Most Popular Posts of 2024

1955

The most popular AureliaPlath.info post of 2024 was "Warren," about Sylvia Plath and her brother, some readers responding that they never knew Sylvia had a brother. Glad they now know that Sylvia grew up with a kid brother just as exceptional as she, and for 14 years -- from Warren's birth until he went to boarding school in 1949 -- Sylvia treated him as a usurper and a rival. 

As far as I know Sylvia never wrote a poem about her brother.

I'll be more opinionated in 2025 because the next most popular posts were the two book reviews, for Sylvia Plath Day by Day, by Carl Rollyson, and Loving Sylvia Plath by Emily Van Duyne. Next most-read were "Poems About Aurelia Plath" and "Atlantic City Waiter," about Sylvia's African-American grand-uncle, Christopher Nicholson. I continue to seek information about Nicholson, having found his family of origin in Warsaw, North Carolina. And don't forget the Aurelia Plath video and audio recordings available through this site.

Out of 45 posts my personal-favorites were of primary materials: The never-before-seen photos of Sylvia Plath's mad grandmother, Ernestine, young and old; and, for amusement, Aurelia's list of "Bones to Pick with Dick Norton."

This was also the year I enjoyed traveling to Winthrop, Mass., and Wellesley, Mass., to see the settings the Plaths saw every day. Happy New Year from your researcher.

Aurelia Plath Videos and Audio

Mini-cassette, 1967

Delighted by a lively 1976 radio interview with Aurelia Plath from WGBH-Boston, a recording recently recovered by Peter K. Steinberg, I have created and will keep at the top of this blog a page with links to all publicly available Aurelia media, audio and video, mostly educational films. Click here to access the 30-minute radio interview, interwoven with recordings of Sylvia reading her poems.

See Aurelia In These Two Rare Educational Videos, Now Online

I am pleased to provide (at last!) access through these private links to two made-for-television videos, produced in 2000 for the "Sylvia Plath" segment of The Poets of New England series. They include rare footage of Aurelia Plath. At the time she was filmed (1986) Aurelia was 80 years old, and you bet she gets her say about how Sylvia's poetry creatively transformed her parents, Otto and Aurelia, into figures with the stature of myth.

Dr. Richard Larschan, professor of English and Aurelia's good friend, wrote and narrates these well-wrought 28-minute films woven through with Sylvia's image and recorded voice. 

-The "Monstrous Mother" video interprets "Medusa" ("that stinking poem," Aurelia says), "The Disquieting Muses," "Morning Song," "Kindness," and a portion of "Three Women" which Aurelia recites from memory and savors. 

-The "Omnipresent/Absent Father" features "Ballad Banale," "The Colossus," "Electra on Azalea Path," "Daddy," and the graveyard scene from The Bell Jar. Aurelia appears mostly in this video's first few minutes. Sylvia demonstrated intense creativity as she tried in each poem to articulate her mixed feelings about her father and his early death. Note that for the purpose of this video Sylvia's recording of "Daddy" has been abridged.

I think you'll be surprised, especially by the "Monstrous Mother" video.

These videos are not public. They are available online only through this site. I did not want YouTube ads posted on them. I wanted to preserve for online study the contents of these videos still otherwise confined to VHS format [pictured] and did the transfer at my own expense. Please do not copy, sample, embed, or alter these videos. Thank you.

*Sylvia Plath and the Myth of the Monstrous Mother

*Sylvia Plath and the Myth of the Omnipresent/Absent Father