Those are not dogs

This post concerns my visit to Heptonstall, the resting place of Sylvia Plath, which I made on the sixth of August this year, about six weeks ago. It has taken a little while for me to work out how to approach this one. For one thing, I felt I didn't really want to do another this-is-what-I-did-and-this-is-what-it-meant-to-me post. And for another, I wanted to think about why I'm doing this sort of thing and why I'm telling the world all about it.

Why do people take offerings to graves? Most of my family who have died have been cremated, but in the churchyard on the same hill I live on in the South West of England, my maternal great-grandparents are buried and have a grave. Other family members, such as my grandparents, to whom I was close, were cremated, and have either a plaque of a decorated page in a book (or both) at the local crematorium. I rarely - well, never - visit those, and yet I do visit the grave of my great-grandparents, even though they died soon after I was born and I have no memory of them.

View from the hill approaching Heptonstall

I guess it's partly because of the grave and the tangibility of the fact that the bodies lie beneath, and partly because it's pretty close to the house, so I walk in that direction fairly frequently anyway. On the admittedly rare occasions -once or twice in my lifetime, I guess - that I have put some flowers on the grave, I have tried to choose something that I think they would have liked. This despite having no idea at all what they would have liked save for a vague notion of what types of flowers may have been popular during their time. I guess it seemed important that the grave reflect the occupant - but in fact it actually reflects my no doubt flawed and highly subjective mental picture of who they were or might have been.

I'm sure you can see where I am going with this. Photos I have seen of Sylvia Plath's grave show it covered in trinkets, tat and stones that reflect the feelings and wants of those who bring the offerings and probably not much else. Of course they do. How could it be otherwise for Plath, my great-grandparents or for anyone? 

The graveyard in which Sylvia Plath is buried

Many photos that I have seen online of her grave show baskets full of dozens of pens, red tulips such as those described in her poem of the same name, poppies, and probably other items that have been mentioned in her work. To what extent do these items reflect Plath herself, and to what extent do they reflect the needs and interests of they who offer them?  This raises all those questions with which so many in Plathdom wrestle. In attempting to keep our offerings focused on Plath herself, we cannot help but reflect ourselves. By looking for clues in her work in order to find appropriate symbols to reflect her life in some kind of meaningful or poignant way, we can in end up saying more about ourselves than she whom we seek to honour.

This goes equally, I would suggest, for much that is written about Plath, too. The debate continues to rage (as much as any literary debate can ever be said rage) as to the extent to which Plath is knowable through her work. Early criticism noted the undoubted biographical value of her poetry and prose, and at times sought to use it to discover clues as to her emotional state at various times of her life. Latterly, this has come to be seen as unsophisticated and unscholarly. A typical academic article about her now seems to start with a variation on this theme: 

Since her death, Sylvia Plath's work has tended to be read mainly for its biographical value, as if reading her poetry could somehow help to explain her mental state and the reasons for her untimely suicide. In this article I shall argue that these readings, whilst not necessarily inaccurate or unhelpful in themselves, have lead critics to overlook the many other ways in which her work may be read. 

Maybe this sort of approach is a step forward. Maybe not. That people are looking deeply into her work is an excellent thing, for sure. That they are realising that efforts to know her through her work are ultimately futile is also good, I'd say, although that certainly doesn't mean that there is nothing to learn of her life from her work - far from it.

On the other hand, perhaps we need to be wary and mindful that our musings, writings and scholarly activities may say as much or more about ourselves as they do about the poet, and into the bargain, we may in danger of beginning to deny that which brought us to her work in the first place. Overall, there is a vast amount that can be read into or found in her work and it should continue to provide much to analyse and reflect upon - for those interested in her life and for those who take other approaches. Maybe part of the true value of Plath's work is not what it tells us about her, but what it says about us.

I found the grave somewhat more overgrown than the surrounding ones - no doubt because her space in front of the headstone had been sown with various seeds and plants over the years.

All evidence of tat had been removed and there were no stones balanced on the headstone. Her married name of Hughes looked, as it does in other recent photos, only slightly different from the 'Sylvia Plath' part of her name. I believe it has now been many years since misguided feminists have defaced it. I did not place anything on the grave. I felt it was not my place to do so. I guess I was also mindful of the attack, by her widower, Ted Hughes, in his poem 'The Dogs Are Eating Your Mother', in which he characterises I'm not sure who - Plath fans? - as beasts who pull at her body with their lips and have robbed her children of her. I spent a quiet hour there, sat on a bench for a while, stroked a ginger cat, thought about the fact that Sylvia Plath's body - the body of the person whose words seem to mean a great deal -  was very close to me indeed, and took some photos. Some very lovely Plath people had suggested to me some other sites to visit in the area, but somehow I didn't want to, so I walked back through the village to my car, and drove home.