Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, and Writing Between Them: Turning the Table examines early draft manuscripts and published poems by Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath in order to uncover the compositional approaches that they held in common. Both poets not only honed the minutiae of individual poems but also reworked the shape of overall sequences in order to cultivate unique theories of an ars poetica. The book incorporates drafts of their work from Indiana Universitys Lilly Library, Emory Universitys Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Library, Smith Colleges Mortimer Rare Book Room, and the British Library. After assessing the writing and revision strategies that the poets early drafts reveal, the book investigates the material that they borrowed from one another and then reimagined through two major sequences: Plaths Ariel and Hughess Crow. The book enhances its analysis of the poets shared techniques by discussing several pairs of poems from Ariel and Hughess Birthday Letters that respond to one another. Its final chapter also includes an evaluation of some of Hughess unpublished journal entries and unpublished letters that comment on his last collections public reception. In the conclusion, the author chronicles Hughess and Plaths own remarks on their writing process as further evidence of their ars poetica.

Jennifer Ryan-Bryant is professor of English at SUNYBuffalo State.

Dedication

Epigraphs

Table of Contents

Abbreviations

Acknowledgments

Introduction The Materials of Poetics

Chapter One Revision and Transformation in Hughess Early Work

Chapter Two Figures and Flowers: Plaths Approaches to Draft and Revision

Chapter Three Silent Partners: Ariel and Crow

Chapter Four This is the last: Words Between Them

Conclusion Writing Across Two Lifetimes

Bibliography

About the Author