Kristopher Jansma's recent article "What Happened to Sylvia Plath’s Lost Novels?" is the second article in the last couple of years about this subject. The first was Allison McNearney's "The Mystery of Sylvia Plath's Lost Novel" published on the Daily Beast in August 2017 which focuses on The Interminable Loaf/Doubletake.* Jansma's is a thoughtfully researched and written piece but contains a few minor mistakes or omissions that need correcting and/or clearing-up.
1.) Plath did not move into a "room" in London where Yeats lived. She wrote about it several times in letters to different people: she occupied two floors comprised of "3 beds, lounge, kit & bath." (Letter to Daniel and Helga Huws, 26 December 1962: Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 2, page 944)
2.) Ariel: The Restored Edition, was published in 2004. It was re-issued in 2007.
3.) The "Venus in the Seventh"/"Hill of Leopards" typescripts are generally confusing, but the nature and style of the prose undoubtedly dates it to 1957-1959 where there are ample references to its composition throughout Plath's journals and letters.
4.) Jansma neglected to include that a typescript page (numbered 62) of "Venus in the Seventh" is held in the Special Collections of the University of Victoria, British Columbia. This is well-known. If anyone is interested, I have assembled a spreadsheet of all of Plath's poetry and prose manuscripts and typescripts held publicly in a Google Doc called the Sylvia Plath Archival Hub. I welcome information about anything that is missing or in need of correction.
5.) There was no mention, either, of Plath's "Stone Boy With Dolphin" which is a rather lengthy fictional rendering of the famous first meeting of Plath and Ted Hughes.
6.) In general the Jansma's narrative conflates and confuses the chronology of how some of these documents were created.
7.) On her third wedding anniversary Plath settled on the name Sadie Peregrine for the heroine of her provisionally-titled novel Falcon Yard and that she hoped to start it at Yaddo (September-November 1959).
All links accessed 6 February 2019.
*Since Plath only refers to the novel as first The Interminable Loaf and then Doubletake, that is how I tend to refer to it.
1.) Plath did not move into a "room" in London where Yeats lived. She wrote about it several times in letters to different people: she occupied two floors comprised of "3 beds, lounge, kit & bath." (Letter to Daniel and Helga Huws, 26 December 1962: Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 2, page 944)
2.) Ariel: The Restored Edition, was published in 2004. It was re-issued in 2007.
3.) The "Venus in the Seventh"/"Hill of Leopards" typescripts are generally confusing, but the nature and style of the prose undoubtedly dates it to 1957-1959 where there are ample references to its composition throughout Plath's journals and letters.
4.) Jansma neglected to include that a typescript page (numbered 62) of "Venus in the Seventh" is held in the Special Collections of the University of Victoria, British Columbia. This is well-known. If anyone is interested, I have assembled a spreadsheet of all of Plath's poetry and prose manuscripts and typescripts held publicly in a Google Doc called the Sylvia Plath Archival Hub. I welcome information about anything that is missing or in need of correction.
5.) There was no mention, either, of Plath's "Stone Boy With Dolphin" which is a rather lengthy fictional rendering of the famous first meeting of Plath and Ted Hughes.
6.) In general the Jansma's narrative conflates and confuses the chronology of how some of these documents were created.
7.) On her third wedding anniversary Plath settled on the name Sadie Peregrine for the heroine of her provisionally-titled novel Falcon Yard and that she hoped to start it at Yaddo (September-November 1959).
All links accessed 6 February 2019.
*Since Plath only refers to the novel as first The Interminable Loaf and then Doubletake, that is how I tend to refer to it.
Comments
Post a Comment