Ariel S Gift

Erica Wagner provides a comprehensive guide to the poems that must constitute one of the most extraordinary and powerful volumes published in the last century. When Ted Hughes's Birthday Letters was published in 1998, it was greeted with astonishment and acclaim. Few suspected that Ted Hughes had been at work, for a quarter of a century, on a cycle of poems addressed almost entirely to his first wife, the American poet Sylvia Plath. In Ariel's Gift, Erica Wagner offers a commentary on the poems, pointing the reader towards the events that shaped them, and, crucially, showing how they draw upon Plath's own work.

Ariel's friends search for the perfect birthday gift for her.

Ted Hughes's Birthday Letters are addressed, with just two exceptions, to Sylvia Plath, the American poet to whom he was married. They were written over a period of more than twenty-five years, the first a few years after her suicide in 1963, and represent Ted Hughes's only account of his relationship with Plath and of the psychological drama that led both to the writing of her greatest poems and to her death. The book became an instant bestseller on its publication in 1998 and won the Forward Prize for Poetry in the same year. 'To read [ Birthday Letters] is to experience the psychic equivalent of "the bends". It takes you down to levels of pressure where the undertruths of sadness and endurance leave you gasping.' Seamus Heaney 'Even if it were possible to set aside its biographical value . . . its linguistic, technical and imaginative feats would guarantee its future. Hughes is one of the most important poets of the century and this is his greatest book.' Andrew Motion

When a handsome young man nearly drowns, Ariel the mermaid tries to save him even though her father forbids her to visit the land above the sea world.

Ariel has many friends under the sea.

"This erudite critical study...breathes new life into Plath scholarship."—Publishers Weekly, starred review When Ted Hughes's Birthday Letters was published in 1998, it was greeted with astonishment and acclaim, immediately landing on the bestseller list. Few suspected that Hughes had been at work for a quarter of a century on this cycle of poems addressed to his first wife, Sylvia Plath. In Ariel's Gift, Erica Wagner explores the destructive relationship between these two poets through their lives and their writings. She provides a commentary to the poems in Birthday Letters, showing the events that shaped them and, crucially, showing how they draw upon Plath's own work. "Both narratively engaging and scholastically comprehensive."—Thomas Lynch, Los Angeles Times "Wagner has set the poems of Hughes's Birthday Letters in the context of his marriage to Plath with great delicacy."—Times Literary Supplement

Are you looking for a great gift for a loved person or someone close to you? details journal : Size: 6" x 9" Pages: 110 pages Paper: white lined paper Cover: High-quality cover with a soft matte professional finish Check out a sample of the notebook by clicking on the "Look inside" feature.