Sylvia Plath: These Ghostly Archives Preview

Gail Crowther and I will give a preview of "These Ghostly Archives 5" at Plymouth University in two weeks, on 20 March 2013. The talk will take place in the Rolle Building, Room 605, at 6 PM. It will be followed (and likely preceded!) by a drinks reception.

In "These Ghostly Archives 5: Reanimating the Past", Gail and I converse about recent archival finds including new Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes correspondence and photographs. We cover a lot of ground, including documents from at least nine archives in three countries (Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States). At least nine archives - seriously - I lost count!

All five papers have all been written over email and this is the first time we will be speaking the text. We are excited and hope that you are as well. Advance notice of the talk appeared recently in the Plymouth Herald article "Previously unknown Sylvia Plath artifacts revealed in talk on the poet at Plymouth University". We would only like to add that Gail and I are intrigued by the name applied to us: "Sylvia Plath Scholars." Makes us feel like a rock band. Maybe we should sell t-shirts?

Do not fret if you cannot make it, the paper will be in Plath Profiles 6 this summer.

So, see you in the Rolle Building at Plymouth University, England, in 14 days when Gail and I "Rolle with it." Liam, take it away...

Famous Quotes of Sylvia Plath

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

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