
Letters from a Young Poet: The Final Correspondence of Sylvia Plath - samclemens
https://www.bookforum.com/inprint/025_05/20624
======
Simulacra
It's really unfortunate that her husband burned the last pages of her diary
after she died. It would have been fascinating to know what was going through
her head in those final weeks.

~~~
sverige
I don't mean to be rude, but I think it's very unfortunate that so many people
think they have a right to intrude into the marriage of Ted Hughes and Sylvia
Plath, especially to pronounce judgments upon its terrible ending. It's the
cheapest, easiest, and lowest form of "Lit Crit."

~~~
pmoriarty
I don't get how finding out about the lives of two dead people can possibly be
intrusive. It's not like they're harmed by the inquiry. What's the big deal?

And no one's pretending literary biography is equivalent to literary
criticism.

As a fan of literature I like reading analysis of literature, and also enjoy
finding out about the lives of my favorite writers. Why is that so wrong? How
is my curiosity about or knowledge of their lives harming them?

~~~
sverige
I apologize, it wasn't directed at you so much as the many critics of Hughes
who accused him of causing his wife's suicide for almost the entirety of his
life after that event.

The other point is that certain details seem better unknown. I mean, why
should we even know that he burnt any part of her diary? To me, that sort of
thing crosses over into mere voyeurism. He may be the very one who told the
story, but I've never been a fan of the confessional style of literature,
which unfortunately seems to be almost the only thing left these days.

~~~
pmoriarty
_" I apologize, it wasn't directed at you so much as the many critics of
Hughes who accused him of causing his wife's suicide for almost the entirety
of his life after that event."_

Of course, if the criticism is baseless and it causes harm to the target of
the criticism during their life, that's wrong.

But that's very different from merely trying to find out more about a person's
life -- especially once they're dead and can no longer be harmed.

 _" The other point is that certain details seem better unknown. I mean, why
should we even know that he burnt any part of her diary?"_

To satisfy one's curiosity seems like a good enough reason to me. Curiosity is
a big part of why I read literature in general. I want to find out about how
people who are very different from me or who lived in very different
circumstances or times lived. It's the next best thing to being able to live
multiple lives myself. I say, why not?

