Sylvia Plath, the poet, has become embedded in the culture as a mythic figure of tragedy and talent, using her words as a confessional to speak directly to the reader.
A new mammoth edition of 542 of her poems has the editors waxing eloquent about her ability to “combine raw emotional depth with humour and an uncompromising, unapologetic sense of vulnerability and strength.” In contrast Philip Larkin said her themes were “neurosis, insanity, disease, death, horror, terror”. Her focus on annihilation obviously strikes a chord through the generations.
She did suffer a lifelong battle with severe depression, a bipolar-type illness, with multiple traumatic treatments with early electroconvulsive therapy. She attempted suicide at 20 and succeeded at 30 when her marriage to fellow poet Ted Hughes, whom she alleged to her therapist had been abusive, had disintegrated.
Born 27 October 1932 2.10pm Boston, Massachusetts, with an Austrian-immigrant, academic father who died when she was 8. She had a doubly-intense 8th house Scorpio Sun in a depressive square to Saturn in Capricorn in her 12th which would weigh her down with a sense of the absent father who was nonetheless critical and guilt-inducing in her imagination. Her Saturn was in an opposition to Pluto which can be inclined to melancholy as well; and that was square an innovative but disruptive Uranus.
A creative Water Grand Trine of Pluto trine Mercury in Scorpio in her much-travelled and published 9th house was trine her North Node in Pisces in her 1st. Her tendency to disappear into a bubble of her own reality would help her avoid facing up to need to build her sense of identity and her faith (North Node Pisces in 1st).
Her Mercury trine Pluto, square Mars in Leo and inconjunct Uranus would give her a sharp tongue and a highly strung nervous system.
An unaspected Libra Moon in her 7th would bring a constant sense of disconnection even as she craved the reassurance of a close relationship. Such an unintegrated Moon is thought to be the most personally traumatic of any planet. A solitary Moon lacks stability and would be exceedingly vulnerable.
Her marriage significator, her Sun/Moon midpoint was opposition her Uranus and square her Pluto, which would do nothing to bring her the security she craved. She both wanted closeness and pushed it away.
Her Chiron in Taurus close to Algol points to a constant sense of never being safe or secure; and in the 3rd house as if her mind was constantly at risk of disintegrating, with recurring self-defeating and destructive thought patterns.
It is a talented, creative but desolate chart.
Ted Hughes was born 17 August 1930, Mytholmroyd (with maybe ?? a 1.20am birth time). He was a Sun Leo with a Taurus Moon with a lively, adventurous Uranus square a confident Jupiter Pluto in Cancer. There is nothing too dramatic sparking off his chart as it stands apart from chilly Saturn in Capricorn in his 7th (birth time being accurate) hinting at troublesome relationships.
But down in the midpoints both his Saturn and his Venus in Libra are in hard aspect to his destructive, ruthless Mars/Pluto midpoint. Mars Pluto looms large in his relationship chart with Plath, with the composite MP squaring Uranus opposition Mercury, which does suggest a bond that could turn abusive and was certainly one of domination.
His next relationship was with Assia Wevill, 15 May 1927 who was a Taurus with a Scorpio Moon and she had a natal Mars Pluto in Cancer. She also committed suicide taking their four year old daughter with her.
He latterly had a long marriage to a nurse. Feminists blamed him for both the early tragedies but both Plath and Wevill would have been attracted to impossible relationships no matter what. Which does not let him off the hook but the responsibilities cut both ways.
Ted Hughes has at least a T-square focusing through Venus at 7Libra squaring Saturn at 5Capricorn and Jupiter at 11Cancer but it turns into Grand Cross if you include the Uranus at 15Aries. Not the sort of chart I’d want to get involved with in a relationship with as it suggests lots of distance/independence required.
Her Leonhardt, bipolar, trined True Black Moon Lilith, dark thoughts, on 3rd cusp, mind.
Her Avicenna, bipolar, trined Mean Black Moon Lilith, dark thoughts, on 3rd cusp, mind.
Depression….her natal Melancholia, 5Ta06 opposed her natal Sun, 4Sc10.
Ted Hughes was the sexiest man I have ever seen. He gave a poetry reading when I was in college. He was probably in his 50s, and had a sexual magnetism that had to be experienced to be believed. I thought, “How can anyone be married to a man like that?” I read that women used to literally faint in his presence, and I can believe it.
Hmmm. “The Ted Hughes Effect”
Research out of California State University, San Bernardino. “Sylvia Plath Effect” “. . . female poets were much more likely to suffer from mental illness than any other kind of writer . . . “
There’s more to the research, too much to post. Interesting and easily found online.
Seems like her husband, Ted, was a handful. Doesn’t help.
Kay Redfield Jamison wrote ‘Touched with Fire’, which examined the relationship between artists, composers and writers, and particularly poets and bipolar disorders as well as depression and mood disorders and how these creatives are 10 to 40 times more likely to develop such disorders than the general population. High sensitivity, intensity of moods and cognitive distortions as well as the frequent isolation and solitary lifestyle of many poets must play a role.
Assia Wevill, who Hughes began an affair with while he was married to Plath, took her own life 6 years after Plath died. She claimed she was haunted by Sylvia’s legacy as well as broken by Ted’s affairs. I don’t know Hughes’ chart, it would be interesting to take a look.
Elise Cowen, Wanda Coleman, Dorothy Parker and Emily Dickenson also spring to mind.
One observation is that Virgo often plays a part in these charts.
The poet Stevie Smith born 20 September 1902 was a Sun Venus in Virgo. She also suffered from periods of depression and often wrote of death in terms of release. Despite this dark undertow to her poetry she lived to be 68 dying of natural causes. Plath was apparently an admirer of Smiths work. I have an indirect connection to Stevie Smith as my Mum as a 16 year old office junior worked at Newnes publishers in London in the same building as her.