Red Comet

by Heather Clark

  155. TH to Olwyn Hughes, 20–23 June 1957. LTH, 99.

  156. The poet and critic Anne Stevenson, who would eventually write a biography of Plath, suggested that Ted and Olwyn were baffled not so much by Plath’s temper but by her American assumptions. “Perhaps one reason I agreed to write Bitter Fame had to do with Sylvia’s Americanness. I felt I knew her in a way Ted didn’t. So when Olwyn Hughes began bitching about Sylvia, telling me how absurd she was and how she expected Ted to do this and expected Ted to do that and completely ruled the household, I said, ‘That’s just the way Americans are.’ ” Anne Stevenson interview with Cynthia Harvey, Cortland Review (14 Nov. 2000).

  157. SP to AP, 17 June 1957. L2, 149.

  20. IN MIDAS’ COUNTRY

  1. TH to Olwyn Hughes, 20–23 June 1957. LTH, 101–102.

  2. J, 609; 611.

  3. Moro was an Amherst alumnus who had met Hughes while earning a master’s degree in comparative literature at Cambridge. Lynne Lawner would shortly be heading to Newnham College on a Henry Fellowship.

  4. Robert Bagg email to HC, 28 Apr. 2017.

  5. HC interview with Elinor Friedman Klein, Oct. 2015, South Salem, N.Y.

  6. TH to Olwyn Hughes, 23 June 1957. 1.5, MSS 980, Emory.

  7. SP to Lynne Lawner, 1 July 1957. L2, 153.

  8. Robert Bagg email to HC, 28 Apr. 2017. TH wrote his parents about the telegram. TH to Edith and William Hughes, 29 June 1957. 1.16, MSS 980, Emory.

  9. Robert Bagg email to HC, 28 Apr. 2017.

  10. SP to Lynne Lawner, 1 July 1957. L2, 153.

  11. Robert Bagg email to HC, 25 & 26 Apr. 2017.

  12. Keightley would later become a renowned professor of Chinese history and a MacArthur Fellow.

  13. Robert Bagg email to HC, 28 Apr. 2017.

  14. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Perry and Shirley Norton, 1974. 2.27, MSS 1489, Emory.

  15. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Wilbury Crockett, 1971. 1.19, MSS 1489, Emory.

  16. TH to Edith and William Hughes, 29 June 1957. 1.16, MSS 980, Emory.

  17. Ibid.

  18. TH to Edith and William Hughes, summer 1957. 1.16, MSS 980, Emory.

  19. Robert Bagg email to HC, 28 Apr. 2017.

  20. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Karen Goodall, 1974. 1.31, MSS 1489, Emory.

  21. SP to Elinor Friedman, 12 July 1957. L2, 155.

  22. TH to Edith and William Hughes, 29 June 1957. 1.16, MSS 980, Emory.

  23. SP to Marcia Brown Plumer, 21 July 1957. L2, 164.

  24. SP to Elinor Friedman, 12 July 1957. L2, 156–57.

  25. The colony was on McKoy Road in Eastham.

  26. TH to Olwyn Hughes, July 1957. Add MS 88948/1/1, BL.

  27. The poems were “The Snowman on the Moor,” “On the Difficulty of Conjuring Up a Dryad,” “Sow,” and “Ella Mason and Her Eleven Cats,” in Poetry 90 (July 1957): 229–36.

  28. J, 283.

  29. Ibid.

  30. SP to Marcia Brown Plumer, 21 July 1957. L2, 162.

  31. J, 285.

  32. SP to AP, 18 July 1957. L2, 158.

  33. “The Laundromat Affair,” “The Day of the Twenty-Four Cakes,” a Kafka-inspired story called “The Eye-Beam,” and “The Trouble-Making Mother.” Only “The Laundromat Affair” survives, in partial manuscript form, at Emory.

  34. J, 287–88.

  35. J, 289.

  36. J, 290–91; 289; 291.

  37. AP to SP, 21 July 1957. L2, 161.

  38. J, 289; 286.

  39. TH to Gerald Hughes and family, 27 Aug. 1957. LTH, 109.

  40. J, 288.

  41. Ibid.

  42. SP to AP, 6 Aug. 1957. L2, 169.

  43. Plath and Hughes’s friend Al Alvarez wrote in The Savage God that he doubted Plath’s belief in occult practices.

  44. J, 287.

  45. In her copy of William James’s Varieties of Religious Experience, Plath wrote, “cf: Sibyl in Dialogue Over a Ouija Board” on p. 37. SPC, Smith.

  46. SP, “Character Notebook,” notes on Falcon Yard. Written on back of TH’s Bardo Thodol, 116.1, MSS 644, Emory.

  47. For example, “Bawdry Embraced,” “The Drowned Woman,” “The Hag,” “Billet-Doux,” “A Modest Proposal,” “Macaw and Little Miss,” “The Martyrdom of Bishop Farrar,” “Witches,” and “Cleopatra to the Asp.”

  48. Robert Graves, The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth. 2nd ed. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1948; 1975), 456.

  49. SP to AP, c. 30 July 1957. L2, 166.

  50. J, 293.

  51. J, 294.

  52. TH to Gerald and Joan Hughes, 27 Aug. 1957. LTH, 107.

  53. TH to Olwyn Hughes, Aug. 1957. 1.5, MSS 980, Emory.

  54. J, 295.

  55. J, 294.

  56. J, 295.

  57. J, 296; 293.

  58. J, 296–97.

  59. The incident in the poem occurred on a later trip to Cape Cod, in Aug. 1958. TH to Olwyn Hughes, Sept. 1958. Add MS 88948/1/1, BL.

  60. CPTH, 1084–85.

  61. TH to Olwyn Hughes, n.d., c. 1957. 1.5, MSS 980, Emory.

  62. TH to Olwyn Hughes, 22 Aug. 1957. LTH, 106.

  63. TH to Olwyn Hughes, 12 Sept. 1957. 1.5, MSS 980, Emory.

  64. TH to Olwyn Hughes, 22 Aug. 1957. LTH, 106.

  65. Ibid., 107.

  66. TH to Edith and William Hughes, summer 1957. 1.16, MSS 980, Emory.

  67. TH to Daniel Weissbort, 1957. 1.1, MSS 894, Emory.

  68. TH to Olwyn Hughes, 1960. 1.9, MSS 980, Emory.

  69. TH to Daniel Weissbort, 21 Mar. 1959. LTH, 140.

  70. TH to Olwyn Hughes, Nov. 1959. Add MS 88948/1/1, BL.

  71. TH to Gerald and Joan Hughes, late June 1957. LTH, 103.

  72. TH to Olwyn Hughes, 22 Aug. 1957. LTH, 107.

  73. SP to AP, 23 Sept. 1957. L2, 174.

  74. Her afternoon classes would meet on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, her morning classes on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays.

  75. SP to AP, 23 Sept. 1957. L2, 175–76.

  76. SP to WP, 5 Nov. 1957. L2, 184.

  77. J, 618.

  78. J, 620.

  79. CPTH, 1085–86.

  80. SP to Marcia Brown Plumer, 21 July 1957. L2, 164.

  81. The James chapters were “The Religion of Healthy-Mindedness” and “The Sick Soul.” The other Hawthorne stories were “The Birthmark,” “Ethan Brand,” “Lady Eleanore’s Mantle,” and “Young Goodman Brown.”

  82. Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi; Tourneur’s The Revenger’s Tragedy; Aristotle’s Poetics; Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and Antigone; Ibsen’s Ghosts, Romersholm, and The Master Builder; Strindberg’s Miss Julie, A Dream Play, and Ghost Sonata.

  83. Plath taught Hopkins’s “Pied Beauty,” “Spring,” “Hurrahing in Harvest,” “Inversnaid,” “God’s Grandeur,” “What I Do Is Me,” “The Caged Skylark,” and “The Windhover,” among others. She spent four days teaching the following Yeats poems: “Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen,” “The Second Coming,” “Leda and the Swan,” “Sailing to Byzantium,” “Among School Children,” “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death,” “Crazy Jane on God,” and “A Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing.” She planned to spend five classes on Eliot, four on “The Waste Land,” and one on “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” “Journey of the Magi,” and (possibly) “The Hollow Men.” She taught Dylan Thomas’s “The Hand That Signed the Paper Felled a City,” “The Force Through Which the Green Fuse Drives the Flower,” “The Hunchback in the Park,” “Twenty-Four Years,” “In Memory of Ann Jones,” “Fern Hill,” “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night,” and “Over Sir John’s Hill.” From Auden: “In Memory of W. B
. Yeats,” “Law, Say the Gardeners, Is the Sun,” “Musée des Beaux Arts,” “Look, Stranger,” “As I Walked Out One Evening,” and “Fish in the Unruffled Lakes.” SP, 1957–58 Smith College Teaching Notes. 13.9–11, Lilly. Harriet Parsons Destler provided me with a photocopy of the Untermeyer anthology she used in Plath’s class, which included her notes and highlights.

  84. “Sylvia Plath: Uncensored, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath,” WBUR, The Connection, hosted by Christopher Lydon. 15 Dec. 2000. Guests: Karen Kukil and Lynda Bundtzen. One of the program’s callers had been a student in Plath’s class.

  85. Plath also taught with a copy of Elizabeth Drew’s packet Poetic Patterns: A Note on Versification.

  86. SP, 1957–58 Smith College Teaching Notes. 13.9–11, Lilly.

  87. Ibid.

  88. See Amanda Golden’s Annotating Modernism: Marginalia and Pedagogy from Virginia Woolf to the Confessional Poets (Routledge, 2020), for a fuller account of Plath’s engagement with mid-century modernism during her teaching year.

  89. Quoted in ibid., 66. SP’s annotation on p. 106 of SP’s copy of Axel’s Castle by Edmund Wilson (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1950). SPC, Smith.

  90. J, 337.

  91. SP to WP, 5 Nov. 1957. L2, 184.

  92. Ibid., L2, 187–88.

  93. Class of 1961 Notes, Smith Alumnae Quarterly (Feb. 1979), 53.

  94. Ellen Bartlett Nodelman (with Amanda Golden), “Recollections of Mrs. Hughes’s Student,” Plath Profiles 5, Supplement (Fall 2012): 125–39. 128.

  95. HC phone interview with Harriett Destler, 23 Sept. 2015.

  96. Ibid. Both Destler and Nodelman used the word “cold” when describing SP’s “personal presentation.”

  97. “Sylvia Plath: Uncensored, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath.”

  98. Nodelman, “Recollections,” 130.

  99. Plath annotated this passage in her copy of Edmund Wilson’s Axel’s Castle with two exclamation points in the left-hand margin. SPC, Smith.

  100. Class of 1961 Notes, 53.

  101. SP to Dorothea Krook, 25 Sept. 1958. L2, 279.

  102. “Smith Freshman Takes Own Life” and “Hughes Depicts Cambridge Scene,” Sophian (7 Nov. 1957).

  103. Nodelman, “Recollections,” 128.

  104. Ibid., 132.

  105. HC phone interview with Harriett Destler, 23 Sept. 2015.

  106. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Paul Roche, 1973. 3.14, MSS 1489, Emory.

  107. SP to William and Edith Hughes, 5 Nov. 1957. L2, 190.

  108. J, 623.

  109. TH to Olwyn Hughes, fall 1957. LTH, 113.

  110. SP to WP, 5 Nov. 1957. L2, 189.

  111. SP to WP, 28 Nov. 1957. L2, 192.

  112. Anne Stevenson, Bitter Fame: A Life of Sylvia Plath (London: Penguin, 1990), 117.

  113. SP to WP, 28 Nov. 1957. L2, 193.

  114. TH to Olwyn Hughes, c. early Dec. 1957. Add MS 88948/1/1, BL.

  115. Harriet Rosenstein interview with W. S. Merwin, 1974. 2.21, MSS 1489, Emory.

  116. Stevenson, Bitter Fame, 117.

  117. SP to WP, 28 Nov. 1957. L2, 192–93.

  118. Ibid.

  119. J, 348.

  120. TH to Olwyn Hughes, c. early Dec. 1957. Add MS 88948/1/1, BL.

  121. TH to Olwyn Hughes, 1958. 1.6, MSS 980, Emory.

  122. SP to WP, 6 Jan. 1958. L2, 202.

  123. J, 307–308.

  124. Ibid.

  125. SP to AP, 8 Dec. 1957. L2, 198.

  126. SP to Olwyn Hughes, 9 Feb. 1958. L2, 211.

  127. SP to Dorothea Krook, 25 Sept. 1958. L2, 280.

  128. J, 325.

  129. SP to Olwyn Hughes, 9 Feb. 1958. L2, 211.

  130. J, 346.

  131. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Paul Roche, 1973. 3.14, MSS 1489, Emory.

  132. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Clarissa Roche, 1973. 3.14, MSS 1489, Emory.

  133. J, 342.

  134. J, 365.

  135. SP to Olwyn Hughes, 9 Feb. 1958. L2, 212.

  136. J, 361.

  137. The poems (Plath’s “The Times Are Tidy” and Hughes’s “Pennines in April”) would eventually be published, in Jan. 1959, along with an article about the couple’s working relationship. J, 338.

  138. J, 377.

  139. J, 372.

  140. J, 310.

  141. J, 318.

  142. J, 328.

  143. J, 332.

  144. J, 315.

  145. J, 366; 320; 328–29.

  146. TH to Lucas Myers, Oct. 1957. LTH, 110.

  147. TH to Lucas Myers, early 1958. LTH, 118.

  148. EF interview with Clarissa Roche, Nov. 1999. EFP.

  149. George Gibian to Harriet Rosenstein, 18 Oct. 1971. 1.30, MSS 1489, Emory.

  150. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Marcia Brown Stern, 1972. 4.16, MSS 1489, Emory.

  151. TH to Lucas Myers, early 1958. LTH, 118.

  152. Ibid., LTH, 120.

  153. SP to WP, 6 Jan. 1958. L2, 203. Schendler’s claim comes from a letter from Howard Hirt to Paula Rotholz, n.d., 14 Feb. 1.28, EBC, Smith. Hughes taught on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

  154. SP to Gerald and Joan Hughes, 4 Mar. 1958. L2, 220.

  155. SP to WP, 11 June 1958. L2, 240.

  156. J, 344.

  157. TH to Olwyn Hughes, winter 1958. Add MS 88948/1/1, BL.

  158. TH to Lucas Myers, early 1958. LTH, 118.

  159. TH to Olwyn Hughes, winter 1958. Add MS 88948/1/1, BL.

  160. TH to Olwyn Hughes, late Mar. 1958. LTH, 122.

  161. TH to Olwyn Hughes, May 1958. 1.6, MSS 980, Emory.

  162. SP to AP, 22 Mar. 1958. L2, 222.

  163. J, 356.

  164. SP to AP, 22 Mar. 1958. L2, 223.

  165. J, 360.

  166. SP, introduction to “The Disquieting Muses” on The Living Poet, BBC program recorded 26 Oct. 1960; broadcast 20 Nov. 1960. Sylvia Plath: The Spoken Word (London: British Library, 2010). Audio CD. The poem was written 22–28 Mar. 1958.

  167. Video footage of Aurelia Plath, Nov. 1986, in Poets of New England: Sylvia Plath and the Myth of the Monstrous Mother. University of Massachusetts, Amherst, AIMS Video Services, 2001. Courtesy of Richard Larschan.

  168. AP, “For the Authors’ Series Talk—Wellesley College Club,” 16 Mar. 1976. 30.58, SPC, Smith.

  169. J, 347.

  170. J, 346.

  171. TH to Gerald Hughes, May 1958. 1.2, MSS 854, Emory.

  172. J, 346.

  173. TH to Daniel Weissbort, early 1958. LTH, 116.

  174. SP and TH to Lucas Myers, 18 Dec. 1957. 1.3, MSS 865, Emory.

  175. Graves, White Goddess, 449.

  176. TH to Daniel Huws, 3 Dec. 1959. LTH, 153.

  177. J, 367–68.

  178. SP to WP, 22 Apr. 1958. L2, 229.

  179. J, 368. Aurelia wrote her undated annotations in the margin of SP to Warren Plath, 22 Apr. 1958. L2, 229. Phil McCurdy, who sat next to Aurelia at the reading, confirmed this to me.

  180. J, 368.

  181. J, 369.

  182. Plath would meet Sweeney and Rich again at the Glascock Poetry Contest at Mount Holyoke on 18 Apr. (Both were judges.)

  183. Reading by Sylvia Plath, poetry and comments, recorded live with Lee Anderson for the Library of Congress, Springfield, Mass., 18 Apr. 1958. Audio cassette. 23.1, SPC, Smith.

  184. TH to Gerald and Joan Hughes, May 1958. 1.2, MSS 854, Emory.

  185. J, 371–72.

  186. SP to WP, 11 June 1958. L2, 238.

  187. Ibid., L2, 239.

  188. J, 355.

  189. J, 413–14.<
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  190. J, 356.

  191. J, 373.

  192. J, 316.

  193. J, 363.

  194. Ibid.

  195. J, 357.

  196. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Paul Roche, 1973. 3.14, MSS 1489, Emory.

  197. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Leonard Baskin, 1971. 1.7, MSS 1489, Emory.

  198. J, 374–75.

  199. J, 382.

  200. J, 381.

  201. Ibid.

  202. HC interview with Betsy Powley Wallingford, Feb. 2013, Sudbury, Mass.

  203. J, 379.

  204. SP to WP, 11 June 1958. L2, 243–44.

  205. TH to Olwyn Hughes, May–June 1958. Add MS 88948/1/1, BL.

  206. J, 381.

  207. J, 385–86.

  208. J, 386.

  209. SP to WP, 11 June 1958. L2, 238.

  210. J, 390–91.

  211. J, 392.

  212. J, 389.

  213. J, 392.

  214. J, 401.

  215. J, 400.

  216. J, 403.

  217. Ibid.

  218. Ibid.

  219. SP to WP, 9 July 1958. L2, 262.

  220. J, 403.

  21. LIFE STUDIES

  1. HC interview with Janet Salter Rosenberg, Sept. 2015, Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.

  2. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Aurelia Plath, 1970. 3.3, MSS 1489, Emory.

  3. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Charles Hill, n.d. (early 1970s). 1.30, MSS 1489, Emory.

  4. J, 423.

  5. Ibid.

  6. SP to WP, 11 June 1958. L2, 240.

  7. The Pocket Book of Modern Verse: English and American Poetry of the Last Hundred Years, from Walt Whitman to Dylan Thomas (New York: Washington Square Press, 1958). The anthology included Hughes’s “The Martyrdom of Bishop Farrar,” “The Hag,” and “The Thought-Fox.”

  8. SP to WP, 11 June 1958. L2, 242.

  9. SP to AP, 10 June 1958. L2, 237.

  10. Ibid., L2, 236.

  11. SP to WP, 11 June 1958. L2, 241.

  12. TH to Olwyn Hughes, June 1958. LTH, 124.

  13. See L2, 237, for a list of the poems she read.