The Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume 1
Page 179
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*On Gaberbocchus Christmas card designed by Franciszka Themerson.
*Part of the chorus from ‘Aiken Drum’, a Scottish folk song.
*Christmas card produced by K. J. Bredon.
*Gregor Samsa, young man who awakes one morning to find himself transformed into a large insect, in Franz Kafka’s short story ‘The Metamorphosis’.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*August Strindberg, The Ghost Sonata (1907).
*Sir Arthur George Tansley died on 25 November 1955.
*Molière, translated by Richard Wilbur, The Misanthrope: Comedy in Five Acts (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1955). The location of this copy is presently unknown.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Pallas Card 1081, Brussels Museum.
*Pieter Bruegel the Elder, ‘The Fall of Icarus’. SP sent the same card to her mother on 11 December 1955, and also mentioned in that letter Auden’s poem.
*A reference mostly likely to Stephen Dedalus, a character in James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Ulysses (1922).
*Date supplied from postmark.
*On Panda Prints card designed by Rosalind Welcher.
*Probably Olive Higgins Prouty to SP, 25 October 1955; held by Lilly Library.
*English literary scholar Joan Bennett (1896–1986).
*‘I never will become want’ appears in the original.
*French stage actress Sarah Bernhardt (1844–1923).
*The Country Girl (1954), shown at the Arts Theatre, Cambridge. According to SP’s calendar, she saw this on 8 December 1955.
*According to SP’s calendar, she had dinner with Olive Higgins Prouty at the Brookline Country Club on 14 July 1955 and 10 September 1955.
*William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. SP slightly misquotes ‘Proverbs of Hell’: ‘You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.’
*Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. SP slightly misquotes ‘Proverbs of Hell’: ‘The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.’
*Richard Allen Norton and Joanne Colburn (1932– ) married on 9 June 1956, at the Wellesley Hills Unitarian Church, Wellesley.
*Card designed by Franciszka Themerson.
*Plath drafted a sketch of the dolphin fountains. See Appendix 11, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, June 1957–June 1960, entry 97[a–c].
*On Christmas card designed by Franciszka Themerson.
*Richard Wilbur’s translation of Molière’s The Misanthrope, performed at the Poets’ Theatre, 24 Palmer Street, Cambridge, Mass., 31 October–6 November 1955, and then at the Kresge Auditorium, MIT, 9–12 November 1955.
*Lesley Davison Perrin (c. 1931–2014); according to SP’s calendar, Lesley Davison lived at 26 Chepstow Villas, London W11; met on 26 and 27 September 1955.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*A musical then playing at the Vaudeville Theatre, The Strand, London. According to SP’s calendar, she saw Salad Days with John Lythgoe on Saturday 17 December 1955.
*An Italian film by Federico Fellini released in 1954 and playing at the Curzon Cinema, 38 Curzon Street, Mayfair, London W1.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Date supplied from postmark (Paris, France, 24 December 1955).
*On a Soho Gallery Christmas card.
*Georges Rouault, ‘The Old King’ (1937). Card from Soho Gallery, 18 Soho Square, London. The painting is now held in the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Jane Baltzell Kopp.
*La Sainte-Chapelle, Île de la Cité, Paris.
*The Flower Market, on Île de la Cité, Paris.
*According to SP’s calendar, she took a room in the Hotel de la Harpe, then at 6 Rue de la Harpe, Paris.
*French painter Maurice Utrillo (1883–1955), famous for his depictions of Parisian street scenes.
*Performed at the Comédie Caumartin, 25 rue Caumartin, Paris. In English, Someone Waiting (London: Heinemann, 1954).
*According to SP’s calendar, she saw Les Carnets du Major Thompson and Vive Monsieur le Maire.
*Letter misdated by SP.
*‘Thursday evening Saturday p.m’ appears in the original.
*Georges Simenon, La Chambre, a detective-story ballet performed at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysees.
*The Comédie Française, 1 Place Colette, Paris.
*Probably Van Gogh’s ‘Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear’.
*Richard III (1955), starring Laurence Olivier, played at the Leicester Square Theatre. According to SP’s calendar she saw this on 19 December 1955.
*Postmarked 5 January 1956.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*The original postcard is missing; this exact transcription is taken from the typescript of Letters Home, held by Indiana University. SP sent two instalments covering two postcards; in Letters Home only the second postcard was printed.
*Belote is a 32-card trick-taking card game common in France.
*According to SP’s calendar, this was Patrick T. Mackenzie (1932–2006); B.A. 1956, M.Litt. 1963, moral sciences, St John’s College, Cambridge.
*Possibly Helen M. Corcoran, whose address appears in SP’s 1955 calendar. Corcoran lived at 52 Weld Hill Street, in the Forest Hills district of Boston.
*SP excerpted this letter in her journals.
*‘To Sassoon: January 11’ appears in the original.
*SP excerpted this letter in her journals.
*‘from letter to Sassoon january 15’ appears in the original.
*Die letzte Brücke (1954), directed by Helmut Käutner. According to SP’s calendar she saw the film on 14 January 1956.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*American poet Richard Wilbur (1921– ).
*Dr Isabel Murray Henderson (1933– ); B.A. archaeology and anthropology 1957, Ph.D. 1962; Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Strindberg: Tragic Concept and Dramatic Form’, dated 22 January 1956; held by Lilly Library.
*Either Ruth C. McGowan, wife of Robert G. McGowan, who lived at 4 Ingersoll Road, Wellesley, or Edith A. McGowan, wife of Robert McGowan of 27 Elmwood Road, Wellesley.
*Vardis Fisher, No Villain Need Be (New York: Pocket Books, 1955); SP’s copy held by Lilly Library.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘The Matisse Chapel’; a few typescript pages of the story are held by Lilly Library.
*According to SP’s calendar, she met David B. Tinnin.
*SP excerpted this letter in her journals.
*‘To Sassoon: January 28’ appears in the original.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘The Question of Tragedy in Chekhov’s Plays: “Studies in Frustration” or an “Affirmation of Life”’, dated 5 February 1956; held by Lilly Library.
*Robert Theodore Holmes Redpath (1913–97); fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and lecturer in English, 1951–80.
*According to SP’s calendar, she had Welsford for tragedy on Wednesdays after Redpath. Enid Elder Hancock Welsford (1892–1981); director of studies in English, Newnham College, Cambridge, 1929–52. SP attended Welsford’s lectures on tragedy in 1955.
*According to SP’s calendar, she saw L’Age d’Or (1930), directed by Luis Buñuel, on 1 February 1956, at the Film Society.
*Christopher Rene Levenson (1934– ), British; B.A. 1957, English and modern languages, Downing College, Cambridge; dated SP, 1955–6. Levenson was an editor of the Cambridge magazine Delta.
*SP was sent to Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Hills Road, Cambridge, England.
*SP’s poems were reviewed in a student publication called Broadsheet. Daniel Huws, ‘Chequer No. 9’, Broadsheet 4 (1 February 1956), 1–3.
*David Daiches, ‘The Queen at Cambridge’, New Yorker, 14 January 1956, 80, 82, 84–6.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*On a card of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris featuri
ng an image of the church’s thirteenth-century stained glass.
*Letter misdated by SP.
*According to SP’s calendar, she mailed ‘The Matisse Chapel’ on 3 February 1956.
*According to SP’s calendar, she saw Philoctetes on 10 February 1956; performed at the ADC Theatre.
*According to SP’s calendar, she planned to attend, but cancelled, a party hosted by Frank Dewey Mayer, Jr (‘Freddy’) (1933– ); B.A. 1955, Amherst College; history, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University; J.D. 1959, University of Chicago.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*According to SP’s calendar, she saw The Bacchae with Jane Baltzell at the Arts Theatre, Cambridge, on 21 February 1956.
*The Cambridge Film Society showed films on Sunday mornings at the Rex Cinema then on Magrath Avenue and in the Examination School on Wednesday evenings. According to Varsity Handbook: The Undergraduate Guide to Cambridge (Ninth Edition, 1955–6), membership was £1 for sixteen shows and the emphasis in 1955–6 was on comedy and musicals (94).
*According to SP’s calendar, she saw La Belle et la Bête on 5 February 1956 at the Rex Cinema.
*American musical comedy performer Mary Martin (1913–90); known for the role of Nellie Forbush and song ‘A Cockeyed Optimist’ in the musical South Pacific.
*American theatre and film dancer Buzz Miller (1923–99).
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Winter Landscape, with Rooks’: ‘The austere sun descends above the fen, / an orange cyclops-eye, scorning to look / longer on this landscape of chagrin . . . ’ (Collected Poems, 21). According to SP’s calendar, she wrote ‘Winter Landscape, with Rooks’ ten days later on 20 February 1956.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Leaves from a Cambridge Notebook’, Christian Science Monitor, 5 March 1956, 17, with drawing captioned ‘Cambridge: A vista of gables and chimney pots’; and [part 2] 6 March 1956, 15.
*American poet William Stanley Merwin (1927– ).
*Underlined by SP.
*Date supplied from postmark. On front of postcard is a postmark stamp from Attleboro, Mass., dated 23 February 1956. A stamp on the written side of the postcard reads ‘Missent to Attleboro, Massachusetts.’
*Underlined by SP.
*Probably a reference to the American journalist and author Emily Hahn (1905–97).
*In addition to ‘Winter Landscape, with Rooks’, SP finished ‘Channel Crossing’ on 23 February 1956.
*Brian William Davy (1914–93); SP’s Cambridge psychiatrist in 1956. According to SP’s calendar, she met with Dr Davy at the University Health Centre, near Gresham Road, Cambridge.
*Saint Botolph’s Review, edited by David Ross.
*The journal featured contributions by David Ross, E. Lucas Myers, Daniel Huws, Daniel Weissbort, Ted Hughes, Than Minton, and George Weissbort. Myers was the lone American contributor.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Passion as Destiny in Racine’s Plays’; held by Lilly Library.
*SP excerpted this letter in her journals.
*‘To Richard: March 1’ appears in the original.
*SP saw Jean Cocteau’s Orphée on 1 March 1956.
*(‘February (excuse me,)’ appears in the original.
*Probably American writer Max Ehrmann (1872–1945).
*Ralph Vaughan Williams, Sir John in Love; based on Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor; first performed in 1929. This performance was produced by Brian Trowell and performed at the Arts Theatre, Cambridge. According to SP’s calendar, she saw it on 29 February 1956.
*SP saw Orphée on 1 March 1956.
*Derek William Strahan (1935– ), Northern Irish; B.A. 1956, modern and medieval languages (French and Spanish), Queens’ College, Cambridge; dated SP in 1956.
*Nelson Algren, The Man with the Golden Arm (1949), adapted for film in 1955; shown at Victoria Cinema, then in Market Square, Cambridge.
*David Hamish Stewart (1933– ), Canadian; B.A. 1956, English, Queens’ College, Cambridge; dated SP in 1956.
*English poet Edward James (‘Ted’) Hughes (1930–98); B.A. 1954, archaeology and anthropology, Pembroke College, Cambridge; SP’s husband, 1956–63.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Pursuit’, written 27–8 February 1956.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Passion as Destiny in Racine’s Plays’, dated 3 March 1956; held by Lilly Library.
*Performed at the Arts Theatre, Cambridge. According to SP’s calendar, she saw this on 12 March 1956.
*Letter misdated by SP
*A reference to the fairy tale ‘The Valiant Little Tailor’ by the Brothers Grimm in their Grimm’s Fairy Tales.
*Dorothea Greenberg Krook-Gilead (1920–89); research fellow at Newnham College, Cambridge, and assistant lecturer in English, 1954–8; SP’s supervisor.
*SP excerpted this letter in her journals.
*‘My darling Richard. Only listen to me this last once’ appears in the original.
*‘Being a woman, my darling one,’ appears in the original.
*‘For, my Richard, I am committed to you’ appears in the original.
*‘the flesh, of Gordon whom I was going to marry’ appears in the original.
*‘I was thinking, my darling, of the few times in my life’ appears in the original.
*A reference to Henrik Ibsen’s play Brand (1865).
*A reference to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story ‘Rappacini’s Daughter’ (1844).
*SP was reading at this time both Electra by Euripides and Electra by Sophocles.
*French actor and director Jean Marais (1913–98). Marais was in Jean Cocteau, Orphée (1949).
*W. B. Yeats, ‘Two Songs from a Play’ (1931). SP adds a comma after the word ‘night’.
*‘feel smothered which when’ appears in the original.
*‘In the depths of the forests your image pursues me.’
*Garry Eugene Haupt (1933–79), American; B.A. 1955, Yale College; B.A. 1957, English, Pembroke College, Cambridge; dated SP in 1956.
*See Sylvia Plath, ‘The Eye-Mote’.
*Emmet J. Larkin (1927–2012); B.A. 1950, New York University; M.A. 1951, Ph.D. 1957, Columbia University; graduate student at London School of Economics and Political Science, 1955–6; author of James Larkin: Irish Labour Leader, 1876–1947 (Boston: M.I.T. Press, 1965). In March 1956, Emmet Larkin gave SP and his British friend Janet Drake a ride to Paris.