article recommendations: literature
fragments on authors, books, and the literary life
Here are twenty or so articles about some classics, some of my favorite books and authors, and literature in general! I’ve written a short description / introduction of each article and added more supplementary reading to some of them.
I have so many more excellent literature articles, so there will probably be a part 2 of this as well.
No One Gets Sylvia Plath | Lithub
On loving and misunderstanding an icon.
Emily Van Duyne on Sylvia Plath’s legacy and the mythologization of her life and work. Prefaced with a reference to Emily Dickinson, who similarly has had her works misunderstood and mythologized repeatedly over the decades, Van Duyne intertwines fragments of her life with a study on both poets. One of the most notable parts of this article explores Ted Hughes’ unwarranted imprint on Sylvia Plath’s posthumous legacy:
The jacket blurbs, with their celebration of the book’s even-handed account of Plath’s life, are next to Ted Hughes’s face.
Imagine Elizabeth Hardwick taking up the whole back cover of a biography of Lowell.
Imagine any of Hemingway’s four wives, anywhere, on any book jacket of his.
I stared at the portrait of Hughes, amazed that we are still treating Plath like this.
Amazed that, after all this time, I am still amazed.
Read this with Van Duyne’s earlier article on Sylvia Plath: Why Are We So Unwilling to Take Sylvia Plath at Her Word?