Primrose Hill, Sylvia Plath and Engels

Problem
Where is Primrose Hill? How do you get there? Why is it called Primrose Hill? Why should I care who lived there? Why should I go there?

Answer Primrose Hill, I imagined was named after springtime primrose, which means first roses. Alas, Wikipedia tells me the area is not named after primroses but after a man.

Story
I associate Primrose Hill with suicidal American poet Sylvia Plath, who married Ted Hughes, one of the UK's great poets. For many years I regarded his history with suspicion. He had the misfortune to lose two young wives. (As Oscar Wilde said, in the Importance of Being Earnest, "to lose one parent is a misfortune, to lose two looks like carelessness.") Yes, Ted Hughes married two women who both committed suicide. The area certainly has an interesting history.

Blue plaques
The area has blue plaques for three well known people who lived in the area
1 Poet Sylvia Plath,
2 Engels who encouraged Karl Marx, and
3 Poet Yeats.

Tips
Finally, where exactly is it and how do you get there?
Chalk Farm station is on the northern line (one end is Edgware). The station is is opposite the legendary Round House theatre. From the Round House walk uphill to Primrose Hill, crossing a pedestrian bridge with murals.

To learn more about the poets and people of Primrose Hill:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primrose_Hill
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Plath
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assia_Wevill (Second wife of Ted Hughes)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Engels

The Round House theatre.
Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright. 2016.

Action
Book lunch at Al Limone restaurant. (See next post)

Author
Angela Lansbury, author and travel writer, speaker.

French words of the day - ricochet, maquette, statuette

French words of the day - maquette, after a maquette of Ted Hughes, and ricochet. The word ricochet came up in a wonderful quotation from Ted Hughes' wife, American poet, the late Sylvia Plath, wife of the late Ted Hughes. His mini statue has just been placed in his honour in a pub in Yorkshire, north England. (See my previous post.)

Words ending in et from from the French are pronounced ay.
The feminine ending e t t e is pronounced et rhyming with yet.
Here are some words ending with et or  e t t e . I have to insert spaces because the spell checker automatically converts the word into tête . Ironically I cannot find the word tete but up it pops automatically when I type e t t e ! Just press on the e key on the keyboard of your computer or laptop and hold it down and you get the choice of accents.

Glossary French-English
ballet - Dance of men and women, traditional wearing tights, ladies in a tutu
ballet shoes - Flat soft shoes with rounded toes, often with a bow on the tow on the edge which meets the exposed foot. Flexible underneath so dangers can bend the foot to stand on tiptoe when pirouetting.
bouquet - bunch of flowers
maquette - scale model
matinée - Early afternoon starting performance on stage, theatre, musical, ballet, from the word morning which is matin.
pirouette - lady dancer spinning around on one toe with the other leg raised and bent with the toe against the knee, usually wearing a tutu
ricochet - rebound
soiree - evening get together, from s o i r for night (spaces inserted because spell check thinks the word should be sour)
statuette - small statue (usually of a person, sometimes an animal)
tutu - a very short circular skirt which is or becomes horizontal like a disc around the female dancer's waist, most often white stiffened net or fabric, with or without supporting petticoats


I deserve a bouquet for my explanation of words such as ricochet, or maybe a trip to the ballet, a matinée.
See my previous posts on French words. Please follow my posts here on blogger.com and on Facebook. Link to me on linkedIn. Read about my books, b r o w s e (not brownie which spell check prefers) and buy on Amazon and Lulu.com
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, English and French written and spoken language tutor, author and speaker.

Ted Hughes statuette in Barnsley, Yorkshire, England

Homage to Ted Hughes. Painting by Reginald Gray. Photo from Wikipedia Commons. Public domain. A stone carved with Ted Hughes dates is in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.

A statue of poet Ted Hughes is in Barnsley where he used to live. The sculptor has included elements from the poets' life and poems.

You can follow the links back from national newspapers to local newspapers for details.

What do I remember of the poet? At school reading a rather nasty poem about a pike. Learning that he had had two wives or girlfriends who committed suicide. (Wife Sylvia Plath. I used to confuse her with Stevie Smith who wrote the poem about not waving but drowning.) The two facts about the vicious pike poem the and wife's suicide together rather put me off Ted Hughes poetry when I was at a younger and more sensitive age.I wasn't the only one. Or I was influenced by the others. The whole story is rather grim. After he left Sylvia she committed suicide. The women he left her for, Assia Gutmann Wevill also committed suicide. Eventually, so did Hughes' and Plath's son Nicholas.

Looking for negatives, I find the quotation from Ted Hughes: Nobody wanted your strange glitter, your floundering life and your efforts to save yourself.

In his defence it should be said that Sylvia had been suicidal before she met him. Their daughter has written in defence of her parents.

But then as soon as you discuss figures from the past, people you have not met, memory shuffles them altogether in a drawer.

I tend to feel the whilst somebody is alive to support them and their work is channeling money and attention and adulation (admiration and praise, worship) in their direction. I steer clear or being hurt by their actions, or by approving their actions.

Yet, what if you love their earlier work? What if you have been a fan for years? What do you feel about Woody Allen and Roman Polanski? What if their next of kin hate them? Or support them?

Does their work reflect their lifestyle and beliefs? Or is it totally separate? Does their work lead you into following their lifestyle? What about Wagner? What about Woody Allen's humorous comment on Wagner that whenever Woody hears Wagner he feels like invading Poland? That's a comment on Woody Allen, and a comment on Wagner.

However, after an artist has died, it is too late to have any influence on them. Their descendants are not to blame for anything and indeed may be victims.

Many artists, and indeed famous and successful people of any sort,  have private lives, or public works, which some people find distasteful. Take nude statues and paintings. Impressionists. Lady Caroline Lamb described Byron as: Mad, bad and dangerous to know.

Mad is mostly a matter of opinion. Except for those who were in mental asylums. Several cases of those exist. Van Gogh had what I instinctively and succinctly think of and describe as his 'ear trouble'. Was Sylvia more mad than her husband Ted Hughes? Does one have to take sides?

As for literature, Victorian era bowdlerised Shakespeare. Chaucer was bawdy. D H Lawrence was banned.

Activities go in and out of fashion. Even the leaders of great cultures, such as the Greeks and Romans, and major religions, have been accused of all kinds of immorality.

So now I am prepared to take another look at Ted Hughes' poetry, and admire the statue.

I'll be checking facts I half remember for accuracy or at least a source closer to the poet and other than myself and posting more later.I want to check his poems and find an out of copyright picture of the poet and the statue. Even if I have to wait six months until I have a chance to photograph the statue myself. In the old days I used to go back and update blog posts. Now that I have so many, and so much to say, I feel it would be more appropriate to give a link from one to another written at a later date.

Wikipedia neatly sums up his success and the controversy.

Edward James "Ted" Hughes, OM (17 August 1930 – 28 October 1998) was an English poet and children's writer. Critics routinely rank him as one of the best poets of his generation.^[1] He served as Poet Laureate from 1984 until his death.

Hughes was married to American poet Sylvia Plath from 1956 until her suicide in 1963 at the age of 30.^[2] His part in the relationship became controversial to some feminists and some American admirers of Plath. His last poetic work, Birthday Letters(1998), explored their complex relationship. These poems make reference to Plath's suicide, but none addresses directly the circumstances of her death. A poem discovered in October 2010, Last letter, describes what happened during the three days before her death.^[3]

In 2008 The Times ranked Hughes fourth on their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".^[4]

http://www.barnsley-chronicle.co.uk/news/article/11267/sculptor-unveils-memorial-for-poet
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Ted Hughes

by Angela Lansbury

The poet's statue stand and stares

He's gone and lost, with no more care

But left behind his leaping mind

But left us all steel words to share

From writer's block to solid rock

The poet, reader, sculptor find

All gain profit of a different kind

His ripe thoughts rippling everywhere

The weak and strong, the right and wrong

The endless fight, the day and night

Flowing but tight, both dressed and bare

As we gaze at his statue there

Too late to correct or condemn

We must just save, see good, in men.

Copyright Angela Lansbury Nov 24 2015.

If you wish to quote me, please quote up to but no more than four lines and refer the reader back to my post with a link. Thank you. For commercial use of the poem, please contact the author in writing.

In case you had not noticed, my poem follows a sonnet form of three four line verses ending with a couplet.

The writer's block is the block of stone which makes the sculpture, as well as the writer's hesitation before starting to write. Steel is also a pun on steal. Profit is financial and spiritual.

Flowing but tight can mean the construction of a poem. Dressed and bare, the statue or the thoughts. Correct and condemn applies to both the poet's actions in life and his verse. Men refers to both mankind and the tendency of men to dominate women and be the fighters.

Barnsley
Barnsley is in South Yorkshire. If you drive north from London and use Barnsley as a stopover, in addition to the Ted Hughes statue, you might also visit the town hall, a listed building containing a museum.The area is also known for the Bard of Barnsley, glass making, the former coal mining, brass bands, and the sign of the the Stork shop, which said it stocked everything except the baby.

Quotes from Ted Hughes
Nobody wants your ...
... the words look after themselves, like magic.

TED HUGHES MEMORIALS & PLACES TO VISIT
1  Westminster Abbey, London, England
Poets Corner. Stone.

2 White Bear Inn, Barnsley
The 16 inch maquette or model Ted Hughes is at The White Bear in the town centre and includes a pike, fox and crow.
The sculptor is local man, Graham Ibbeson.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnsley
http://www.barnsley-chronicle.co.uk/news/article/11234/woman-who-ran-famous-shop-dies
http://www.wearinns.co.uk/our-pubs/51/The-White-Bear-Barnsley-South-Yorkshire
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g528795-d4106647-Reviews-The_White_Bear_Pub-Barnsley_South_Yorkshire_England.html

3 Mexborough, Yorkshire (15 miles from Sheffield)
Birthplace of Ted Hughes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexborough (Lists Ted Hughes)

4 Gravestone of Sylvia Plath, Heptonstal, Yorkshire
Photo of grave in Wikiquote.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Plath
http://www.thetedhughessociety.org

In the USA Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath were in Massachusetts.

Made in Mexborough: Ted Hughes's South Yorkshire by Steve Ely.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.