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Links, reviews etc. - Week ending 15 August 2009

Here are some links and citations that might make for interesting summer weekend reading...

Helen Broderick at the British Library has a new post, "Poetry, Places and birthdays" about processing the Ted Hughes papers. Includes a nice, clickable image.

Erikka Askeland reviews 'Three Women" at the Edinburgh Festival in the Scotsman.

Susan Zelenka's "Why Sylvia Plath’s story pisses me off" reviews Paul Alexander's "Edge" from Studio @ 620 at in The Daily Loaf. Hey, don't forget, Sylvia Plath didn't actually say, "Not that I’m bitter. Not that I’m vengeful. Not that I’m a keeper of slights." Paul Alexander, speaking for Plath (which is problematic) says this. Not that I'm bitter. Not that I'm vengeful. Not that I'm a keeper of slights...

Shelley Blanton-Stroud recommends "Five books for book clubs who love Mad Men's Don and Betty Draper". The third book is Ariel: The Restored Edition. (Don't let the picture, of the 1965 Faber Ariel, fool you...she really does recommend the 2004 Restored Edition.

CMJ reports that a band called the Antlers, based out of Brooklyn, has a song on their forthcoming record (record! how old am I?), Hospise. The third track is titled Sylvia and was influenced and/or inspired by Sylvia Plath.


I recently found three interesting articles that I'd like to bring to your attention. Here are the citations, and short, unjust summaries...

Banita, Georgiana. “‘No More Idols But Me’: Sylvia Plath as Cinema Icon.” In American Studies as Media Studies. (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2008), 119-126.

---A very good summary of Plath in film, particularly a look at how Sylvia (2003) portrays Sylvia Plath.

Enniss, Stephen. “Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, and the Myth of Textual Betrayal.” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 101:1. March 2007: 63-71.

---This is an article I had been looking for for sometime, before finally realizing I should check the library stacks at work. Enniss, formerly the Director of Special Collections at the Robert Woodruff Library at Emory and currently the Eric Weinmann Librarian at the Folger Shakespeare Library, argues (very basically) that it might be time to let go of the idea of Ted Hughes and an evil editor of Plath's work. I somewhat agree, this way of looking at Plath and Hughes is hardly beneficial and stinks of 20th century criticism, most of which is fortunately just left behind in the dust.

Van Dyne, Susan. “ ‘Your Story, My Story’: Having the Last Word in Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes.” In Last Letters. (Newcastle upon Tyne, England: Cambridge Scholars, 2008), 85-97.

---And then this is the flip side to such an argument, completely. Van Dyne is relentless in her summation of Hughes as controlling and manipulative in this look at Birthday Letters, Ariel, and how Hughes's own attitude towards Plath's poetry changed over the years. Some of this paper comes from her 2008 presentation "'The endless gladitorial event': Who was Hughes as Plath's editor?" at the Sylvia Plath 75th Year Symposium at Smith College.

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