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Sylvia Plath SYLVIA PLATH THE CRITICAL HERITAGE Edited by LINDA WAGN1E-MAETIN London md New YoA Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xiii INTRODUCTION I ABBREVIATIONS 25 NOTE ON THE TEXT 26 Meeting Sylvia Plath 1 EUNOR KLEIN 27 2 JANE BAiTZEU. KOPP 28 3 IHENE V. MORRIS 28 4 CHRISTOPHER IEVENSON 29 5 ANNE SEXTON 3O The Colossus and Other Poems (i960) 6 BERNARD BERGONZI, 'The Ransom Note,' Manchester Guardian, November i960 32 7 JOHN WAIN, 'Farewell to the World,' Spectator, January 1961 33 8 A. AtvAREZ, 'The Poet and the Poetess,' Observer, December i960 34 9 ROY FULLER, review, London Magazine, March 1961 35 10 A. E. DYSON, review, Critical Quarterly, Summer 1961 36 11 Unsigned review, Times Literary Supplement, August 1961 41 The Colossus and Other Poems (1962) 12 E. LUCAS MYERS, 'The Tranquiiized Fifties,' Sewanee Review, January-March 1962 42 13 JUDSON JEROME, 'A Poetry Chronicle—Part I,' Anti- och Review, Spring 1963 ** 5 14 RICHARD HOWARD, review, Poetry, March 1963 * 15 MARK UNENTHAL, 'Sensibility and Reflection from die Poet's Corner,' San Francisco Sunday Chronicle, This World, March 1963 *7 vw CONTENTS 16 NICHOLAS KING, 'Poetry: A Late Summer Roundup,' New York Herald- Tribune Book Review, August 1962 48 17 IAN HAMILTON, 'Poetry,' London Magazine, July 1963 48 The Bell Jar (Victoria Lucas, 1963) 18 Unsigned review, 'Under the Skin,' Times Literary Supplement, January 1963 52 19 LAURENCE LERNER, 'New Novels,' Listener, January 1963 S3 Ariel (1965) 20 A. ALVAREZ, 'Poetry in Extremis,' Observer, March 1965 55 21 Unsigned review, 'Along the Edge,' Times Literary Supplement, November 1965 5* 22 M. 1. ROSENTHAL, 'Poets of the Dangerous Way,' Spectator, March 1965 6° 23 Unsigned review, 'Poems for the Good-Hearted,' The Times, November 1965 62 24 PETER DALE, *"O Honey Bees Come Build,"' Agen- da, Summer 1966 62 25 STEPHEN SPENDER, 'Warnings from the Grave,' New Republic, June 1966 69 26 V. N« FUEBANK, 'New Poetry," Listener, March 1965, 73 27 HH6H KBNNfiR, 'Arts and the Age, On Ariel,* Triumph, September 1966 74 %% }OHN MALCOLM BMNNIN, 'Plath, jarrell, KinneH, Smith,* Partisan Review, Winter 1967 78 29 RICHARD TBUUNGHAST, 'Worlds of Their Own,' Southern Review, Spring 1969 79 30 KflBt UAVBON, 'Inhabited by a Cry: The Last Poetry of Sylvia PlatV Atlantic MmMf, August 1966 80 p wxnm WL0M*N» "The Religion of One/ Book Week, jane t§<56 84 i» Unsigned review* 'Russian Roatee,* Newsweek, June 1966 88 33 »1W S!OM»N, neview, Massachusetts Repitw> 10$ 90; CONTENTS The Colossus and Other Poems (reissue, 1967, 1968) 34 Unsigned review, 'Chained to the Parish Pump,' Times Literary Supplement, March 1967 92 35 M. L. ROSENTHAL, 'Metamorpirosis-x>( a Book,' Spectator, April 1967 92 37 JAMES TULIP, 'Three Women Poets,' Poetry Australia, December 1967 95 The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath, reissue, 1966) 37 c. B. cox, 'Editorial,' Critical Quarterly, Autumn 1966 99 38 STEPHEN WALL, review, Observer, September 1966 100 The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath, New York, 1971) 39 J. D. O'HARA, 'An American Dream Girl,' Washington Post Book World, April 1971 101 40 SAUL MALOFF, 'Waiting for the Voice to Crack,' New Republic, May 1971 103 41 MASON HARRIS, 'The Bell Jar,' West Coast Review, October 1973 107 42 GEOFFREY WOLFF, 'The Bell Jar,' Newsweek, April 1971 II3 43 MARGARET L. SHOOK, 'Sylvia Plath: The Poet and the College,' Smith Alumnae Quarterly, April 1972 114 44 TERESA DE LAURETis, 'Rebirth in The Belt Jar,' , Women's Studies, 1976 124 Crossing the Water (1971) 45DOMENICA PATERNO, 'Poetry,' Library Journal, October 1971 I35 46 EILEEN M. AIRD, review, Critical Quarterly, Autumn 1971 136 47 DOUGLAS DUNN, 'Damaged Instruments,' Encounter, August 1971 IJ9 4 ^TOR HOWEs, 'I am Silver and Exact,' Christian tetence Monitor, September 1971 142 49 ROBERT Rnvtnr •<"»„ o_-i_ • nl .« , „ , ,. na Plath, Salmagundi, 1973 144 ix CONTENTS 2 IJ2 50 TERRY EAGLETON, 'New Poetry,' Stand, 1971- 51 PETER PORTER, 'Collecting Her Strength,' New States- man, June 1971 *55 52 PAUL WEST, 'Crossing the Water,' Book World (Chicago Tribune), January 1972 **7 53 VICTOR KRAMER, 'Life-and-Death Dialectics,' Modem Poetry Studies, 1972 l61 Winter Trees (1971, 1972) 54 Unsigned review, 'A World in Disintegration,' Times Literary Supplement, December 1971 I<55 55 LINDA RAY PRATT, ' "The Spirit of Blackness is in Us..,,"' Prairie Schooner, Spring 1973 i<*8 56 ROGER SCRUTON, 'Sylvia Plath and the Savage God,' Spectator, December 1971 *7* 57 JOYCE CAROL GATES, 'Winter Trees,' Library Journal, November 1972 X75 58 DAMIAN GRANT, 'Winter Trees,' Critical Quarterly, Spring 1972 I77 59 RAYMOND SMITH, 'Late Harvest,' Modern Poetry Studies, 1972 179 60 JAMES MNN COTTER, 'Women Poets: Malign Neg- lect?' America, February 1973 182 61 INGRID MELANDER, review, Moderna Spr'dk, 1971 184 62 ERIC HOMBERGER, "The Uncollected Plath,' New Statesman, September 1972 187 63 EILEEN M, AIRD, '"Poem for a Birthday" to Three Women: Development in the Poetry of Sylvia Plath,' Critical Quarterly, Winter 1979 191 Letters Home by Sylvia Plath, Correspondence 1950-19% (1975) 64 BMCA JONG, 'Letters Focus Exquisite Rage of Sylvia Plath,* Los Angeles Times Book Review, November 197$ 204 65 ANME TYMS, "'The Voice Hangs On, Gay, Tremu- lous,*** National Observer, January 1976 3!0 t8 AS jo BRANS* The Girl Who Wanted to be God,'" Southtvest Review^ Stimmer 1976 213 CONTENTS 67 MARTHA DUFFY, 'Two Lives,' Time, November 1975 21<s 68 CAROL BERE, 'Letters Home: Correspondence 1950- 2ig 1963,' Ariel, October 1977 n 69 ROSE KAMBL, '"Reach Hag Hands and Haul Me In": Matrophobia in the Letters of Sylvia Plath,' North- west Review, 1981 223 Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams: Short Stories, Prose and Diary Excerpts (i977. 1979) 70 DOUGLAS HILL, 'Living and Dying,' Canadian Forum, June 1978 234 71 LORNA SAGE, 'Death and Marriage,' Times Literary Supplement, October 1977 237 72 G. s. FRASER, 'Pass to the Centre,' Listener, October 1977 73 MELODY ZAJDEL, 'Apprenticed in a Bible of Dreams: Sylvia Plath's Short Stories,' Critical Essays on Sylvia Plath, 1984 245 The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath (1981) 74 LAURENCE LERNER, 'Sylvia Plath,' Encounter, January 259 75 WILLIAM H. PRITCHARD, 'An Interesting Minor Poet?" New Republic, December 1981 , 3Xa 76 DAVE SMITH, 'Syliva Plath, the Electric Horse, American Poetry Review, January 1982 a68 77 MICHAEL KIRKHAM, 'Sylvia Plath,' Queen's Quarterly, ^ Spring 1984 78 MICHAEL HULSE, 'Formal Bleeding, Spectator, November 1981 , 9I 79 MARJORIE PERLOFF, 'Sylvia Plath's Collected Poms, Resources for American Literary Study, Autumn 1981 2*3 The Journals of Sylvia Plath, 1950- 80 MARW JACKSON, 'In Search of the Shape Within,' Maclean's Magazine, May 1982 3°* l 81 UNDA w. WAGNBR, The Journals of Sylma Math, Contemporary Literature, Winter pH XI CONTENTS 82 MIRIAM LEVINE, 'Thejoumols of Sylvia Plath,' Amer- ican Book Review, May-June 1983 3°8 83 STEVEN GOULD AXELROD, The Second Destruction of Sylvia Plath,' American Poetry Review, March-April 1985 313 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 320 INDEX 323 Xil.
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  • Anna Journey, University of Southern California
    Plath Profiles 83 After Ariel: An Argument for Sylvia Plath's Phantom Third Poetry Collection Anna Journey, University of Southern California Phantoms abound in the Sylvia Plath canon. Plath burned her second novel, meant as a gift for her husband, the British poet Ted Hughes, on his birthday in August 1962. Doubletake, Plath's unfinished third novel, "disappeared somewhere around 1970"—long after Plath's suicide in February 1963—Hughes suggests in his introduction to Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams (1). According to Diane Middlebrook's biography of the Hughes/Plath marriage, Her Husband, Plath wrote her patroness, Olive Higgins Prouty, that "[Doubletake's] plot was 'semiautobiographical about a wife whose husband turns out to be a deserter and philanderer'" (198). Hughes's mistress, Assia Wevill, after reading the nascent novel, grew offended by the manner in which Plath caricatured the Wevills, as "a 'detestable and contemptible' couple called 'The Goos-Hoppers'"; Wevill openly hoped Hughes would destroy the unfinished novel (Middlebrook 220). More disturbingly, Wevill absconded with some of Plath's valuable manuscripts, which she sent to her sister, intending the stolen literary relics as a "nest egg" for Shura (the daughter Wevill had with Hughes; the daughter she later murdered during her own suicide via a gas oven) (Middlebrook 232). One is left wondering, "What happened to Doubletake?" Even The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath (2000), edited by Karen Kukil, remain incomplete, as a total of two bound journals that Plath used during the last three years of her life are missing from the oeuvre. Hughes, in his foreword to Frances McCullough's 1982 abridged edition of Plath's journals, claims that one of the journals simply "disappeared," much like the draft of Doubletake, while he deliberately destroyed his wife's other "maroon-backed ledger," in order to spare their children from reading about the darkness of their mother's final days (xiv).
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