[Vwoolf] Virginia Woolf, Syvia Plath, and a decommissioned lighthouse (Belle Tout)

Emily Kopley emily.kopley at gmail.com
Fri Apr 14 09:50:08 EDT 2017


Dear Amanda, Karen, and All --

At least we can say that Plath would have known how important Beachy Head
is in women's literary history: Romantic poet Charlotte Smith is equally
famous for her long poem *Beachy Head *(see here
<https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/52387> and
here <http://digital.lib.ucdavis.edu/projects/bwrp/Works/SmitCBeach.htm>)
and for *Elegiac Sonnets*, which includes such melancholy poems as the
 “Written
in the Church-Yard at Middleton in Sussex”
<http://www.bartleby.com/270/1/299.html> and “On Being Cautioned against
Walking on a Headland Overlooking the Sea, Because It Was Frequented by a
Lunatic.”
<https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/51893>

Best,
Emily


On Thu, Apr 13, 2017 at 9:45 PM, Amanda Golden <amandapgolden at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I do not believe Plath visited Sussex at that time. I am not sure I have
> seen evidence that she
> visited Susex at all. She did visit Cornwall late in her life.
>
> Amanda Golden, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor of English
> New York Institute of Technology
> P.O. Box 8000
> Northern Boulevard
> Old Westbury, NY 11568
> www.agoldenphd.com
> Editor of This Business of Words: Reassessing Anne Sexton
> <http://upf.com/book.asp?id=GOLDE004> (UPF, 2016)
> Book Review Editor of Woolf Studies Annual
>
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> On Apr 13, 2017, at 3:00 PM, Laurie Reiche <lauriereiche at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hello All,
> Sandra Gilbert wrote a wonderful, short(ish) essay called, "On the Beach
> With Sylvia Plath" (in the book *the Unraveling Archive - essays on
> Sylvia Plath*, edited by Anita Helle) that looks at another Plathian
> landscape: Berck-Plage. This essay may perhaps give some insight into
> Plath's writerly retreat/"vacationing" choices.  If we think about
> Gilbert's conclusion that she "regard[s] Plath  herself as our our most
> highly sensitized and representative poet not, as if often asserted, of
> suicidal extremism but rather of later-twentieth-century *mourning *(italics
> mine) " ---then we might see what Plath saw and/or was drawn to in a
> different light.
> Cheers,
> Laurie
>
> On Apr 13, 2017, at 10:20 AM, <kllevenback at att.net> wrote:
>
> A dear friend of mine living in Australia just wrote to ask the following;
> he also included the attached photo.
>
> Can anyone help?
>
> “I have a literary favour to ask. On a clifftop in Sussex stands a
> decommissioned lighthouse that rejoices under the name of Belle Tout (
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_Tout_lighthouse). My question is
> this. Is it true that Sylvia Plath stayed there while writing some of the
> poems in her posthumously published collection Crossing the water? There is
> no particular reason you should know, but with your literary connections I
> thought perhaps you might know where to look. There is a solitary passing
> reference to it on-line, but since it's the only one, I must treat it with
> caution.
>
> My curiosity was aroused by a possible synchronicity. Of all the writerly
> retreats that Plath could possibly have chosen, why choose the only one
> that looks out on the world's premier suicide spot, Beachy Head? The
> attached photo shows the view that Plath would have had from her window.
> Given the acres of print that have been written about her, you would think
> that other writers would have spotted the premonitory connection. But
> apparently not.
>
> Surely I am not the first? Any guidance, or indeed incisive thoughts,
> would be welcome.”
>
> With thanks--
> Karen Levenback
> <Beachy Head_1.jpg>_______________________________________________
> Vwoolf mailing list
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>
> Laurie Reiche
> lauriereiche at gmail.com
> www.laurie-reiche.squarespace.com
>
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-- 
http://concordia.academia.edu/EmilyKopley
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