The Challenge of Writing Sylvia Plath’s New York Times Obituary 55 Years After She Died

Looking back through the glasses of time always gives us a different perspective, new, perhaps not quite right, but always a clear vision of an opportunity missed which regrets can never change.

Though inclusion of Sylvia Plath, so far, seems to have generated here the most debate as to whether she deserved an obituary at time of death, and as to how to write one for her now, and as to her worth and merit, it's odd that in various news sources and cites online by others since the Times initially published the 15 obit updates days ago, she is the one person mentioned, the main person mentioned, especially in white spaces, as if she is the most egregious omission; as if all 15 can be reduced to and represented by her. The others of the 15 deserve further felicitous and discerning discussion - and, interesting to hear what people from different generations "know" about them. Did the NY Times write an obituary for Zora Neale Hurston?

Obits come with an expiration date. A legion of worthy people -- women and men alike -- deserve their fifteen minutes of immediate posthumous attention but for whatever reason don't get it. To go back years if not decades later, when so much more is known about the deceased, when the culture itself has gone through profound changes, may allow for a heart-warming exercise but as an "obit" it's dead on arrival.

How I would like to believe in tenderness-- The face of the effigy, gentled by candles, Bending, on me in particular, its mild eyes. Obviously, I'm an admirer of Ms. Plath's work. I find this whole project odd, however. An obituary is what it is - a death notice made in a timely fashion. An encomium or criticism (or brief biography) long after the fact may be informative, but I wouldn't regard it as an obituary. If it's meant as an apology for a perceived slight, it's a little late for that. It's also unnecessary. Ms. Plath's work stands for itself and there exists plenty of source material surrounding her life and work. I wonder if this entire project might have been better left to the Google Doodle.

Imagine a project in which published NYT obituaries were rewritten from today's perspective. The cause of death would surely change in many, or would be inserted. Some might say: "Although this person achieved fame during his/her lifetime, later generations have abandoned the work altogether."

This whole project was top heavy with suicides and tragic early deaths. I wonder if that kind of drama is necessary for women to be featured, more so than any of their accomplishments.

For the old who speak too much of pain, they have a special Greenland of exile. Old Birnbaum. Nobody reads her anymore. I thought she was dead. Once she is, and her cat starves, she will become a growth industry. Only kill yourself and you can be consumed too, an incense-proffered icon. It is the slow mean defeat of the good that I rail against, the small pallid contempt of the well placed for those who do no lack the imaginative power to try... -- Marge Piercy, from The Good Go Down

Plath's death remains a tragedy of an unfulfilled life in the arts. It must be conceded, however, that from a vantage point of the years since her death, when I was a college junior, it seems that no literary figure achieved more posthumous attention and fame than she. The Times has jumped on a publicity bandwagon started by Plath's mother. More actual books have been written about Virginia Woolf, but Woolf was not only older but also an accomplished and frequently published novelist at her death. Plath remains, what the latter day obituary says: a figure from 'high school and college reading lists.'

As a young woman (too young at the time of Ms. Plath's death to know of her work) I read her poetry and writings when I was depressed, clinically depressed. Although I was heavily involved in the women's movement of the 70's, I didn't see her work as a commentary on the sad condition of women's lives. I saw it as a sad commentary on everyone's lives, on life itself. That happens when you suffer depression. But Sylvia Plath taught me one really important thing. I was a good evocative poet and writer. I could communicate my depressive outlook on life eloquently as Sylvia did. When I snapped out of that (particular) depression, I asked myself, "Do I want to be the Sylvia Plath of my generation? Glorifying depression? Encouraging others to follow suit in attempts to mimic her eloquent words that elevated such a morbid outlook on life, instead of seeing it directly as a condition that needed treatment?" Naturally, I was speaking from the then-present knowledge about depression and how it had killed such glorious and talented people as Sylvia. So I pass no judgment on her. I know how it feels to feel as if there is no way out of such suffering. But I made a decision for myself. No, I did not want to (or try to) be the Sylvia Plath of my generation. I burned every poem, everything I'd written in such a state and vowed I would not write anything until I knew the "truth" (or as much of it as I could) and could write about beauty, strength to persevere and enlightened perception.

Assuming the NYT had written Sylvia Plath's obituary in February 1963, what obituaries DID it print at that time?

"It quickly became apparent to me that I would have to look not only at her past, but also at the future that had not yet happened. It would be something like time traveling, only — unlike time travelers in the movies — I would know the future without having a chance to change it." Fantasy is always welcomed at the NYT. Plath was truly a "mixed up" human, as a writer never had the chance to prove herself to "a discerning eye". Everything seemed a work in progress. We'll just never know.

Ernest Hemingway died two years earlier than Sylvia Plath. Like her, he died by suicide. Like her, his family tried to hide that he had died by suicide, saying that it was an accident while he was cleaning a gun. Unlike Plath, Hemingway received a front page NY Times obituary. Like Plath, Hemingway's work is still read and relevant. Interestingly, it is now known that Hemingway suffered from hemochromatosis, a genetic disease, an overload of iron in the blood, that causes, amongst other things, depression. The general public only understood that Hemingway had hemochromatosis when his medical records were released in 1991. Knowing this medical information, Hemingway's life, and his death, can be looked upon in a different light than when he died. Just as Plath's life, these 55 years later, can be written about differently than in 1963. (PS. I'd be curious to know if Plath and her son might have suffered from hemochromatosis. It is more common in those with Northern European genes.)

I probably should not be writing this letter. But . . . . I'm sorry. I have trouble seeing Ms. Plath as a major American poet. And I'll be honest. I could be wrong. Big-time. I used to have the Oxford Book of American Verse. And it had Ms. Plath's "Daddy daddy" poem. All those little stanzas--three lines each with a word that rhymes with "you." Notably, of course, the last line: "Daddy daddy, you bastard--I'm through!" Gifted? Imaginative? A deft hand with words? Absolutely. No question. A great poem? Here I have trouble. I have trouble with so MANY of those angry, American confessional poets. What Ms. Plath's real relationship was with her own father I don't quite know. Was it good? Bad? Complex? Fraught? I don't know. But in the poem I just cited, there's anger--frustration--sarcasm--irony. All bubbling and blending in one big stew of words. Clever words, yes. Deft--well-chosen. All that. Really great poetry? Poetry that (like the best of Dickinson) we'll be reading decades--maybe centuries--from now? Well. . . . . . .and who knows? We speak of the canons of great literature--well, SOME of us do. But the joke is. . . . . .. those canons are infinitely mutable. They are changing continuously. And those mysterious, elusive canons may eventually pronounce Sylvia Plath. . . . . .a great poet. One of the greatest. Or maybe not. Who knows?

My mentor Richard Yates used to say, after a poor review in the Times, that a poor review in the Times meant he might as well have not written the book, and while he was preparing for the long goodbye he used to say that if he didn’t get a Times obit he might as well have never lived so that I assured him I would complain to the obit editor if he passed on Dick’s passing. I didn’t have to even though the obit focused almost wholly on the fact that Yates never achieved the level of fame he and other writers expected. So I concluded from this that Dick had wallowed in the ambiguities, as Melville said the serious writer’s job. Plath’s death didn’t go ignored but she was hardly known well enough for anything she published until then. If she had not died she would have been among the more serious confessional poets of her generation but her suicide elevated the suffering on the page. Edith Kern of Smith was her advisor in her youth and led her toward Germanics, and Edith was my friend for a decade and so I heard many anecdotes about Plath’s undergrad years, many of which I understood in the context of Edith’s grief and anger that Sylvia married Hughes. Obits say what obit editors want them to say, they often mislead and it doesn’t demand lying to do so. Lives lived are colored enough by people who observe them but the colors become bolder when they’re dead. Plath would have perhaps been promising, disturbed, neurotic, abused, and blessed with brains and beauty. Nothing iconic.

All this seems commonplace. The question for us and for later generations is will her work withstand the test of time. Is her poetry and fiction being read today? Will it be read 30-50 years from now? After he died, F. Scott Fitzgerald's fiction went out of print. His reputation was revived starting in 1945 by the critics Malcolm Cowley and Edmund Wilson. Today, countless young people and others read and re-read The Great Gatsby. It is read not only as a literary work of craftsmanship, with brilliant sentences and images, but as a historical document casting light on the 1920s and on American character. On the other hand, very few read Tender is the Night, which provides a deeper exploration of a relationship and its vicissitudes. Will Sylvia Plath's involuted poetry be read 50 years from now or her novel, the Bell Jar, which appeals to middle-brow readers? Maybe both, but I suspect only the latter.

Although I know the story of Sylvia Plath, it was seeing her date of death in your essay that awakened something deep within me. In February 1963 I was 9. A vivid and traumatic memory of my childhood was my mother telling me about women putting their heads in the oven in order to kill themselves. Seeing that date, I just now realized she was referencing Plath. There was something very dark about that time in our history as women. My mother fought depression most of her life, and in her moment of raw candor, I feared for her; but only now do I realize I have secretly carried a feeling of sadness and powerlessness at being female all of my life. An epiphany.

If, as Hartocollis writes, "At the time of Plath’s death, 'The Bell Jar' had not yet become a classic...." then it sounds like she wasn't overlooked after all. It's not the Times job to see into the future, just to have a handle on the present. I'm a Plath fan, and I think the Overlooked project is a worthy project, but should retroactive obits be written for the many, many significant artists and writers who didn't find acclaim in their lifetimes? That would represent a massive undertaking indeed!

Instead of contemporaneous obituary, you wrote an updated bio, quite possibly more important in the greater scheme of things. I may compare what you wrote to what's up on WikiP, where various people have been immortalized. All of this can help us understand history, our times, our selves.