Summer work : Such fun!
Although I did find something interesting...
Hey blog viewers (Mainly my drama buddies!) Sorry about my lack of posting this summer BUT I have a good excuse I have been in France for three long weeks and since I got back I have been trying to do some homework, which this blog post is about since I was given the option to do a blog post instead of a power point for Drama!
For summer we were asked to read Ted Hughes' "Birthday Letters" written about Sylvia Plath and research their relationship. As I was in France the first half of the summer I decided to read the letters and then find out their background, something I wish I had done first! Initially I tried to read the poems whilst in bed, which wasn't the best of plans since I was tired and it took a lot of effort to understand the poems so the next day I re-read them at the same time I kept a note of everything that went through my head!So this blog post is a little bit of what I think now and a bit of what I said then! The only difference being that now I know the background to their relationship.
"When I read the reviews of “Birthday Letters” I was preparing myself for the “tender and elegiac acts of remembrance” which the Observer, a highly regarded newspaper, promised me. However my first encounter with “Visit” was not what most people would call productive, originally I found the poem slow and to me wholly uninteresting so I put it back on my pile of summer work and carried on with my holiday but then, I’m not one to give up too easily and so armed with a dictionary for words such as “recidived” I sat in a peaceful orchard in the Loire Valley and tried again, this time the poem came to life. Although I will still keep my stance that Ted Hughes does not have the skills for writing a love poem (not from what I’ve seen at least!). For me in a poem it should be easy to see different meanings and interpretations with a clear line of thought and focus to the poet’s work, however Ted Hughes has completely stripped me of these comforts and I find myself desperately grasping at strings as to what his poems mean. I managed to get through two pages of “Ruby Street” before coming to the realisation that these two poems so far were Ted Hughes guesses as to what came after death, where Sylvia Plath would visit and what she would do from beyond the grave, some strange ghost hunt brought about by words and thoughts and past histories, a way of him showing how well he knew her even after she had died.
From then I started to become absorbed in these clearly heart-felt poems which now became something other than just words on a page, these were the words of someone who was left behind. His love committed suicide and left him alone in the world, to me it seems somewhat tragic to think of life without my family, my friends even my acquaintances and it astounds me to think that possibly Ted Hughes had to write these poems to keep her memory alive, from there it a simple leap to the question “how do we respond when faced with death” Hughes wrote poems, destroyed her journals and carried on, an interesting piece of drama may come from the memories of a ‘left behind’ the struggles they have to overcome their grief and the pain they go through. Or maybe those with a lack of pain, the blind stumbling through life which carries us through never truly seeing and never responding to the world around us, instead stuck in the world after death with those we loved and lost yet unable to reach them.
What also astounds me is the way in which Hughes describes his fierce loyalty and determination to remain faithful to Plath even after her death, his descriptions of the girls in “Fidelity” are not wholly clean cut and there are many moments where his ‘fight’ seems to waver but his description of his love for Plath reminds the reader that he has such devotion to her which echoes that of fairytale princes and knights in shining armour. It is this strange and time-old idea that we can only find this devotion once in our lives, otherwise known as a true love and I find myself to be slightly jealous of the adoration Hughes has for Plath."
Only when I got home did I research Hughes and Plath's relationship and realise the reason for her suicide. Part of me was close to deleting my document and re-starting but that wouldn't be truthful as to how knowing the whole story can change some one's perspective.
Previously I said that the "left behinds" would make an interesting story, so why not now develop this and use this idea that until you know the whole story you can never understand properly. Maybe we never truly know everything there is to know and this scares me. Lots. Death is something we cannot prevent and when it happens we are left feeling slightly lost, I have only ever lost two people in my life that I have been close enough to know. My grandmother and my next door neighbor, who died a few months ago from cancer. In our modern culture we are surrounded by the idea of death and of suicide, films, songs and books tell us the stories of those who feel they have no place left in this world, who just can't keep going. To me it is a horrible idea that Ted Hughes caused Plath to kill herself, that he gave her children and love and then took it away and gave his love to someone else. Reading about her I feel deeply sorry for Sylvia who was replaced for someone else yet at the same time was kept hanging on, waiting for him to come back.
Part of me wants to end this here with the idea of the left behinds but I was still too interested to find out what happened next, little did I expect him to reject Assia Wevill, his mistress after Plath's death... causing her to commit suicide as well. I know that my drama teachers would want me to think more about the poems themselves but I find myself stuck on the story behind the poems, I know that all great artists, poets, writers have an interesting life which inspires them to create such wonderful pieces of work however I cannot make up my mind if Hughes "Birthday Letters" is wonderful or just tragic. Since he is now dead there is no way to find out which of the two he loved the most or whether he loved neither of them.
Now I am just rambling and so I shall leave it with this one concept: What about those who make mistakes, cause accidents they cannot help and have to live with it for the rest of their lives. What about those people who are left behind after a tragedy, not moving forward nor backwards just drifting along in the world searching for what they once lost!
xox
HarrietCorey
Previously I said that the "left behinds" would make an interesting story, so why not now develop this and use this idea that until you know the whole story you can never understand properly. Maybe we never truly know everything there is to know and this scares me. Lots. Death is something we cannot prevent and when it happens we are left feeling slightly lost, I have only ever lost two people in my life that I have been close enough to know. My grandmother and my next door neighbor, who died a few months ago from cancer. In our modern culture we are surrounded by the idea of death and of suicide, films, songs and books tell us the stories of those who feel they have no place left in this world, who just can't keep going. To me it is a horrible idea that Ted Hughes caused Plath to kill herself, that he gave her children and love and then took it away and gave his love to someone else. Reading about her I feel deeply sorry for Sylvia who was replaced for someone else yet at the same time was kept hanging on, waiting for him to come back.
Part of me wants to end this here with the idea of the left behinds but I was still too interested to find out what happened next, little did I expect him to reject Assia Wevill, his mistress after Plath's death... causing her to commit suicide as well. I know that my drama teachers would want me to think more about the poems themselves but I find myself stuck on the story behind the poems, I know that all great artists, poets, writers have an interesting life which inspires them to create such wonderful pieces of work however I cannot make up my mind if Hughes "Birthday Letters" is wonderful or just tragic. Since he is now dead there is no way to find out which of the two he loved the most or whether he loved neither of them.
Now I am just rambling and so I shall leave it with this one concept: What about those who make mistakes, cause accidents they cannot help and have to live with it for the rest of their lives. What about those people who are left behind after a tragedy, not moving forward nor backwards just drifting along in the world searching for what they once lost!
xox
HarrietCorey
