Ted Hughes is considered to be one of the greatest poets of all time, gaining critical acclaim for his last poetry collection the Birthday Letters. The new edition of the Birthday Letters delves deep into the truth of one of the most controversial literary relationships of all time. Over 50 poems show the tumultuous relationship he had with his wife, Sylvia Plath. Beautiful, hateful, spiteful, wonderful, each poem gives us an insight into the inner workings of a relationship that spawned some of the most powerful poetry of our century.
In the Fullbright Scholars we see Hughes describe the first time he might have seen Plath. He refers to his memory of her through the focus of these semi-rhetorical questions such as “Where was it, in the Strand?” and “Maybe I noticed you”. After all these questions, he r
efers to a peach in great detail: “At the age of 25 I was dumbfounded anew, by my ignorance of the simplest things”. This reference to the peach shows that his memory of the day is not as bad as he originally makes it out to be. This last line also brings into question whether Hughes is telling the truth about his memory of the event. By continually using semi-rhetorical questions, Hughes belittles Plath by referring to her in an oblique way. He is being intentionally forgetful to distort the truth, or to try and make it seem that she held no importance for him. We also see Hughes’ memories of the past being overlayed with his present experiences. Hughes talks about details of the event such as the “display of news items” and “the first fresh peach [he] had ever tasted”. These details are probably th
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