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

[Diana Swanson]

My colleague, Dr. Amy Newman, offers this information.

"Jude Rawlins, in a book called Cul de Sac, has a note on her visiting that very lighthouse, although she doesn't cite the source.  I believe that might be the 'solitary' reference online to which the original post refers, too.  I can't find anything in the journals but I will keep looking...."

If Amy finds out anything else, I will share it with the list.

all best,
Diana

________________________________
From: Vwoolf <vwoolf-bounces+dswanson=niu.edu at lists.osu.edu> on behalf of Emily Kopley <emily.kopley at gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, April 14, 2017 8:50 AM
To: Amanda Golden
Cc: Laurie Reiche; VWOOLF at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Virginia Woolf, Syvia Plath, and a decommissioned lighthouse (Belle Tout)

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<mailto: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<http://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
















On Apr 13, 2017, at 3:00 PM, Laurie Reiche <lauriereiche at gmail.com<mailto: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<mailto: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
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