Sylvia Plath: A Biography by Linda Wagner-Martin

Author:Linda Wagner-Martin [Wagner-Martin, Linda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Authors, Biography & Autobiography, Nonfiction, Retail
Amazon: B00R63H5B6
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Published: 2014-12-17T05:00:00+00:00

9 - Marriage

1956-57

“I Am Learning Peacefulness”

Sylvia’s humor was not improved when she and Ted returned from Spain completely broke. Partly because their funds were depleted, in September, after Aurelia had gone back home and Warren had come and gone with the Hugheses to Paris, she and Ted went to visit Ted’s family.

Sylvia had thought Cambridge was cold, but in Yorkshire she would experience England at its chilliest. And at its most historic: Heptonstall, where the Hughes family lived, was one of the last villages to have fallen to the Angles. A part of Elmet, the last Celtic kingdom, the whole Calder valley had for centuries been considered a desolate wilderness, a hide-out for criminals. Steep roads led to the area; narrow path-like streets wound at odd, fortifiable turns through the village; and ferocious winds off the Pennine moors waited just beyond the village walls.

Traveling by train and bus, Ted and Sylvia finally arrived, dragging their cumbersome luggage as best they could. The breathtaking expanse of moor, dotted with somnolent sheep, extended to the clouds. It was Brontë country (the Haworth parish where the Brontës lived and wrote was only a few miles away) — wild, beautiful, trackless, and colored at times with a fragile, almost fantastic, light.

At first, Sylvia loved it. A walker, she enjoyed the seemingly chartless distance, the loping fields, sometimes hidden in woods, then etched by deep blue rivers and accented with rock formations. Heptonstall was the land of the unexpected. For Sylvia, it was as good as the sea.

She wrote to Aurelia about the kindness of Ted’s parents and their welcome at the news of the marriage, about her sharing Ted’s room and writing in it during the days while he worked downstairs. Mostly she wrote about the long walks, picnics at old ruins, and a day’s trip to the Brontë house with Ted and his Uncle Walt, who became a favorite of Sylvia’s. As she described Wuthering Heights:

Imagine yourself on top of the world, with all the purplish hills curving away, and gray sheep grazing with horns curling and black demonic faces and yellow eyes ... black walls of stone, clear streams from which we drank; and, at last, a lonely, deserted black-stone house, broken down, clinging to the windy side of a hill.

During the last week of their visit, Sylvia and Ted were joined by Ellie Friedman, Sylvia’s friend from Smith who had planned to travel with Sylvia during the summer. They took Ellie, at midnight, to see the neighborhood witch, a wise old woman who did little but gossip about the villagers. They talked about astrology, went on long hiking trips (to and from the Brontë house, barely finding their way home) and to local pubs. While much of the Yorkshire life was exotic and interesting, Ellie was as attracted by Ted’s commentary on it. At all times, Ted was in charge; this was his home territory. Born nearby in Mytholmroyd, he had lived near the imposing Scout Rock, which might have been the site of Celtic ceremonies.

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