The internet got an interesting story yesterday and today in "Unseen Sylvia Plath letters claim domestic abuse by Ted Hughes" authored by Danuta Kean of The Guardian which saw "Ted Hughes" trending on Twitter. Today, it's "#NationalGrilledCheeseDay".
Ms Kean contacted me through a friend and we discussed the sudden presence of the Harriet Rosenstein Sylvia Plath archive which I blogged about on 10 March and its disappearance by 18 March. However, Ms Kean uncovered that the archive was removed because of a pending legal concern.
Kean's article was instantly picked up by a number of other news sources, and some of the facts from it were even more quickly transformed into complete untruth.
The following are articles, listed in no particular order, that I have found on it in varying degrees of veracity. If any new articles appear they will be listed below.
All links accessed 11 and 12, 16 April 2017.
Ms Kean contacted me through a friend and we discussed the sudden presence of the Harriet Rosenstein Sylvia Plath archive which I blogged about on 10 March and its disappearance by 18 March. However, Ms Kean uncovered that the archive was removed because of a pending legal concern.
Kean's article was instantly picked up by a number of other news sources, and some of the facts from it were even more quickly transformed into complete untruth.
The following are articles, listed in no particular order, that I have found on it in varying degrees of veracity. If any new articles appear they will be listed below.
- Danuta Kean, "Unseen Sylvia Plath letters claim domestic abuse by Ted Hughes". The Guardian.
- Sarah Churchwell, "Sylvia Plath, a voice that can't be silenced" The Guardian.
- Roisin O'Connor, "Sylvia Plath letters set to be published this year claim domestic abuse by Ted Hughes". The Independent.
- "Sylvia Plath letters reveal abuse by Ted Hughes". The Irish Times.
- Anita Singh, "Sylvia Plath claimed Ted Hughes 'beat her up' two days before she lost her baby". The Telegraph.
- Adam Sherwin, "Sylvia Plath letters claim Ted Hughes ‘beat her days before miscarriage". iNews.
- Jack Malven, "Hughes beat Plath before miscarriage, letters reveal". The Times (subscription)
- James Tozer, "How pregnant Sylvia Plath was beaten by Ted Hughes two days before she miscarried their second child, her lost letters reveal". The Daily Mail.
- Maya Palit, "Newly Discovered Letters from Sylvia Plath Reveal Terrifying Things Ted Hughes Did To Her". The Ladies Finger.
- Anita Singh, "Ted Hughes' widow says Sylvia Plath claims of domestic violence are 'as absurd as they are shocking'". The Telegraph.
- "Sylvia Plath claims 'absurd', says Ted Hughes' widow". BBC.
- Ella Risbridger, "The letters Sylvia Plath wrote to her therapist are not ours to see". The Pool.
- Chris Elliot. "Claims that Ted Hughes beat up Sylvia Plath before she miscarried rejected by ex-Poet Laureate's estate". Cambridge News.
- Liam Taft, "New letters from Sylvia Plath reveal the extent of Ted Hughes’s abuse". The National Student.
- Claire Fallon, "Sylvia Plath Alleged Abuse By Ted Hughes In Unpublished Letters". The Huffington Post.
- Rafia Zakaria, "Sylvia Plath's letters probably won't harm Ted Hughes's reputation". The Guardian Blog.
- Eilis O'Hanlon, "A sputtering backlash may be fun, but it means nothing". The Irish Independent.
- Claire Nally, "Sylvia Plath: just because she wrote about her life doesn’t mean it’s public property". The Conversation.
All links accessed 11 and 12, 16 April 2017.
After reading Danuta Kean's article yesterday, I've seen a couple more pop up around the internet and I did not even bother to read them, because I imagined that every new one has some additional "juicy" news added to them, especially because some people (teenage girls who just discovered "Lady Lazarus" or The Bell Jar a month ago, in particular) "have always known" that Hughes was a wife beater etc. This really makes me sad because of two reasons: domestic abuse is a truly horrible thing but also because it seems to be a fact all Hughes haters have been waiting for and now the mudslinging can begin (again)!
ReplyDeleteIn other news, I can't wait for the first volume of The Letters of Sylvia Plath to come out! Sooo incredibly exciting! :)
Cheers!
Anna, Hi there. I'm really excited that you're excited for the Letters book. We've put so much work into it hundreds if not thousands of hours over the last 7 years. So it'll be a thrill to have it out finally, so that you and others can read what we have read.
ReplyDeleteI too found the subsequent articles lacking; so many facts were distorted, invented, and wrong. Which makes journalism in general really disappointing.
~pks