by Sylvia Plath
“I sent my soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that After-life to spell:
And by and by my soul returned to me,
And answered “I myself am Heav’n and Hell.”*
“Heav’n but the vision of fulfilled Desire,
And Hell the shadow of a soul on fire
Cast on the darkness into which ourselves
So late emerged from, shall so soon expire.”
Rather similar, n’est-ce pa?
. . . . . . .
So I sit in my room surrounded by innumerable books of verse, jugs of wine, and loaves of bread, gazing out to where the snow is coming down in gulps and blasts and sleetings and icings and softly piling up and always up. Picture me beating a track through waist-high wastes with my crutch, stoically trailing my plastercast left leg valiantly behind me . . . and all to get to my medieval lit unit! Only three papers to get written before midyears, on Piers Plowman* (the people’s Christ), the Holy Grail – and a story, respectively. Next semester I begin my modern poetry unit with an authority in the field, and I can hardly wait. The prospect is most exciting, especially as W. H. Auden will be here second semester, too, for three whole months! How I’d like to get to know him!
You know, this environment is most unusually stimulating – I am getting to know a few of the faculty more personally – going to tea, coffee, and even dinner (with Robert Gorham Davis, who writes often for the front page of the Times Book Review . . .) with them. I find the intellectual interchange almost awe-inspiring – and am developing rather a reverence for the lofty genius of some of the professors here. I think the best feature about honoring is the intense personal contact with keen minds. That is my first prerequisite, I think, for happiness: continued intellectual stimulation. (Of course, I will have to be fed, first – but think of the artists starving in garrets!) I do place extreme importance on mental prowess, perhaps too much so – but after all, in the evanescent ephemeral realm of worldly possessions, what lasts as long, what is as rewarding, as a rich intellectual life? The physique shrivels, stock markets crash, youth evaporates, too much wine-women-and-song coarsen the palate – and so what is most worth working for? It’s everyone’s own choice. Me, I’ll take my Roget’s Thesaurus and be wrecked on a tropical isle – provided there are enough mangoes to last a century or so! Oh, heck, I like to play tennis, too.
Three blissful days rise like an oasis mid-semesters. I shall either limp around the city of Northampton quoting Auden to myself, or maybe go to Wellesley – I think I could drive the car with my cast, and it would be fun to see a play or so in Boston, but alas, my brother, who chauffeured me so nobly during the last half of vacation, is at Exeter, so my radius of travel may be curtailed. Anyhow, no matter what turns up, I plan to relax. If all goes well, my cast should be off by the middle of February (Thank Jove!) and I am planning to have a Bacchanalian festival when I again can walk normally, involving a bonfire burning my crutches, and champagne will be served under the trees in the most original punch bowl yet: it will be long, white, and shaped like Sylvia’s left leg. After which I will sell the fragments as either modern intrasubjective sculpture or relics of the Parthenon.
Farewell for a while,
frangibly,
sylvia
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Friday 16 January 1953*
TLS with envelope,
Indiana University
January 16 . . .
Dearest of mothers . . .
At last the hideous week is over, and now I shall have some delightful respite before starting to study again the stultifying science. The exam this morning was on all the work I’d missed before vacation on electricity, so I hope I got a B, at least. I should do better, though, in the midyear, as I plan to study five days before the exam. I haven’t heard from the Administration Board about my petition yet, but Miss Schnieders and Mr. Sherk have both approved a plan whereby I will audit the course without credit for the rest of the year, taking no exams and doing no work. In other words, I will just sit and enjoy the lectures and never open the damn book again after the midyear exam. This means that I will probably take a course in Milton in addition to my Modern Poetry and creative writing. Sounds divine, what? I’M pretty sure the petition will go through, since the class dean and my professor are both on my side, and the relief of not studying science any more is so wonderful I hardly can believe it. It will be a lucky thing, too, for I feel, with these two exams coming so close, that I have reached the end of my endurance of these mere theoretical atoms and molecules.
This week I have worked harder than ever before. The bad weather last weekend confined me to my room, and I had some girls get books out of the library. Saturday I read from morning to night, and Sunday I wrote a 10 page research paper on Piers Plowman for my unit. Monday I read furiously again all day, and Tuesday I wrote another 10 page paper on the search for the Holy Grail, both very difficult topics. Wednesday I typed the paper, went to class. Thursday I studied for my science written and had my last unit where I read the Piers Plowman paper aloud and got Patch to autograph my book of his.
My Herculean efforts on the Piers Plowman paper were more than repaid when Mr. Patch said: “That was a brilliant paper.” From him, that is better than orchids. I was so pleased. I had gotten really fascinated by my subject and done alot of research in the Rare Book room,* and compared Piers, a complex allegorical character, to Chaucer’s Plowman, Thomas Carlyle’s Peasant Saint, and Gerard Manley Hopkins’ Harry Plowman. That, in retrospect, is what I enjoy most about honors: instead of doing just the proscribed reading, as in a course, for every paper you can pick your favorite topic and plunge into research. Most stimulating.
I really don’t consider my room a prison at all, even though I’ve been forced to stay in it pretty much because of the weather. The taxis take me to all my classes, and really, going to the library and climbing all the stairs is so tiring that it’s a relief to stay all snug here. Fortunately Mary is at lab all day every day, and so it is as if she were just sleeping and eating here and this were really my own room. It is a fortunate thing, because I honestly can’t communicate with her . . . she has no grounds for common interest or experience in either dating (that is worst) religion or study. And she is so pitifully inarticulate. To hear her try to express an idea outside the scientific field is the most frustrating thing. It is as if she had a block in her throat and the words kept tripping over it and falling back and starting over. But I am as nice as I can be, because I do need her help getting food or books often, and I want the rest of the year to be as pleasant as possible. I love our room, and will enjoy the springtime here when I can walk and play tennis and bike. Honestly, I am more good-natured and happy now than I was this fall. Perhaps it is that I feel I’m not missing anything (except Myron) because the weather is so bad. If I had to sit and watch people making merry at spring proms and tennis it would be another story. I should love spring even more this year than ever, because of my ability to walk again.
Oh, yes, Tuesday afternoon I had the best time. Mary Ellen Chase is going to Southern France this week for a few months, and so she had about five girls over for coffee.* It was really most theraputic for me to go . . . by taxi, and I enjoyed myself most royally sitting in her diningroom over looking the snowy woods and paradise pond and drinking cup after cups of savory coffee and eating savory homemade gingersnaps, and chatting with the other girls . . . all very interesting, and, of course, listening to the tales of Miss Chase. She is the dearest woman, and I felt so pleased that she asked me over again.
One discovery I made that has made my life much more pleasurable . . . I can take a bath (of sorts). By lowering myself sideways in the tub, my legs hanging out, I can sit and take a perfectly respectable bath, slightly awkward, but blissful. I’ve had my period all this week, so that added to my weary state. But really, when I study, I don
’t feel my leg at all.
This weekend I will write my last creative writing paper for the semester, and this week will be spent working on my Mademoiselle assignment.
I am planning to have my leg X-rayed the weekend of February 8 (how I am counting the days!) and will send the X-ray immediately to you. Please airmail it or something to Dr. what’s his name, perhaps the Nortons could drive you to his home in Wellesley, get his verdict immediately, and also instructions as to post mortem care and exercises, and telephone me right away. You can imagine that I want to get this thing off as soon as possible and start learning to walk again.
Rest assured that I am doing my exercises most faithfully . . . I have lots of time, now, and I discovered that I can do a bicycle exercise in addition which should keep my rear from getting too flabby from sitting all day.
Much love
. . . sivvy
P.S. Please send a couple of those face photos as soon as you get them so I can answer Seventeen, also the school address and name of the girl who illustrated my story* . . . . thanx.
s.
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Sunday 18 January 1953*
TLS with envelope,
Indiana University
Sunday night . . .
Dearest mother . . .
Well, the world has a miraculous and wonderful way of working. You plunge to the bottom, the way I did this fall, and you think that every straw must be the last. Everything is black. Then you break your leg, decide to be gay and merry, and the world falls like a delicious apple in your lap. I am so happy, so ecstatic now that I can hardly sit still. As a matter of fact, I have been waltzing around the house pouring over my joys at people. I love everybody at this point. I am even happy I broke my leg. You know, I have gotten so used to my leg that I never think about it anymore. Of course, the hard part will be when the cast is off and I have to be careful of it. Now I can just sling it around in careless abandon.
Well, first of all, my petition for auditing science without credit went through (provided, of course, that I get a respectable mark on the midsemester exam, which of course I will if I study five days for it.) This means that three hours a week will be spent auditing lectures (to waive the requirement, you see, I have to know about the whole course.) So I will never have to even open a book again, after midyears. And in class I can let my mind wander and think about spring or W. H. Auden, or something whenever I feel like it. As you may imagine, during my agonies of this fall, I felt that I could see no light ahead for the rest of the year. Now I will be taking a course in Milton instead of the hated science, and concentrating heart and soul on modern poetry and creative writing. Isn’t it wonderful? I feel so virtuous, having worked like such a dog for the exams. I will be getting credit for the first semester, too so I hope I can pull an A in the course. Wouldnt It be amusing if that were the only A I got this semester? Next semester, however, I am going to be a real intellectual and get all A’s. I am determined. So my academic life looks most fruitful.
And now that this last week’s tension has lifted, I feel most free. I wrote a 15 page creative writing paper* (this semester’s last) yesterday and today, and all I have to do is type it now. It isn’t even a story, just a philosophical dialogue about heaven and hell and god. Funny, I started down to write a packed description, and this started pouring out after I got through the first paragraph. I guess I needed a philosophical catharsis. At any rate, I just have to type it now, and no more papers for two weeks. I never had worked so hard as I have this last week, writing three papers, and studying for my written. Never again will anything be this crowded. So all this week all I have to do is my Mlle assignments, and catch up on letters and sleep. I feel so relaxed, now. Also enjoy my baths immensely.
And I am taking your advice and getting a little fun in the outside world. Tomorrow night I am going over to Marcia’s to dinner, and seeing the Dublin Players in “The Importance of being Earnest.”* It should be ideal froth, and I do love the play. And if we can get tickets, a friend (male) of a girl in the house will drive us to Springfield Tuesday or Wednesday to see “Bell, Book, and Candle.”* I do hope we get to go to that. I am so hungry for plays, and I feel it is good for me to take my mind off my limitations and have a little fun. I’ve been working hard enough to justify it.
I have an inspiration about your coming up. My science exam is on Thursday morning, January 29th. Couldn’t you come up Thursday morning, or Wednesday (if the trip both ways is too much in one day) and see Miss Mensel, and then both of us take the 5 p.m. bus back to Wellesley Thursday? Then I wouldn’t have to worry about getting my suitcase on and off, and we could have a lovely talk. I know it’s late for the application, but you could finish making it out here, and leave it with her, so it still would be in before February. Then I could stay home till Sunday. How does that sound?
A most peculiar occurrence happened today. I was sitting in my bathrobe at about 10 a.m. talking to some of the girls about their dates last night . . . sunday mornings are lovely and casual . . . and my favorite senior, Marcelle,* came running upstairs and said breathlessly “Sylvia, there’s a man on the downstairs phone for you.” The word “man” at this point in my life was so rare that I actually threw down my crutches and stumped in my pajamas down to the first floor (we’re not supposed to be down there unless fully dressed) in no time at all. A calm, silky voice said: “Hello, how’s the invalid? This is Myron. I’m in Northampton.” Controlling myself, I managed not to shriek and said something absurd, like, Oh, how nice. I remembered in a flash how Dick had called me when he came up to Smith with Jane Anderson, and felt rather sick. Sure enough, he explained how he had met this girl New Years, and had made the date to come up. Then he said that he got my letter saying I was back at Smith (Perry had told him I’d be home for a few weeks) and wondered if he could drop over to say hello Sunday night (tonight) as his date was singing in vespers, and he had a few hours before he had to go. Well, I was so excited to hear from him in the first place, and the sudden prospect of seeing him immediately obliterated all my sad wistful feelings that he had been up here for a weekend with another girl. So he said he’d be by around six. At four thirty I was in my bathrobe typing my paper, when a girl yelled: Sylvia, a man to see you. So he had come early. Well, I was really so excited I could hardly calm down enough to get dressed in my aqua sweater and black velvet skirt, remembering your lovely peptalky letter about French women on divans, I resolved to be the same. We sat in the livingroom and talked till supper, and he stayed through supper, eating in the dining hall. Then the boy who was driving him home called, and said he’d be over in five minutes. Well, I’d had two hours talking with him, so we sat on a wooden chest in the hall and Myron said: “When will your cast be off?” “Oh, around the middle of February,” I said casually, thinking: god, if only he’d say something about seeing me again. Any grubby little weekend will do. “Would you be able to dance, say about March 6th?” I thought my ears were playing tricks on me. “Iguess so. Why?” I said still cool. “For YALE JUNIOR PROM?” (my caps). “Well . . . It depends on with whom I’d be dancing.” “How about me?” “Well, yes, I’d like to very much . . . ” hesitatingly. “But you can’t,” he said rather quickly. “But I will.” I said. So that is that. I AM GOING TO THE YALE JUNIOR PROM WITH THE MOST WONDERFUL BOY IN THE WHOLE COLLEGE. I can hardly believe it’s real. He said he was going to try to get theater tickets, and that we would take a bus out to the ocean, and that he would be “proud to have me.” Honestly, now I can live in an ecstasy of anticipation for the next month and a half. I have been wondering about getting a new formal. First I will try on the two I have here . . . I think my black would be most glamorous, if I did decide to wear one of them. But I want to look absolutely gorgeous. After all, I’ll have to compete with Shirley!* (Myron says Perry is really in love with her and asked me: Is she really as beautiful as he claims she is? We both think he’ll marry her. And Charlotte came o
ver the other night, telling me how sweet a letter Perry had written to her after vacation. I was shocked, and felt so sorry for her. Honestly, sometimes I feel downright omniscient!)
Well, this is my three week’s anniversary, and I have proved that a broken leg need not handicap a resourceful woman. Thanks so much for your encouraging letter. It was just what I needed. Oh, mummy, I am so happy. If a hideous snowy winter, with midyears and a broken leg is heaven, what will the green young spring be like? How can I bear the joy of it all!
much overflowing love,
your own
sivvy
TO Richard Norton
before 21 January 1953
TLS,* Indiana University
Dear d.
Make what you can out of this rather unsightly mess. It’s the first draft, and came pouring out straight into the typewriter without stopping, and since I have revised it a little. But it’s the raw material of a lot of other discussions, too. Do tell me what you think of it.
The other paper is my religion essay last year.
love,
s.
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Wednesday 21 January 1953*
ALS written on verso of flyer for
The Importance of Being Earnest,
Indiana University
Wednesday
Dear mum:
Here is the story: not as good as it looked when I first wrote it, but I’ll give it a try.* After you type it, please send it right off in a brown envelope to:
Miss Margarita G. Smith, Fiction Ed.
Mademoiselle
575 Madison Ave,
New York 22, N.Y.
and put my Smith address on a stamped brown envelope which you’ll enclose, so I’ll be sure to get it back. This last is important. I never send letters.
“The Importance of Being Earnest” was badly played, but “Bell, Book & Candle” with Zachary Scott & Joan Bennett in Springfield last night was a heavenly humorous tale of modern witchery, Just loved it! As a result of 3 midnight bedtimes in a row I’m a bit weary.