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Ariel's Gift: Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, and the Story of Birthday Letters

Ariel's Gift: Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, and the Story of Birthday Letters in Bloomington, MN
Current price: $23.95
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Size: Paperback
"This erudite critical study...breathes new life into Plath scholarship."—
Publishers Weekly
, starred review
When Ted Hughes's
Birthday Letters
was published in 1998, it was greeted with astonishment and acclaim, immediately landing on the bestseller list. Few suspected that Hughes had been at work for a quarter of a century on this cycle of poems addressed to his first wife, Sylvia Plath. In
Ariel's Gift
, Erica Wagner explores the destructive relationship between these two poets through their lives and their writings. She provides a commentary to the poems in
, showing the events that shaped them and, crucially, showing how they draw upon Plath's own work. "Both narratively engaging and scholastically comprehensive."—Thomas Lynch,
Los Angeles Times
"Wagner has set the poems of Hughes's
in the context of his marriage to Plath with great delicacy."—
Times Literary Supplement
Publishers Weekly
, starred review
When Ted Hughes's
Birthday Letters
was published in 1998, it was greeted with astonishment and acclaim, immediately landing on the bestseller list. Few suspected that Hughes had been at work for a quarter of a century on this cycle of poems addressed to his first wife, Sylvia Plath. In
Ariel's Gift
, Erica Wagner explores the destructive relationship between these two poets through their lives and their writings. She provides a commentary to the poems in
, showing the events that shaped them and, crucially, showing how they draw upon Plath's own work. "Both narratively engaging and scholastically comprehensive."—Thomas Lynch,
Los Angeles Times
"Wagner has set the poems of Hughes's
in the context of his marriage to Plath with great delicacy."—
Times Literary Supplement