March 30, 2006

Stanford on iTunes: Plath and Hughes

Recently I listened to an incredible literary discussion made available through Stanford’s Books & Authors program on iTunes. The latest update to this section is entitled “Her Husband: Plath and Hughes” and is comprised of an interview and discussion with Diane Middlebrook, author of a recently published Plath-Hughes biography by the same name. If you are a fan of modern literature and poetry in particular, than you owe it to yourself to hear this.

Everyone that has read Sylvia Plath will find it hard to divide her life, marriage, and death from her work. That said, much of the discussion in this program deals with how aspects of her life informed what she wrote. The factors talked about include turbulent mental health, a volatile yet mutually beneficial marriage and how motherhood may have amplified Plath’s talent beyond that of previous female authors. This is all interesting to be sure, but what really struck me was the attention given to Ted Hughes. I had never really thought about him before aside from the fact that he was married to Plath and probably contributed in part to the downward spiral that ultimately led to her suicide. Middlebrook provides him more dimension by making Plath’s death the primary moment in his creative evolution. For the rest of his life, the centerpiece of Hughes’ work lied in how he processed the pain of losing his creative soulmate. Middlebrook ends the session with a poem written by Hughes to Plath just before his 1998 death. What is read here sums up the loss of a loved one so poignantly that even Middlebrook herself sounds as though she’s been brought to tears while reading it. This is an incredibly valuable discussion about what tore apart, fueled and ultimately re-connected two highly creative people.