Wednesday, August 11, 2010

British Library archive throws light on Hughes-Plath romance

"The British Library is also releasing an audio CD of Plath recordings, including a rare recording of Plath and Hughes talking about their relationship. The poet, who committed suicide in 1963 aged 30, is heard speaking cheerily about life in England, and about her meeting and marriage to Hughes." [audio clip here]

Another previously unpublished recording sees Plath talking about how much she enjoys the eccentricities of the English. "I know when I went first to stay in an English home I was fascinated, I wanted to see what this was like. I went in, and I remember the mother was doing needlepoint, and I thought this was a charming English thing, and I went in and she was doing a needlepoint of penicillin mould. And I saw that on the footstools instead of cosy roses or something of that sort, she had done needlepoint of rattlesnakes, and I was rather fascinated by this," the poet relates. "And I remember particularly when going to bed at night, she very seriously offered me the choice of a hot water bottle or a cat. She didn't have enough hot water bottles to go round or enough cats to go around, but if she used both of them they came out even. And I chose the cat."
I'd really like to her the other recording--though this is chilling enough. They seemed so happy, so in love, and yet how little they knew. Or had it already started? Oh dear..

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