| This study's focus is Ted Hughes' Birthday Letters in relation to Sylvia Plath. The first, introductory chapter summarizes the initial reviews of the collection, published in January of 1998, and gives a brief background of the poets necessary to the study. The second chapter concentrates on Hughes' created persona in Birthday Letters, which is interestingly blameless in Plath's troubles and suicide. The focus of the third chapter is Hughes' adoption of Plath's images, metaphors, and symbols in this poetry with her as its subject. Chapter four illustrates Hughes' "companion pieces" by comparing them to the corresponding Plath poems. These companion pieces attempt to relate Hughes' (as opposed to Plath's) version of the same story. I conclude the thesis with a possible time line of the writing of Birthday Letters, which is quite different from what Hughes' publishers have promoted. |
