee’s ‘Virgin in the Tree’ (1903).

  *Sylvia Plath, ‘Perseus: The Triumph of Wit Over Suffering’, inspired by Klee’s ‘Perseus (Wit Has Triumphed over Grief)’ (1904).

  *Sylvia Plath, ‘Battle-Scene from the Comic Operatic Fantasy The Seafarer’.

  *Sylvia Plath, ‘The Departure of the Ghost’, later titled ‘The Ghost’s Leavetaking’.

  *Based on Paul Klee, Cat and Bird (1928); no copy of the poem survives.

  *Sylvia Plath, ‘Battle-Scene from the Comic Operatic Fantasy The Seafarer’ and ‘Departure of the Ghost’ [‘The Ghost’s Leavetaking’], both typed on pink Smith College Memorandum paper with total line count in the top left corner and ‘Sylvia Plath’ signed at bottom right.

  *‘And Gets ready to face the ready-made creation’ appears in the original.

  *‘Upraised, as a hand, in emblematic of farewell.’ appears in the original.

  *SP removed this stanza at Olwyn Hughes’s suggestion. See SP to Olwyn Hughes, 27 October 1960.

  *See Peter Davison to SP, 20 March 1958; (photocopy) held by Yale University.

  *SP refers to Circus in Three Rings, submitted during her senior year at Smith, and Two Lovers and a Beachcomber, submitted as part of her Cambridge tripos. See journal entry for 18 February 1958, The Journals of Sylvia Plath: 332.

  *See Peter Davison to SP, 25 April 1958; (photocopy) held by Yale University. SP sent several poems; however, only ‘The Disquieting Muses’ and ‘Snakecharmer’ are named.

  *TH gave a Morris Gray Poetry Fund reading at the Alumnae Room, Longfellow Hall at Radcliffe in Cambridge, Mass., on 11 April 1958, at 4:30 p.m.

  *On 5 April 1958, the movie star Lana Turner’s daughter, Cheryl Crane, stabbed Turner’s lover Johnny Stompanato to death. Reported in ‘Killing of Lana’s Gigolo Bares Violent Romance’, Boston Globe (6 April 1958): 1, 37.

  *A note on the letter indicates that the books were The Undiscovered Self by Carl Jung and Corruption (1957) by British writer Nicholas Mosley (1923– ).

  *Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875–1961).

  *American writer Nora Johnson (1933–2017).

  *Nora Johnson, ‘The Gift Horse’, New Yorker (19 April 1958): 37–44.

  *On Country Cousin birthday card.

  *Felicia’s Restaurant was located at 145a Richmond Street, Boston.

  *American poet Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929–2012) and Alfred Haskell Conrad (1924–70); associate professor of economics, Harvard University, 1954–66.

  *English poet Walter de la Mare (1873–1956). Warren Plath had presumably referred to Walter’s son Richard, who was a director of Faber & Faber at this time.

  *American poet Lee Anderson (1896–1972). Anderson recorded SP reading her poems on 18 April 1958 in Springfield, Massachusetts, for the Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature (Library of Congress).

  *Anderson recorded SP reading her poems on 18 April 1958 in Springfield, Mass., for the Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature (Library of Congress). SP read ‘Black Rook in Rainy Weather’, ‘The Earthenware Head’ [‘The Lady and the Earthenware Head’], ‘Departure of the Ghost’ [‘The Ghost’s Leavetaking’], ‘The Disquieting Muses’, ‘Battle-Scene from the Comic Operatic Fantasy The Seafarer’, ‘On the Decline of Oracles’, ‘Poem for Paul Klee’s “Perseus: The Triumph of Wit Over Suffering”’, ‘On the Difficulty of Conjuring Up a Dryad’, ‘November Graveyard’, ‘Sow’, ‘Spinster’, ‘On the Plethora of Dryads’, and ‘All the Dead Dears’. SP’s poems have not been transcribed. TH read ‘The Man Seeking Experience Enquires His Way of a Drop of Water’, ‘The Horses’, ‘Famous Poet’, ‘The Jaguar’, ‘The Dove Breeder’, ‘A Modest Proposal’, ‘Meeting’, ‘Wind’, ‘Roarers in a Ring’, ‘Things Present’, ‘Relic’, ‘To Paint a Water Lily’, ‘Dick Straightup’, ‘Crow Hill’, ‘The Acrobats’, ‘Witches’, ‘Bullfrog’, and ‘Thrushes’. Typescripts for all of SP’s poems and the last nine of TH’s poems held by Washington University (St Louis).

  *According to SP’s address book, Anderson lived in Glen Rock, Pennsylvania.

  *Sylvia Plath, ‘Second Winter’, Ladies’ Home Journal 75 (December 1958): 143; written on 8 March 1955.

  *SP refers to the Kathryn Irene Glascock Poetry Prize competition held at Mount Holyoke College on 18 April 1958. Contestants were Jan Burroway, Michael M. Fried, Jill Hoffman, Peter Livingston, Lynne S. Mayo, Peter Parsons, and Remington Rose. Judges that year were Rolfe Humphries, Adrienne Rich, and Jack Sweeney.

  *The poems have not been transcribed. The Woodberry Poetry Room, which Sweeney administered at this time, holds typescripts of the following SP poems: ‘The Disquieting Muses’, ‘Poem for Paul Klee’s “Perseus: The Triumph of Wit Over Suffering”’ [‘Perseus, or the Triumph of Wit over Suffering’], ‘The Earthenware Head’ [‘The Lady and the Earthenware Head’], ‘Departure of the Ghost’ [‘The Ghost’s Leavetaking’], and ‘On the Decline of Oracles’. ‘Black Rook in Rainy Weather’ does not appear to be part of the Woodberry’s holdings.

  *See SP to Warren Plath, 22 April 1958.

  *Henry James, The Bostonians (New York: Modern Library, 1956). SP’s annotated copy held by Emory University.

  *Ted Hughes, ‘View of a Pig’, ‘Cat and Mouse’, and ‘Wilfred Owen’s Photographs’.

  *Childs Park, Northampton, Mass.