Tuesday, May 07, 2013

News at Eleven: The notes for Plath's Sheep In Fog

show the poet's increasing fragility as she approached the date she took her own life, aged 30.

Just a fortnight before she died, she returned to a first draft of the poem and rewrote the final lines, in which she describes heaven. Scrubbing out the positive images of "heavenly wools" and "clouds with the faces of babies", she replaces them with darker references to her dead father.

Poet Laureate Ted Hughes, Plath's husband, later wrote about the "ominous threat of the last three lines which in hindsight are obviously an anticipation of her death".

from The Telegraph: Sylvia Plath poem written two weeks before she died reveals 'disturbed' state of mind
then The Roy Davids Collection. Part III. Poetry: Poetical Manuscripts and Portraits of Poets. Sale Highlights with Roy Davids--Sylvia Plath/Oscar Wilde/The Photography of Mark Gerson
then 373 Plath, Sylvia (1932-1963, American poet)
then artdaily.org: Bonhams to sell revealing papers of key Sylvia Plath poem completed days before tragic death
from The New York Times: Seeing Sylvia Plath With New Eyes

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