Lady Lazarus

Sylvia Plath

 

The notes below reflect my thoughts and opinions, based on a lot of reading on Plath that I did in the 70s and 80s.  They are no one else’s opinions.

Public Domain

 

She has inspired my own poetry and writing; I see the positive in her, the multitalented girl who had it all,  who loved to dress well, was a model, a writer, an A student, a good cook, an artist.  She could, as one biographer put it, make any space her own.   She had it all,  or seemed to if you looked at the spread Life Magazine did on her.   Then, there were the breakdowns, the depressions, the misunderstood treatments.  Olive Prouty put it best when she entreated Plath not to “burn too brightly,” bright flame that she was. Gifted children are often like that; they burn too brightly. I have a son like that; he has burned brightly, and suffered a lot of misunderstanding.  Thankfully, he doesn’t have Plath’s depression.

 

Still my favorite poet, and in many ways, favorite writer.  She’s been drowned and saved again and again from the politically correct cesspool.  Poets, famous ones, usually men, who write and read loud poems about women beheading their children, decry her for committing suicide when her children were in the house.  Newsflash; she taped the door so the gas wouldn’t get to them.

 

It was a minefield to write about her in graduate school; that’s why I went back to graduate school.  Instead, she got a nod in my dissertation, and later, my book on  Pym. Path deserves more than a nod; she was an excellent woman, and perfect in nearly everyway, except her emotions and psyche were mortal.

 

I was told in grads school by a teacher who wrote three pages on her in an anthology, a self proclaimed expert, that anything I published or wrote on Plath would have to include her name.  She then asked me if I were “Jewish or just curious.” My aunt is Jewish, I’m Greek Orthodox, others in my family are Catholic, Pentecostal, Memorial Christian Church, and in the case of two baby cousins Moslem.  My family is a lot of things, but I will say there is a close connection between Judaism and the Greek Orthodox Church. Our Easter, Pascha, means “Passover,” and has to follow Passover by so many days.  Part of our church is set up like a Temple, and Father Bernstein, who founded Jews for Jesus, became an Orthodox priest.  I will provide sources for all this later; I’m not writing from memory and thought.

 

This distasteful woman terrorized our whole department; I got out from under her, but it wasn’t easy.  Her comment was offensive and ignorant; Plath did write about The Holocaust, but I and several biographers, note she felt guilt.  Her father was from the part of Germany that ran into Poland. Again, I’ll check my sources, but look up Otto Plath’s biography.

 

Her late husband was not innocent; though lots of people have tried to wash their hands of her and her death.  Rumor had it that if you quoted Plath’s work, you had to submit your thesis or book to TH for “approval.”  Many think he was a murder; I’ve read respected biographies that talk about discrepancies at her inquest, and the fact that she had signed divorce papers before her death.  These have not surfaced to my knowledge.  Close friends stated that right before her death she was dressing up and going out, was not despondent, etc.

 

She and TH are both gone; they have to sort it out, but after Plath, he did have a girl friend who also gassed herself, as well as their child.  Again, I can get you the sources.

 

TH allegedly had a gag order on Aurelia Plath, Sylvia’s mother, and she had to beg permission to publish Letters Home.  TH and his sister nearly destroyed Anne Stevenson’s reputation when she wrote “Bitter Fame.” At one point, the author stated it was their book more than hers, so heavily did they edit.

 

Watch the Voices and Visions segment on her, done in the 80s, where famous poets interviewed basically kept saying “it wasn’t my fault; I couldn’t do anything.”  Hardly anyone discussed her talent or work.  The same poets criticized her when she lived in e
England, at one point, in WB Yeats’ old house.  They made fun of her appetite, saying she downed foie gras “like Aunt Dot’s meatloaf”, and ridiculed her when her family sent her a new American stove because the one she had in Europe was too primitive.

 

I was born in Europe, and I have European relatives.  Their jealously and viciousness is contagious and deadly.  Their resentment of Americans, even their own families, is sad and epic.  My mother, an American who lived in Europe, even to being caught in WWII on a visit, had similar issues.  Her in-laws expected her to pay their bills, and her own family sent her American coffee, laundry detergent, and diapers, because at the time, what was available was lousy quality.  Shame on Mom for trying to make the best of things, and for having a family who cared.  Shame on Plath’s family for doing the same.

 

So, these are my thoughts on a genius, talented wife and mother, who left us too soon.  I’m sure many of us would like to know what happened to her.  But despite a lot of efforts to claim her as a political effigy or to villainize her, her words speak for her.  She will live on, as long as there are books and people to read them. Like Lady Lazarus, she rises again.