by Sylvia Plath
Yesterday---as a kind of “omen”, we each got a very nice impressive formal printed announcement of the safe arrival of our manuscripts at our respective publishers---Ted’s book “How the Whale Became & Other Stories” at the Atlantic Press & my poem book “Two Lovers & A Beachcomber” at the Yale Univ. Press.* O, bless those books for us. How wonderful it would be if they both got accepted---then Ted could write on a play & a second children’s book this summer & I concentrate on short stories & my novel! Had a lovely dinner with M. E. Chase at the Garden House* Sunday---Ted shone, & this book news has really made her sure she can “stake her reputation” on us: she’s an amazing woman---also, had dinner at an English dream cottage---all modernized, but with old brick fire places, wood beams, white plaster – a sundeck, all glassed in, which had Ted & me groaning with envy – a rather plodding American couple, too – we felt we should have it!
xx
S.
TO E. Lucas Myers*
Thursday 7 March 1957
ALS,* Emory University
Thursday
March 7th
Dear Luke . . .
I couldn’t let Ted’s letter fly off without talking some, too. It was great hearing from you & we both miss you very much. We sail from here to god-bless-America on June 20th, & both of us would be so glad if you happened to come up to Cambridge earlier than August – we’ve got a spare bed & I’m learning to cook all sorts of good things like “gaston beef stews” & “Orange chiffon pies”, as my cookbook calls them – so, I’m through my exams June 1st & we’d love to have you come visit us . . .
Ted & I are gritting our teeth through these next 4 months – his teaching is the most demanding job – the kids respect him terrifically – a great change, he must be, from the foppish English schoolmasters – & you would be amazed to see how their writing has changed since he started bringing their papers home – vivid & often startlingly funny. But both of us were made to be wealthy, endowed writers with no need to work – more than an hour or two a day, at least. I find myself rebelling against writing midnight supervision papers instead of on a novel – it’s as if both of us had to go through a kind of purgatorio before being blessed by the Green Lady at the Golden Door.* I am regarded as a Phenomenon by the virginal victorians at Newnham – “Think & cook at the same time?” They titter incredulously. I am rather oppressed by my colossal ignorance of traditional lit. – I ignored everything except poets & novelists who were of use to my writing & now it looks as if I have to swallow all of English lit. before the end of May – but my philosophy prof – Doris Krook – is brilliant & terrific – Ted & I have sat up after gourmet dinners arguing with her till 3 & 4 a.m. & Ted & I keep each other sane. But both of us yearn for Italy, a villa, sun & whole long days to write & live & read. His teaching & my studying eats up too much energy. Damn money anyhow.
BUT – The world isn’t such an idiotic closed shop as we thought – wait till Ted’s book hits the stands! We can’t believe it, but the Big Poets seem more open to genius than the scared small poets & neurotic cliquey editors. It is a book – “The Hawk in the Rain” at which to stare awestruck, read in wild reverence, & built a great rock altar for in the middle of wild islands. By constant typing, I manage to keep 20 manuscripts – poems & stories – from both of us always out at editors. Ted has a book he wrote this summer in Spain & here – children’s fables: “How the Whale Became & Other Stories” under consideration at the Atlantic Monthly Press for which cross your fingers – & I’ve sent about 40 poems to the Yale Series of Younger Poets, from which I don’t hope much.
Now please, please send us whatever you’ve written & write. Let me be a kind of secretary: I really can claim professional status now & I’d be glad to type them up & send them around – also to type your book, whenever you get together your poems. I was reading through my diaries of last year & came to the part I wrote after I read the 1st issue of Botolph’s – before I’d even met or seen you or Ted. I was stunned & awed then by both of you & wrote a whole paragraph beginning: “And I have learned something from E. Lucas Myers’ poems although he does not know me & will never know I’ve learned it . . .”* & proceeded to say in detail why I felt you were the fine poet you are. I had one of my blinding flashes of intuition about you & Ted then – that you both were destined to be poets & the preview of your own book broke in on my mind like lightning – Do send us stuff as you write it. & Write. How I envy you Italy – are you teaching? How? Where? What? After one year – maybe two, in America, working & writing, Ted & I want to get Guggenheims or something & come to Italy & write – so you’re two years ahead of us.
Do think seriously about visiting us in June – & do write – poems & to us –
Sylvia
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Tuesday 12 March 1957
TLS (aerogramme), Indiana University
Tuesday: March 12, 1957
Dearest mother!
It is with the maximum of self-control that I don’t at this moment rush to call you up again over the phone and rouse you at what must be 4 a.m.! Hold on to your hat for some wonderful news:
I have just been offered a teaching job for next year!
AT SMITH!
I got the nicest little letter* from blessed R. G. Davis this morning (I know dear blessed Miss Chase is responsible for this---and for my knowing so early). The salary sounds very fine to me: $4200!!!. He writes:
“I am happy to announce that I have been authorized by President Wright* and the appointments committee of the Department of English to offer you a one-year term as instructor at a salary of $4200. Such terms are renewable. I naturally hope that you will accept. Could you let me know as soon as possible? This will be for the teaching of three sections of freshman English. I shall be glad to answer any questions.”
Well! You can imagine how much indefinite vague concern this sets at rest! I am just walking on air. Ted is so happy for me & is really excited. He will help me in every way. We are writing Amherst for him, & if there is nothing there, will try surrounding boys’ schools. But with my good salary, I’d rather have him working part-time at a radio station or on a newspaper than have a killing program like he has this year.
As I see it, this means 9 hours of teaching a week (3 classes of 3 hours each) and only 4 teaching days a week! I know they are the last stronghold of liberalism at Smith---Harvard, et al. are producing Phd businessmen. Did you see in the Alumni Quarterly* where Pres. Wright stood up against the project to lengthen PhD term of work & advised against the absurd requirement to have the PhD thesis “add to the sum of knowledge” (as it made people spend years on ridiculous worthless subjects). He said these requirements might be all right for the “plodder”, the routine stodgy type, but would discourage brilliant young potential teachers with a creative gift. Imagine what pride I’ll feel working under a President with such fine ideas!
I’m writing dear Mrs. Prouty at the same time, so you can share the news with her, feeling I’ve already told her first hand---wait a day or two to allow for mails.
Guess who’ll be eating Thanksgiving dinner & Christmas dinner with you in Wellesley next year! Us! Ponky & Poo! What fun we’ll have!
I know just what you mean about “winter doldrums”. I’ve started taking thyroid again & feel much better---it got so I couldn’t work after 2 pm, I felt so sleepy & uncaringly exhausted. But I feel suddenly as if I see light behind the grim advancing hydra of exams: beautiful light: writing furiously on the Cape, teaching & writing furiously at Smith---in the lovely pioneer Valley, among the people I admire most in the world! What an introduction for Ted. We still wait for the letter about his book, but I imagine it will come out next fall---and then, what fine publicity it will have, in the center of these poetry-conscious university communities! So light your way through this gruelling run-down month with vision of a summer & academic year within driving distance of us!
I was thrilled by your descriptions of the program by Anga Enters:* wish T
ed & I could have shared it! I am also agape perpetually at Warren’s chances: how wonderful to feel he’ll be “doing a favor” to any one he accepts! I am so proud of him, & have written him saying so. Which, of all these summer plums, is he picking???
Naturally, I’m humble & a little awed by this teaching job. I’ll want advice from you & courage this summer: I want to make them work devilishly hard & love every minute of it. I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than teach at Smith. I know it: of course, not the “higher up” ins & outs of the department, but what they do: I remember the dull fat teacher I had for Freshman English* & will do my best to fascinate the little girls & keep them gaping at dangling carrots. I am thinking of having a suit or two tailor-made here: I’ll throw away my kneesocks for good & be a grown woman! How wonderful not to be always receiving! If I’d been offered a writing fellowship I’d have turned it down: I feel a deep need to develop my self-respect by teaching: by “giving out” & Ted understands this so well.
My joy in Ted increases every day. I’ve been bogged down on the 2nd of two stories I’m working on for the Ladies’ Home J. market (this last one based on the character of Nancy Hunter & called “The Fabulous Roommate”).* Well, he took me on a long evening walk, listened to me talk the whole plot out, showed me what I’d vaguely felt I should change about the end. Last night he read all 30 pages of it, word for word, unerringly pointing out awkwardness here or an unnecessary paragraph there: he is proud of the story, thinks it’s exciting & valid as a character study (not an “art” story), but the sort of thing that takes up where I left off in 17. I think Mrs. Prouty would like it: I send the 2 stories off this weekend. Last week of term. How I long for F.T.G!!
Love to you & dear Warren
your happy
Sivvy
TO Robert Gorham Davis
Wednesday 13 March 1957
TLS (aerogramme), Smith College Archives
55 Eltisley Avenue
Cambridge, England
March 13, 1957
Mr. Robert G. Davis
Department of English
Smith College
Northampton, Massachusetts
U.S.A.
Dear Mr. Davis:
I feel both delighted and honored to accept the position of freshman English instructor at Smith for the coming year.
My husband and I will be returning to America at the end of June, so it might be advisable for us to make a trip to Northampton then to find out about housing for September. Perhaps, if you were available, I could see you at that time.
I suppose the freshman English program has altered considerably since I was a freshman, seven years ago. In any case, I’d very much appreciate having a list of the novels, stories and poems from which we select our course material. I’d like to read through whatever is relevant and begin preparing myself for classes during the summer. The minor, practical questions can wait until I see you in Northampton.
As you may imagine, I find the prospect of teaching at Smith most challenging and stimulating, and am looking very forward to the next year.
With best wishes,
Sylvia Plath Hughes
TO Edith & William Hughes
c. Friday 15 March 1957*
ALS,* Emory University
Hello there!
I thought I say hello before Ted mailed this, seeing there’s a corner of room.
Isn’t the letter from the Poetry Center nice?* And just imagine how wonderful it will be for Ted to have a party given for him in New York this summer. We’ll tell you all about it – I’m sure lots of writers & artists will be present & it will be a good way for him to meet fascinating people. –
I am very relieved & happy that I have gotten a fine job teaching at my beloved Smith College – there are lots of dear, brilliant people on the English faculty & I’m sure when they meet Ted they’ll want him to teach there too – next year, if not this. It’s the biggest women’s college in the world – with 2,500 women, so I feel very honored.
Mummy says you’ve written her the loveliest letters – she’s so lonesome at home, now grammy’s gone, that it means very much to hear from you –
Love to you both –
Sylvia
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Friday 15 March 1957
TLS, Indiana University
Friday morning: March 15
Dearest darling mother . . .
It is about 10, and I am slightly groggy with sitting up last night to type my last paper of the term.* I have two supervisions today---the last day of term, praise be, and shall grit my teeth and endure. I feel if I had one more minute of pressure I should explode. Actually, I feel I should be doing much more than I do, but small things come up---the young couple upstairs has a ham radio set & Ted & I have spent some time & energy going on a campaign to make them see how their perpetual shrieking jabbers & midnight phonecalls lasting half an hour were impossible if they wanted to stay on, since I study here in the day & we turn in early. The boy---the one & only son of Seigfried Sassoon, is partly inhuman (as I believe everyone must be who runs a ham radio) & sickly, with sinus & going deaf & barely getting the lowest pass at Cambridge because his father never finished & wanted him to. The girl has “1500 years of pure Scots blood” in her pale blue veins, about which I’m afraid I was rather skeptical---as to its glorification of her, at any rate. They are smug, babyish, with an “income” & will never have to work. How I despise the dead ideas, the dead blood, the dead dead aristocratic inbreds. England is dying so fast it is unbelievable: but I gather, from reading Blake* & D. H. Lawrence, the deadness has been growing for a long time. Everything is frozen, stratified. The “social security” system is a laugh: doctors are striking to get off it & charging $3 for any visit now---even a nosedrop prescription. & tales of operations & mistakes are gory & numerous. I can’t wait to get Ted out, & he can’t wait to go.
Well: enough moralizing. I’m enclosing a carbon* of the letter Ted got from the Poetry Center yesterday---on very impressive stationary with a list running from top to bottom of lecturers & readers they’d sponsored: from Auden to Thomas Mann* to William Carlos Williams.*
As you can see, the decision was unanimous, but the old-maid blood in Marianne Moore is showing. The 3 poems she asked to have omitted were all rich with sexual imagery. Ted & I talked this over---I think the other two men judges will down-vote her---& both felt that the “Little Boys & The Seasons” was a juvenile, awkward poem, his first, & would make it a better book if left out. The other two---“Bawdry Embraced” & “The Drowned Woman” (both printed in Poetry, Chicago), are finely, tightly written poems: the former, as Ted wrote in his eloquent defense of it, spoken by “Falstaff, age 25”, & celebrating the vigor & faith of physical love in the face of promiscuity & prurient puritanism, the 2nd, presenting the pathetic sterile figure of the whore against a natural, innocent background of children & nature. Both are vigorous, vehement---good in form, and highly moral in content. We feel, strongly, that to cut these two out would be to silence a large part of Ted’s voice: which is raised against the snide, sneaking, coy weekend-review poets whose sex is in their head, & the prissy abstract poets who don’t dare to talk about love in anything but mile-distant abstractions. It is Dylan Thomas, but with a faith & deep religious morality which is also Lawrence (both misunderstood by many blind people). Anyhow, it will be interesting to see how this works out.
Ironically enough, I opened Marianne Moore’s book of critical essays to see if she ever treated poets who wrote about sex directly & honestly, and the page fell open to this letter from D. H. Lawrence to Miss Moore when she edited the Dial: “I knew some of the poems would offend you. But then some part of life must offend you too, and even beauty has its thorns and its nettle-stings and its poppy-poison. Nothing is without offense & nothing should be: if it is part of life, & not merely abstraction.”*
Naturally, Ted & I agree with Lawrence. I think he puts his finger on her blind spot most eloquently.
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I hope you are properly joyous about my appointment to teach at Smith: I am & so is Ted. I got a lovely letter from my dear professor Alfred Young Fisher* (my poetry instructor last year) welcoming me back, saying since both Smith & I are “good”, the arrangement should be a pleasure & profit to both. I’ll want to take a carton of books down to the cape with me & get my ideas for the first term underway. Miss Chase has promised to look around for an apartment when she gets back, & perhaps Ted & I can drive up in early July & get my questions answered before I go to the blessed Cape.
Won’t it be nice if he can do a recording when he arrives for the radio, as they suggest? And how much fun to have our first New York publisher’s party, which they’ll surely give as we’re coming, & which will no doubt be full of editors & other artists!
I got an interesting & rather pleasant letter from a London literary agency with offices in New York saying they’d read my poems in Gemini (the new Oxford-Cambridge magazine) with admiration & would be interested in handling any stories or novels I wrote & would I care to come to lunch in London to talk this over. Ted & I may stop in---we keep planning this London trip to cover all our business---for the lunch & to learn answers to a lot of our questions about copyrights, etc., but since the agent in America is the mother* of that lifeguard* on the Cape whom I met just before I left, & since I don’t like her, I won’t bother with agents till we get home & I get advice from friends like Peter Davison.
