Amid furore over account of poet’s funeral, Jonathan Bate’s decision to explicitly reference Sylvia Plath’s alleged encounter with poet Al Alvarez seems unresearched and inexplicable
Jonathan Bate’s biography of Ted Hughes has sparked an escalating war of words, with the Hughes estate and his own publisher firing at each other over the accuracy of his account of the poet’s funeral arrangements.
In the furore, a more significant suggestion appears to have escaped notice. Speculating on a final lover of Sylvia Plath in a Guardianarticle on 1 October, Bate writes: “It is not in my biography because it is based on hearsay and a lost document: biographers should only fix in print those things that they have fully corroborated”.
Related: Ted Hughes: The Unauthorised Life review – a man smouldering with life
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