Sylvia Plath and Man at Yale

This blog has highlighted the Amherst young men that Sylvia Plath knew and mentioned in her letters. And, as well, a "who's who" at Smith College from Plath's time, looking specifically at the administrators and teachers circa 1957-8.

This blog post looks at Yale students. You have the letters and journals, by now, so I will leave you to work with the notes and index to read the ways in which Plath mentions and interacted with these fellows. The list of men here is from the Letters and is in the order of their appearance. Frustratingly, not all of the players in Plath's life had usable photographs in digitized editions of Yale's yearbook. So I did the best that I could in finding them and even had to go to other resources for a few. For many that was their high school yearbook and even digitized newspapers. I was unable to find a photograph of Joze Kostelec (1930–2014).

Vol I.

Charles Perry Norton (1932– )

Richard Allen Norton (1929– )

Oliver Trull Carpenter (c. 1930–89)

Alfred Whitney Griswold (1906–63)

J. Melvin Woody (1933– )

Fergus Reid Buckley (1930–2014)

Carl Bradley (1930-2016)

Eric Lane Wilson (1932–2009)

Plato Alexander Skouras (1930–2004)

William F. Buckley, Jr. (1925–2008)

Arthur Bennett Kramer (1927–2008)

James DuBois McNeely (1933–2017)

Richard Andrew Smyth (1933–2009)

Myron Lotz (1932–99)

Theodore Meyer Greene (1897–1969)

Robert Kent Modlin (1932– )

Selden D. Bacon (1909–92)

Richard Wayne Wertz (1933–2002)

Richard Laurence Sassoon (1934–2017)

Louise Hollister Healy, Jr. (1929-1992)

Garry Eugene Haupt (1933–79)

Donald Cheney (1932– )

Vol II. (not including those mentioned in Volume I)

Stanley Sultan (1928–2013)

Please do see Plath's journals and letters to read about her experiences with each of these men.

If you benefited from this post or any content on the Sylvia Plath Info Blog, my website for Sylvia Plath (A celebration, this is), and @sylviaplathinfo on Twitter, then please consider sending me a tip via PayPal. Thank you for at least considering! All funds will be put towards my Sylvia Plath research.

Comments

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...

Some final photographs of Sylvia Plath

Susan O'Neill-Roe took a series of photographs of Sylvia Plath and her children from October to late November (or maybe early December) 1962 while she was a day nanny/mother's help at Court Green. From nearby Belstone , it was a short drive to North Tawton and the aid she provided enabled Plath to complete the masterful October and November poems and also to make day or overnight trips to London for poetry business and other business. Some of O'Neill-Roe's photographs are well-known. However, a cache of photographs formed a part of the papers of failed biographer Harriet Rosenstein. They were sold separately from the rest of her papers that went to Emory. I was fortunate enough to see low resolution scans of them a while back so please note these are being posted today as mere reference quality images. There are two series here. The first of the children with Plath dressed in red and black. (This should be referred to in the future, please, as Plath's Stendhal-c...

Sylvia Plath's Gravestone Vandalized

The following news story appeared online this morning: HEPTONSTALL, ENGLAND (APFS) - The small village of Heptonstall is once again in the news because of the grave site of American poet Sylvia Plath. The headstone controversy rose to a fever pitch in 1989 when Plath's grave was left unmarked for a long period of time after vandals repeatedly chiseled her married surname Hughes off the stone marker. Author Nick Hornby commented, "I like Plath, but the controversy reaching its fever pitch in the 80s had nothing to do with my book title choice." Today, however, it was discovered that the grave was defaced but in quite an unlikely fashion. This time, Plath's headstone has had slashed-off her maiden name "Plath," so the stone now reads "Sylvia Hughes." A statement posted on Twitter from @masculinistsfortedhughes (Masculinists for Ted Hughes) has claimed responsibility saying that, "We did this because as Ted Hughes' first wife, Sylvia de...

Search This Blog