Putting Sylvia Plath's "Context" in Context

In February 1962, the London Magazine printed Sylvia Plath's poem "In Plaster," which she composed on March 18, 1961 - the same day as "Tulips." In addition to the poem, London Magazine printed twenty-six writers responses to a series of questions under the collective title "Context." We know Plath's response memorably begins, "The issues of our time which preoccupy me at the moment are the incalculable genetic effects of fallout and a documentary article on the terrifying, mad, omnipotent marriage of big business and the military in America-"Juggernaut, The Warfare State," by Fred J. Cook in a recent Nation."

But did you ever wonder to what specifically Plath was replying? See below:

The twenty-six responses were submitted by (in order of appearance in the issue): Robert Graves, George Seferis, Stephen Spender, C. Day Lewis, Philip Larkin, Lawrence Durrell, Roy Fuller, Robert Conquest, Laurie Lee, Thomas Blackburn, Derek Walcott, Judith Wright, D. J. Enright, Thom Gunn, Charles Causley, Bernard Spencer, Vernon Watkins, Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Edwin Brock, Hugo Williams, John Fuller, Julian Mitchell, Elizabeth Jennings, Anthony Thwaite, and Norman Nicholson. Thirteen of the poets had their photographs printed: Plath and Hughes did not. Hughes' own "Context," reprinted in Winter Pollen: Occasional Prose, begins: "The poet's only hope is to be infinitely sensitive to what his gift is, and this in itself seems to be another gift that few poets possess."

Eighteen of those twenty-six contributors had poems in the issue as well. Perhaps the one readers might be most interested other than Plath's is Hughes' poem "Still Life." The eight writers that did not have a poem were: Robert Graves, George Seferis, Stephen Spender, Lawrence Durrell, Laurie Lee, John Fuller, Robert Conquest and Norman Nicholson.

Of course the best way to put Plath's "Context" in context is to read "Context" in context of the journal issue.

P.S.: Cook's article appeared in the October 28, 1961 issue of Nation. (For more on Plath's reading see Robin Peel's Writing Back: Sylvia Plath and Cold War Politics, pages 72-73.)

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