Editing Ted Hughes (section)

===Death of Sylvia Plath===

Beset by depression made worse by her husband's affair and with a history of suicide attempts, Plath took her own life on 11 February 1963.<ref name="Bellp8">Bell, Charlie (2002) ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=RC5AHAAACAAJ Ted Hughes]'' Hodder and Stoughton p8</ref> 

Hughes dramatically wrote in a letter to an old friend of Plath's from Smith College, "That's the end of my life. The rest is posthumous."<ref>{{cite book| last = Gifford| first = Terry| title = Ted Hughes| year = 2009| publisher = Taylor & Francis US| isbn = 978-0-415-31189-2 | page = 15 }}</ref><ref>Smith College. ''Plath papers. Series 6'', Hughes. Plath archive.</ref> Some people argued that Hughes had driven Plath to suicide.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/ted-hughes|title=Ted Hughes|date=11 April 2017|access-date=11 April 2017}}</ref><ref name="Reading Women"/><ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/oct/06/ted-hughes-sylvia-plath-poem-found "Unknown poem reveals Ted Hughes's torment over death of Sylvia Plath". ''The Guardian'']. 6 October 2010</ref> Plath's gravestone in [[Heptonstall]] was repeatedly vandalized. Some people were aggrieved that "Hughes" is written on her stone and attempted to chisel it off, leaving only the name "Sylvia Plath".<ref name="Reading Women">{{cite book| last1 = Phegley| first1 = Jennifer| last2 = Badia| first2 = Janet| title = Reading Women Literary Figures and Cultural Icons from the Victorian Age to the Present| year = 2005| isbn = 978-0-8020-8928-1 | page = 252 }}</ref>

Plath's poem "The Jailer", in which the speaker condemns her husband's brutality, was included in the 1970 anthology ''[[Sisterhood Is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings from the Women's Liberation Movement]]''.<ref>{{cite book|title=Sisterhood is powerful : an anthology of writings from the women's liberation movement (Book, 1970) |publisher=[WorldCat.org] |oclc = 96157}}</ref> Poet [[Robin Morgan]] published a poem "Arraignment", in which she openly accused Hughes of the battery and murder of Plath.<ref name="Reading Women"/><ref>[http://www.robinmorgan.us/robin_morgan_bookDetails.asp?ProductID=21 Robin Morgan's Official website] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110719182313/http://www.robinmorgan.us/robin_morgan_bookDetails.asp?ProductID=21 |date=19 July 2011 }} Retrieved 9 July 2010</ref> 

There were lawsuits resulting from the controversy. Morgan's 1972 book ''Monster'', which contained that poem <!--which? Arraignment or Monster?  -->was banned. Underground, pirated editions of it were published.<ref name="goodreads1">{{cite book|first=Robin |last=Morgan |url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/544191.Monster |title=Monster: Poems by Robin Morgan — Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists |date=1972 |publisher=Goodreads.com |isbn=978-0-394-48226-2 |access-date=13 April 2017}}</ref> Other radical feminists threatened to kill Hughes in Plath's name.<ref name="Rhyme">"[https://www.theguardian.com/books/1993/feb/16/biography.sylviaplath Rhyme, reason and depression]". (16 February 1993). ''The Guardian''. Retrieved 9 July 2010.</ref> In 1989, with Hughes under public attack, a battle raged in the letters pages of ''[[The Guardian]]'' and ''[[The Independent]]''. In ''The Guardian'' on 20 April 1989, Hughes wrote the article "The Place Where Sylvia Plath Should Rest in Peace":
<blockquote>
In the years soon after [Plath's] death, when scholars approached me, I tried to take their apparently serious concern for the truth about Sylvia Plath seriously. But I learned my lesson early... If I tried too hard to tell them exactly how something happened, in the hope of correcting some fantasy, I was quite likely to be accused of trying to suppress Free Speech. In general, my refusal to have anything to do with the Plath Fantasia has been regarded as an attempt to suppress Free Speech... The Fantasia about Sylvia Plath is more needed than the facts. Where that leaves respect for the truth of her life (and of mine), or for her memory, or for the literary tradition, I do not know.<ref name="Reading Women"/><ref>Hughes, Ted. "The Place Where Sylvia Plath Should Rest in Peace". ''The Guardian'', 20 April 1989</ref>
</blockquote>

As Plath's widower, Hughes became the executor of Plath's personal and literary estates. He oversaw the posthumous publication of her manuscripts, including ''[[Ariel (Plath)|Ariel]]'' (1965). Some critics were dissatisfied by his choice of poem order and omissions in the book.<ref name="Bellp8"/> Others, who were critical of Hughes personally, argued that he had essentially driven Plath to suicide and should not be responsible for her literary legacy.<ref>Joanny Moulin (2004). ''Ted Hughes: alternative horizons''. p.&nbsp;17. Routledge, 2004</ref><ref name="Bellp8"/>  He claimed to have destroyed the final volume of Plath's journal, detailing their last few months together. In his foreword to ''The Journals of Sylvia Plath'', he defends his actions as a consideration for the couple's young children.

<!-- Commented out: [[File:Sylvia plath.jpg|thumb|right|Hughes's wife [[Sylvia Plath]]]] -->
Following Plath's suicide, Hughes wrote two poems, "The Howling of Wolves" and "Song of a Rat". He did not write poetry again for three years. He broadcast extensively, wrote critical essays, and became involved in running Poetry International with [[Patrick Garland]] and [[Charles Osborne (music writer)|Charles Osborne]], in the hopes of connecting English poetry with the rest of the world. 

In 1966, he wrote poems to accompany [[Leonard Baskin]]'s illustrations of crows, which became the epic narrative ''[[Crow (poetry)|The Life and Songs of the Crow]]'', one of the works for which Hughes is best known.<ref name="NDB"/> In 1967, while living with Wevill, Hughes produced two sculptures of a jaguar, one of which he gave to his brother and one to his sister. Gerald Hughes' sculpture, branded with the letter 'A' on its forehead, was offered for sale in 2012.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/dec/31/ted-hughes-jaguar-sculpture-sale |title=Ted Hughes's jaguar sculpture hints at poet's demons |quote=Poet's family to sell rare jaguar sculpture that they believe shows his pain over Sylvia Plath's death |date=31 December 2011 |website=The Guardian|access-date=20 June 2021}}</ref>

On 23 March 1969, six years after Plath's suicide, Assia Wevill took her own life by the same method: asphyxiation from a gas stove. Wevill also killed her child, Alexandra Tatiana Elise (nicknamed Shura), the four-year-old daughter of Hughes, born on 3 March 1965. These deaths resulted in reports that Hughes had been abusive to both Plath and Wevill.<ref name="murderer">{{cite news|first=Nadeem |last=Azam |url=http://1lit.tripod.com/june2001.html |title=Ted Hughes: A Talented Murderer| date= 11 December 2001 |work=The Guardian |access-date=17 February 2018 | location=London}}</ref><ref name="I failed her">[http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/poetry/story/0,6000,148915,00.html ''I failed her. I was 30 and stupid''  ''The Observer'' 19 March 2000] Retrieved 9 July 2010</ref><ref>{{cite news|first1=Yehuda |last1=Koren |first2=Eilat |last2=Negev |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/oct/19/biography.tedhughes |title=Written out of history|work=The Guardian|date=19 October 2006 |access-date=27 April 2010 | location=London}}</ref> Hughes did not finish the ''Crow'' sequence until after his work ''Cave Birds'' was published in 1975.<ref name="NDB"/>