Dispelling Ignorance About Aurelia Plath

Progress. From The Making of Sylvia Plath (2024) by Carl Rollyson.

Before disposing of Kate Moses's Wintering: A Novel of Sylvia Plath (2003) I wanted to share a scene from its Chapter 27, set on a fictional 21 December 1962, a week after the real Sylvia and her children moved into a historic London flat. On the real 14th the real Sylvia wrote her mother Aurelia, "Safely in Yeats's house!" and that she'd never been so happy; on the real 21st she wrote her mother about her new furnishings and: "I spent the rest of Mrs. P's clothes money & feel & look like a million." "Just had two long bee poems accepted by the Atlantic." "I am out of Ted's shadow." "I have never been so happy in my life."

By contrast, Wintering has Sylvia on the 21st collect-calling her mother from a phone booth near a schoolyard. Fictional Aurelia had cabled saying Sylvia must call; it was urgent. Their conversation:

. . . ."So you're all right, sweetheart?" Aurelia asks, stalling.

"Yes!" Sylvia says, impatient. "Tell me what's wrong with you! Is everyone all right? Your cable said it was urgent. What's happened?"

"Oh, darling," Aurelia answers, hesitant, her subterfuge bobbing to the surface. "I was just getting worried. I thought you would call me right away when you got to London."

"Mother, I don't have a phone," Sylvia answers, vexation countermanded by relief. The schoolchildren's shouts rise and fall at random, raucous and piercing. "It's almost impossible to call within this district, let alone to the States. But I wrote to you right away, all the details. You'll see. You should have my letter any day." Six hundred times! Six hundred times she's written to her mother since she left for Smith at seventeen, flooding the envelopes with reassurance, gratitude, filial praise, innumerable dazzling inventories of accomplishments for Aurelia's delectation, the convenient distance of letters keeping their intrusive bond remote, but advantageously--for both of them--intact.

"Well, I was frightened," Aurelia hedges. "There was such a whirlpool of events and decisions to be made, and I hadn't heard. . ."

"Mummy, thank you for being so worried," Sylvia soothes, momentarily unguarded, attracted into the open by the tantalizing lure of maternal sympathy. "But really, we'll be fine. The flat is lovely; the children are happy. I'm relieved to be back in London". . .

Fictional Aurelia then nags Sylvia to bring the children to America for Christmas and offers to "take early retirement" (in real life, nine years early from her tenured-professor job) to serve as Sylvia's mother's helper while Sylvia gets a job teaching.

If you cringed as you read the above, rejoice that Plath studies has evolved.

I preserved that fictional passage to study how in the absence of facts Aurelia was depicted for the public as weak yet domineering, with nothing to do but pursue and harry Sylvia as if she were prey. This fictional Aurelia does only wrong: stalling, hedging, lying, posing, worrying, blandishing, intruding. Selfishly she'd forced poor Sylvia to excel at school and feed 600 happy letters into her motherly maw. Now Aurelia has fooled Sylvia into phoning her. This Aurelia is too lame-brained to have discerned in Sylvia's breathless letters about her busy, spendy new life the manic phase of her daughter's cyclic emotional extremes.

This portrayal also infantilizes the fictional Sylvia, at age 30 still a sucker for her mother's subterfuge. In real life Sylvia at 30 was as yet dependent on her mother's money, gifts, surety, and stateside support.

Aurelia Versus Olwyn, Round 1

Stafford Hotel, London, where Aurelia Plath and Olwyn had a talk.

Aurelia Plath for several reasons did not warm to Olwyn Hughes, who jealous of her brother Ted had treated his wife Sylvia Plath as a usurper and snob. Sylvia wrote Aurelia all about it. After Sylvia's death in February 1963, Ted Hughes appointed a series of caretakers for his children, none long-term until he appointed Olwyn.

In summer 1964 Aurelia visited England for her usual five weeks. She had an eye and ear for all things suboptimal, especially in regard to her grandchildren, Frieda and Nick, extra precious because her Sylvia had borne them. The children were then ages four and two.

In the journals of her visits Aurelia noted, discreetly, in shorthand, what Olwyn was doing wrong.

1964, June: Got Frieda ready for school. Ted left in car. Took Nicky to playing field. [In shorthand:] Olwyn stayed in bed.

1964, June: (After giving Frieda a bath) [In shorthand:] When will she have her next one? Nick filled his pants twice today and made Olwyn mad but she does nothing to train him! 

1964, July: (Four-year-old Frieda touches her own nipples and says) [In shorthand:] "Someday these will stick out way out here!" (This makes me anxious. What has she been hearing.) She said, 'Olwyn can go into Daddy's room without knocking.'"

1964, July: "Breakfast at Stafford Hotel. The audacity of some of Olwyn's statements the first time we were alone. 'Ted just [shorthand] wanted his freedom. He did not want a divorce!' 'I have thought during that time Sylvia reached the height of her writing powers, wasn't it? You have much to be proud of.'"

The following year's visit:

1965, June: "The return to Court Green [shorthand:] & the disorder there was hard for me emotionally. The children are given sweets all the time and don't eat dinner properly. Frieda has two completely decayed back teeth! They brush their own teeth when they feel like it and when I came there was no toothpaste in the house."

Suboptimal.

What Olwyn's thoughts were I as yet do not know. Aurelia's journals do say Olwyn was a good cook. Aurelia did not see the children during 1966.

For All Things Yale: "The Yale Diaries"

I was asked to see Aurelia Plath's estate in 2018 because no one else cared. How times have changed. Yale University's Beinecke Library staff says the Aurelia Plath and Warren Plath estates should open in its rare book room in December. I'm so excited I already want to post my plans and when I get there tell you what I see.

While this every-Tuesday blogspot continues, for all things Beinecke I wanted you with me on 1) a research diary/journal format 2) with no ads and free of charge 3) and video/audio and comment-friendly. I chose Substack for "The Yale Diaries." Free subscribers get posts emailed but they must register, and please know that in archive-induced ecstasy I might post at all hours and five times a day.

These new Plath Family collections have potential to radically alter Plath studies. Ten days in New Haven is costly and by choosing a suburban motel I cut lodging by half but this raised the cost of transportation to and from campus. So just this once in this blog's history, there's a donate button. Any amount will be heartening, but more valuable yet would be your encouragement.

To curry Sylvia Plath's favor I launched "The Yale Diaries" on her birthday. May it work as promised.

I've already posted the first entries at theyalediaries.substack.com. Or type that URL into the search bar. The Yale Diaries site is too recent to appear as yet in Google search results. I will look into posting a link on this sidebar. 

Thank you for joining your researcher on Plath studies' final frontier. -Catherine

Why I Love Hearing From You

Sylvia's paternal relatives lived in Fall Creek, WI. Today's population 1,500.

I am always delighted when readers respond to these posts, and today Dr. Bob Drehmel, retired family physician, shares childhood memories of "the Bartz girls" -- sisters including Otto Plath's first wife Lydia Bartz Plath -- his neighbors in Fall Creek, Wisconsin. Around 1910 their brother Rupert Bartz introduced classmate Otto Plath to the "very pretty" Lydia, as shown in a photo taken that year at the Mercantile local general store. She worked there, lived at home and saved her money. And would lose it. In 1912 Lydia married Otto and became a Plath. 

Dr. Drehmel's memories come from the late 1950s-early '60s when the "Bartz girls" were retirement age.

 

"I found the name of Otto Plath. I then realized his first wife was Lydia Plath, who lived 3 houses down from our house. I have two brothers and one sister [born 1948-1957] and we would frequently see Lydia and her two sisters Odelia and Caroline. . . . known as the 'Bartz girls.' We would often walk down to their house as they seemed to like small children. Only Lydia had married, and she had no children, so I think we were their 'surrogate' kids. They would fuss over us, invited us in for a chat, and ALWAYS had a candy jar available. I think it was a 'win-win' proposition. They enjoyed our company, and we loved the candy. . . 

"Caroline was the most outgoing and did most of the talking. I remember Lydia had a vocal tremor with lower-pitched speech. They had shelves of knickknacks on the walls. When outside, they were frequently seen wearing wide-brimmed straw hats and tending to a flower garden. They were pretty much homebodies and I don't remember seeing much of them around town.

"That Mercantile store was still there when we were growing up. The Zetzman family was still running it. I used to play on some silver bars that were out front . . . my father said they were there to tie the horses up . . . I think the candy was 'rock' candy, often what is called 'ribbon' candy. 

"When the [Bartz girls]  had to leave the house they drove together and always had umbrellas, rain or shine, I guess to block either the rain or the sun. My sister remembered them wearing long black stockings (not 'nylons') and black shoes with low heels. They drove a big blue sedan."

 

Lydia in the Plath story had been known only as the "sexually cold" (so said Otto) and embittered first wife who lost her and her sisters' money to Otto's bad investments. Otto called Lydia "uneducated," but she soon claimed an education, attending nursing school alongside of Otto's sister Frieda Plath. Thank you, Dr. Drehmel, for adding nuance to the picture. Lydia found success and happiness and I hope you do too. Here's my outline of Lydia's nursing career. And also see a portrait of Lydia and her mother and sisters taken in July 1912 just before Lydia left Fall Creek to marry Otto.

Fall Creek High School with Bartz girls Odelia (3rd from left) and Caroline (far right), 1910. Before then Fall Creek had no high school so Lydia Bartz didn't go. She later earned college credits to qualify for nursing school.

Aurelia Plath and Assia Wevill: Tight Wires Between Them

AI

Reading Julie Goodspeed-Chadwick's books about Assia Wevill, the "other woman" in the Sylvia Plath-Ted Hughes breakup, I noticed that Plath biographers and scholars have treated Assia much as they have treated Sylvia's mother Aurelia. As I read I could even substitute Aurelia's name for Assia's, like so:

 

When one spends time in the archives . . . it becomes increasingly apparent how Assia Aurelia has been elided from the professional and public record in many ways. Her own voice has been silenced: in life, in the archive, and in the public domain. Texts authored by her, specifically her journals and letters, remain unpublished and are difficult to access. Others speak for her and about her, most notably Hughes and Plath, and they tax Assia Aurelia with their own grievances. Part of what I hope to accomplish with this study is the acknowledgement that what we have done to Assia Aurelia in professional scholarship, in texts that circulate on the internet, and in our classrooms is antifeminist and a profound and unkind injury to another woman who deserves better than what she encountered in her life. . . [1]

 

Vastly different women, in the Plath story billeted light-years apart, Aurelia and Assia had in common only that they were females long associated with Ted Hughes. They bonded over that experience. They exchanged letters and met in England in 1967. In 1968 Assia wrote Aurelia that "Ted was brutal to her": "I thought suddenly that that degree of brutality would slowly dement me." [2] Sylvia in her final months wrote her mother that Ted maltreated her and wished her dead. Aurelia photocopied Sylvia's letters and kept them in her bank's safe-deposit box, and preserved Assia's letters in cold storage in the next town over. [3] Aurelia was building a case. On behalf of two dead women.

Why have you heard next to none of this? 

It wasn't easy for -- oh, somebody -- to purge from the Plath narrative those most intimately involved and discredit their testimony. Ted ordered both women not to speak of him. When Aurelia and Assia were at last publicly named -- Ted withheld Assia's name for years -- critics and biographers using Sylvia's furious cues called them witches and vampires who ruined Sylvia's life: disposable, talentless minor characters somehow potent enough to be the death of her. Let's demythify: Aurelia and Assia knew too well who was the death of her. [4] 

To Sylvia and Ted, Aurelia Plath and Assia Wevill weren't minor or marginal at all.

Goodspeed-Chadwick points out that scholarship about Assia takes place amid 50 years' worth of smoke and mirrors and the evidence is fragmented, obscure, or forbidden to use. The same with Aurelia. I see now that even feminist writers label the slinky vixen and the schoolmarm prude using identical terms: Desperate. Talentless. Clingy. Wannabes. Schemers. Vacuous. Trivial. Destroyers, devourers. Bad mothers. Sexually suspect. Empty. Unworthy. Monstrous. An essay somewhere says Assia is Medusa . . . Aurelia's and Assia's many faults are so weirdly alike either because they're both Taurus or because our thinking is corrupt. 

Better then not to mention them. Aurelia is such box-office poison, her name such a trigger, that the Plath family materials being processed at Yale get called "Warren Plath's estate." 

Until reading Goodspeed-Chadwick I didn't consider Aurelia's link with Assia. But there was a link. They met. Maybe there's a photo. I want to know more.

[1] Goodspeed-Chadwick, J. Reclaiming Assia Wevill, Louisiana State University Press, 2019, Chapter 1. 

[2] Grogan, K. "Tight Wires," Los Angeles Times Book Review, 16 March 2023. 

[3] Aurelia Plath in longhand annotated Sylvia Plath's letter of 1 January 1961 re "letters in Wellesley safe-deposit box and Assia's in cold storage in Waltham." Plath mss. II, Lilly Library.

[4] Emily Van Duyn's Loving Sylvia Plath: A Reclamation (2024) argues that Ted Hughes abused Sylvia Plath and Assia Wevill and undercut their testimonies by obscuring and editing the evidence. I reviewed the book here.

Are You Sylvia's Double? A Quiz

We Plath fans are probably more Sylvia Plath than others are. But really, meme or no meme, how much are you like Sylvia Plath? Do you secretly think you're Silver Plate reincarnated or that she'd accept you as her equal? Or warmly greet you as a kindred spirit? Grant yourself one point for each Yes.

-owner of Sylvia Plath swag or trinkets

-graduated from a "genuinely public" high school

-one parent was an immigrant 

-"One of the most brilliant students"

-"One of the two or three finest instructors" 

-cum laude or better

-published before age 10 

-had a scholarship

-had a fellowship

-picked your nose and stuck its contents beneath a desk    

-big eater

-wrote spitefully in your diary 

-upon seeing a man's genitals became very depressed

-consulted Tarot cards

-had sex with someone because you liked their mind

-somewhere there's a recording of you reading your work

-saw your mother as little as possible

-cottage in the country

-focused

-sexy as all getout 

-sibling with Ph.D.

Scoring: 

19-21  You're Sylvia's double, and that counts for a lot these days.

15-18  Why do you so identify with her?

10-14  Getting there

5-9     Foot's in the door

0-4     You disappoint us 

[See also "Things Aurelia Plath Did Not Say to Sylvia"] 

The Courage of Not Shutting Up

Aurelia Plath with her book Letters Home, getting her say.

Silenced by her son-in-law who held her grandchildren hostage, jeered by critics who judged her daughter's letters false but her daughter's fiction true, Aurelia Plath had things to say and intended to say them without destroying her life and relationships. [1]

Sylvia and Aurelia Plath carved out ways to say what they wished to say. When a circle of hearers was not enough they used the most durable communication tool they had access to: They wrote. If to get messages out they had to be artful, they'd message artfully.

First, Sylvia:

If being heard meant writing and publishing "grisly" and shocking works of art using ethnic slurs and making metaphors of the Holocaust and Hiroshima, poems spoken by figures jailed, raped, hunted, suicidal, burnt at the stake, with tongues cut out, Sylvia Plath would be heard. If it cost the good graces of family and mentors, Sylvia wanted her words not only heard but printed and read. Sylvia lived to be read. Readers wanting more would pay to read more. This might have worked to Sylvia's benefit had she and strangers been the only people in the world.

Shutting up became such an occasion that Sylvia wrote a poem about how hard it was: "The Courage of Shutting Up" (first titled "The Courage of Quietness").

Aurelia Plath's diaries, now at the Plath family archive at Yale and I hope not locked away, show Aurelia trained from youth to minimize or hide her life's most consequential facts. Even to herself she could not be so brazen as to say The money's run out. I married a brute. Censure awaited those who complained (let gratitude be your attitude!) or the world could trot out scripture to remind women not to speak.

To communicate artfully and modestly, those taught to measure their words tucked little notes beneath plates, and wrote in margins and in shorthand their families could not read. They spoke sub rosa, used maxims and quotations, euphemisms, greeting cards, formalities. They made suggestions and gave hints. They wrote each other long letters. They sent money. Those able might risk writing a poem or publishing a book. By no means was this the same as shutting up.

[1] "Letters Home can be read like a novel: all this truth, even the frank disclosures are very close to fiction." New York Times Book Review, 14 December 1975. 

N.B.: Plath in 1951 wrote for the Daily Hampshire Gazette an article reporting on a speaker who addressed the qualities of satire: exaggeration, parody, "makes fun of his audience," shock via "obscenities and violence." Reprinted in the Collected Prose of Sylvia Plath, p. 626.