“Spider”: Caught in Willie’s Winning Web
Ted Hughes positioned “Spider” as a 1956 poem, but the evidence suggests it may have been written in 1958. In the poem, Plath references the African folklore tale of Anansi, the trickster spider. Hughes noted in The Collected Poems that by the end of the year 1956 she had become greatly interested in African folklore, […]
“The Beggars”: Neighboring Countries on Hard Times
“The Beggars” is one of Plath’s poems seemingly set in Benidorm, Spain. If Plath had been reading the newspapers from home, which Aurelia might have sent, she would have seen that a new version of Faust opened at the Theatre on the Green in Wellesley, running July through August. In an article entitled, “The Beggar’s Opera,” the […]
“Dream with Clam-Diggers”: A Sinking Feeling
Over those first six months of marriage with Hughes, Plath told her mother that she was writing new “happy” poems glorifying her love with Ted. The poems she listed were “Two Sisters of Persephone,” “Metamorphosis,” “Wreath for a Bridal,” “Strumpet Song,” “Dream with Clam-Diggers,” and “Epitaph for Fire and Flower.” It is curious that Plath […]
“Alicante Lullaby”: Holiday at Holiday
Over her infamous Mademoiselle summer, in her single years, and later with Hughes, Plath made occasional trips to New York City night clubs, and certainly knew of, if not attended, the famous Copacabana night club. While Hughes and Plath were on their Spanish honeymoon, the most popular act in America in the 1950s, Dean Martin […]