Sylvia Plath inspires us all in various and wonderful ways. She is in many respects a form of comfort to us, which is something that Esther Greenwood expresses in The Bell Jar , about a bath: "There must be quite a few things a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them. Whenever I'm sad I'm going to die, or so nervous I can't sleep, or in love with somebody I won't be seeing for a week, I slump down just so far and then I say: 'I'll go take a hot bath.'" We read and remember Sylvia Plath for many reasons, many of them deeply personal and private. But we commemorate her, too, in very public ways, as Anna of the long-standing Tumblr Loving Sylvia Plath , has been tracking, in the form of tattoos. (Anna's on Instagram with it too, as SylviaPlathInk .) The above bath quote is among Sylvia Plath's most famous. It often appears here and there and it is stripped of its context. But I think most people will know it is from her nove...
Sylvia Plath Info Blog by Peter K. Steinberg. The blog of A celebration, this is.
This is so cool! Were you allowed o actually pick these books up and thumb through them? I've read of some of these titles in Sylvia's library. I like the fact she had Rimbaud, Sexton's All My Pretty Ones, and I noticed her Baby and Child Care book. Almost being a breath away from her.
ReplyDeleteAmy
Amy,
ReplyDeleteYes, anyone can work with these titles. It's an extraordinary experience.
Cheers
pks
Delightful!
ReplyDeleteThis is brilliant, thankyou! The statue in the first one, was that Plath's?
ReplyDeleteGreat!
ReplyDeleteBut I am sure she didn't fill her head with too much of all this....She had so much of space in her to create poetry...That means she had vacant space inside her that wasn't polluted by other's trash, but her own ideas beating wildly,and eating only what they can digest...Sylvia was great
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/SylviaPlathLibrary
ReplyDeleteThank you VJESCI for posting the link to Plath's library on LibraryThing for The Feeling Lionness to consider.
ReplyDeleteThe Feeling Lionness: Quite the opposite of your statement. Plath was an intellectual, a stellar student and was very well read. She didn't frivolously buy books and not read them. On the contrary, she devoured and savoured books, with relish. For example, she loved the Tolkien trilogy. As a student of English, it must be expected that she would be well read. Please consider reviewing the books in her library in the link above.
Marion! That statuette was done in 1996 by Nicholas Dimbleby. You can read about it an article by Ros Wynne-Jones that ran in The Independent in 1997. According to the article the statue was commissioned by Plath's friends Elizabeth Sigmund and Clarissa Roche. I do not believe the full statue was ever built.
Julia, innit?
Cheers
pks
Shame it was never built. Interesting article, thanks for that.
ReplyDelete<3 it! love it :)
ReplyDeleteyeah Peter...naturally you know more about Sylvia....but I personally think she knew which thoughts are to be digested and which thoughts are to be ignored...Because when I read her poetry,they seem to be giving off this aura of tremendous individuality and denial of previous thought process....like a shining monument appearing out of the ground,entirely on its own....such a violent,beautiful and original take on life... This makes me wonder
ReplyDeleteVery cool-thanks a lot for that!
ReplyDeleteOh, how delicious to see her German dictionary!
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