The Living Archive: Sylvia Plath’s “Ocean 1212-W”
In 1975, 12 years after Sylvia Plath’s death, Aurelia Plath, Sylvia’s mother, published Letters Home, a collection of letters written by Sylvia Plath between her time at Smith College in the ’50’s, her time in England, up until the time of her death in 1963. On the inside of the book cover, Aurelia Plath included various pictures from her daughter’s childhood, with captions written by Sylvia herself. While the dates are not included, one can conclude from the style of writing that Sylvia was quite young when she wrote them (most likely before and right up to her father’s death, when she was 8 years old). There is also included a specific section that appears to be a journal entry in which Sylvia wrote about her passion for the sea, established during the years she lived in Winthrop, MA: “As a young child I had many gay experiences. My uncle Frank built a large sailboat and often took us riding on the wild blue waves. I gradually developed a love for the stormy, turbulen...