Sylvia Plath never heard the Beatles
Ted Hughes mentions this in discussing the influences on her work, when he is being interviewed in THE PARIS REVIEW INTERVIEWS VOL 3. I found this an arresting thought as I had thought of her as being a sixties figure – her work still seems so modern – but of course she died in 1963. She was thirty-one and has of course remained that age in my idea of her. It’s strange to consider that she was only a few years younger than my mother.
I thought at first that I wasn’t enjoying this volume of the Paris Review interviews as much as the first (have somehow missed the 2nd), but there are some real gems, particularly the interview with Raynond Carver. When I wrote about short stories a while ago, I didn’t mention him and I don’t know why not, because he is right up there with the best, just about my favourite short story writer in fact. What I loved most about this interview was his defence of fiction. He argues that it doesn’t have to ‘make things happen, or change the world. ‘Good fiction is partly a bringing of the news from one world to another . . . it doesn’t have to do anything. It just has to be there for the fierce pleasure we take in doing it, and the different kind of pleasure we take in reading something that’s durable and made to last, as well as beautiful in and of itself. Something that throws off these sparks – a persistent and steady glow, however dim.’ Wow! That’s just what I feel about Carver’s own work. Hard to pick out favourites but ‘Elephant’, ‘Fever,’ ‘A Small Good Thing’ and ‘Distance’ are among the stories I go back to again and again.
6 Comments
Alex Paradis
April 4, 2024Plath died 11 Feb 1963, the same day the Beatles rcorded most of the songs of their first album Please, please me.
Christine Poulson
April 16, 2024What a fascinating thought!
David Boland
August 14, 2024Love Me Do was released in October 1962 and reached number 17 in November 1962. A vastly higher number of sales and was required to achieve that feat in 1962 and it would gave led to more airplay than would be the case today, so the Beatles would have been more prominent in the public consciousness than a modern number 17 act would be, especially given the far fewer media outlets and therefore far fewer competitors for public attention for featured performers at that time.
The Beatles made a number of TV and radio appearances from October 1962 onwards – presumably because they were very unusual. Their appearance, overt working-class northern image and the fact they wrote their own songs was unique for the time, taken as a whole. Many of their contemporaries like Donovan, have remarked that Love Me Do was a very unusual record for the time which stood out, regardless of chart position.
They might not have made a huge impression on Sylvia Plath, but I wonder how sure Ted Hughes can be sure that she never heard the Beatles at all, even once in passing on the radio or TV, at a time when there were only two radio stations and two TV channels. By that time he had run off with Assia Weevils, so his knowledge of her day-to-day life must have been limited.
Christine Poulson
September 14, 2024Good point. We will never know for sure, but at best it must have been a close run thing.
Nance
November 5, 2024When the Beatles Love Me Do came out in late 1962, Sylvia, alone, with two small children, had just relocated back to London from the Devon countryside and moved into WB Yeats’ childhood home. While it seems she may have heard the Beatles on the radio during this time, she never mentioned anything in her journals or was there any other documentation that she did. Only Ted Hughes wrote that she “never heard a note of the Beatles” I have read many biographies on Sylvia, the last one, Red Comet is the ultimate and most thoroughly researched one about her. During the last months of her life, Sylvia was in a state emotional upheaval but also writing the most extraordinary poems which she is now most famous for. At this time, she was very focused on her early morning writing schedule, taking care of her children and trying to stay warm in the very icy and cold winter of 1962/1963. Most likely, Ted Hughes was correct about not hearing the Beatles. I never read anything where she mentioned watching TV but she did have a radio and record player. She listened to the BBC but what I have read is she mostly listened to poetry readings, plays or classical music and her record collection seemed to be the same medium. We can not be sure she did not hear the Beatles in passing but at the point when Love Me Do came out, she was so preoccupied with her daily survival she just may had not noticed there was something new stirring. She died right on the cuff of when Swinging London was about to emerge. I often wonder if the exciting and transforming era of Beatlemania and the explosion of “the British invasion” around the world, would of been enough to make a difference with her. Song lyrics and music arrangements became more sophisticated by the mid 60’s and written by remarkably talented, driven and dedicated young people. Sylvia was highly critical of poets who were “dull, superficial and writing with top of the head philosophizing with no music” Sylvia wrote with a ‘beat and a melody” to her words. It is hard to know how Sylvia would have responded to lyrics and music to songs such as Eleanor Rigby, Tomorrow Never Knows, She Said, She Said, Paperback Writer, Paint It Black, anything that Dylan wrote or what she would of thought about Jim Morrison and his poetic music… But I like to imagine she would of recognized that there was a new revolution of expression on the rise and these artists’ words and music were not dull or superficial, but written in a newly born inspiration, skill and imagination with stories to tell.
Christine Poulson
November 5, 2024Thank you for this very interesting comment. It is very poignant to think how much she missed – and also she seems such a modern poet in so many ways that it is strange to think that she was writing before the sixties counter culture really got going.