A new depiction of Sylvia Plath in Loving Sylvia Plath: A Reclamation by Emily Van Duyne

But what about Sylvia Plath’s work? Her Poetry? The indelible imprint she left upon the literary landscape was like a “dragon” with a powerful fire, particularly using confessionalism in writing which had been almost taboo during her time.

In Emily Van Duyne’s new biography Loving Sylvia Plath: A Reclamation, she highlights Plath’s mastery rather than, as Duyne says in her introduction, the “mythology” behind her. How a serious consideration of her became “impossible to untangle” from its subjective reception by those who were assumed to be “uncritical consumers prone to poor judgement.”

Yet, Plath greatly deserves undiluted respect for her work which is shadowed by her tragic tale and primarily narrated by one of the main villains of her story.

Emily Van Duyne is a “self-proclaimed Sylvia Plath superfan.” Her relationship with intimate partner violence (IPV) provides an enlightening perspective on Plath’s struggles and the true extent to which her relationship with Ted Hughes may have affected her life.

As Duyne said in an interview with Sarah Viren titled “A Painful, Urgent Reimagining: Emily van Duyne on Writing a New History of Sylvia Plath’s Last Years: “Survivors understand the lives of survivors better than anyone else.” And if nothing else, Sylvia Plath was a survivor of Ted Hughes’s marriage and her name continues to stand to this day as a poet in her own right rather than the dark “cloud” Hughes suggested she was in his writing.

A key highlight in Duyne’s book is her acknowledgement of the mistaken, or rather misled, depictions of Plath. Duyne provides her professional opinion on why the female readership of Plath is frequently “accused of forming a cult around Plath” and addresses the “fashionable…disdain” directed towards those “who believed there was a biographical connection to Ariel.”

She discusses other scholars, such as Jaqueline Rose — a critic of Plath — and Frieda Hughes’s — Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes’ daughter — opinions. This provides an unparalleled view of Plath’s story which is well rounded due to the intertwined perspectives of others.

One focus Duyne seemingly had while reclaiming Sylvia Plath’s story is the other women in her husband’s life. The first woman Duyne introduces us to is Assia Wevill, Hughes’s mistress. Duyne points out there the cycle of abuse at the hands of the power-hungry, wealthy, and successful Ted Hughes which affected but was not limited to Plath.

“I really wanted to shift that ridiculous narrative and, in doing so, tell the stories of these other women surrounding Plath, during her life and after, because they are fascinating. They deserve to be part of her story, as much or more than Ted Hughes,” Duyne writes.

Duyne also introduces the new evidence of the “Unseen Sylvia Plath Letters Claim Domestic Abuse by Ted Hughes” released in 2017. She notes that the newspapers misleadingly reported Plath’s revelations on her experience with IPV to be “shocking” and “brand-new” when no “Plath scholar…was surprised.”

Sylvia Plath’s history is briefly introduced at the beginning of the text; however, Duyne makes sure to showcase the successes and achievements of Plath so early in her life earning her scholarships and awards, including her scholarship to the University of Cambridge to read English literature. Tragically, we face the contradicting narrative of Plath’s dwindling mantle health amidst her success, her feelings of alienation, anonymity, and being a disgrace to her family despite her success.

Plath’s mother, Aurelia, speaks of her daughter’s struggle to date “boys with literary ambitions — they were too jealous of Sylvia’s impressive string of publications.” This “artistic rivalry” continued to follow Plath like a ghost into her marriage with Ted Hughes until she, almost inevitably, became a supporter with no reciprocated aid.

“Plath played the dual role of secretary and agent for her husband, typing and submitting his work, negotiating his contracts, and managing his finances.”

Plath was offered a teaching position at college from 1957 to 1958, after which, she decided to focus on her writing. She would spend time grading additional papers for more established faculty members to “bring home extra money” while other wives such as Clarissa Roche had been aiding her husband and “graded all of [his] assignments” to free him to write.

Furthermore, Emily Van Duyne captures an idea that resonates with her readers and relates to Sylvia Plath: the concept of knowing something before it exists even in the realm of thoughts. Duyne says, “Before she [Plath] understood how to turn that prowess and that poverty into poetry, Plath knew it was there.” This is much like how Duyne knew there was more to the dismembered story of Sylvia Plath.

That feeling was worth chasing for her despite the resentment received from her colleagues at leaving the teaching institution where she worked. Her former teachers and professors also lectured her on being “disloyal” to teaching while George Gibran questioned her asking, “What do you need to write?”

“The answer was obvious to Plath, and it bewildered her when she tried to articulate it to her colleagues, who inevitably failed to understand.”

This is what truly resonates. Plath seemingly had a purpose in her writing and believed in going through with it regardless of the cost: a feeling of surety having no existence, except in a meta world. This intrinsic belief in a dream-like possibility is seldom followed through by people out of fear of the risk.

However, Plath’s perseverance is awe-spiring. She risked her position and already attained, but perhaps too stable for her liking, success to pursue a shadowed route that risks all of her past achievements but implicitly promises more.

Plath’s final writing, the poetry collection “Ariel,” received responses “abound with the sentiment that…Sylvia Plath had sacrificed her life at the altar of her art.” Whether or not Sylvia’s “murderous art” led to her death and “destroyed her marriage” is not quite the message in the sentiment. Rather Sylvia was willing to pursue her art until she no longer could.

Reading Emily Van Duyne’s exceptionally well-researched piece is key to understanding Sylvia Plath emotionally. More than that, it honours and celebrates Sylvia Plath by “loving” her work as much as Sylvia believed in it. Here, she is not a mere stoic victim but a poet and writer who believes in her art regardless of its commercial success. She is not simply Ted Hughes’s abused woman but one of the women in his monstrous cycle.

Finally, we see Sylvia’s journey to making her literary masterpieces her air that she could not survive without. We witness Plath’s mastery of literature and how she transcended death through her words.