Plath and Hughes

I have been reading Sylvia Plath's Letters, Volume 2, 1956-63. Her last 17 months are particularly poignant; she gave up London to help Ted Hughes realise his dream of a country life in Devon. Just before they left London they interviewed tenants for their Primrose Hill flat; one man paid his deposit, but then they met the Wevills, liked them and tore up the first man's cheque, saying that they had decided to stay. They also invited the Wevills to dinner. I think this throws new light on Hughes' poem about Assia Wevill in 'Birthday letters', where he describes her as 'slightly filthy with erotic mystery'. The poem ends 'She fell in love with me, but she did not know it...I fell in love with her and I knew it.' I read this as meaning that he had designs on her from August 1961 and not from May 1962, when the Wevills visited Devon, and Sylvia caught Ted kissing her. This would cast a pathetic light on poor Sylvia's loving toils to furnish the Devon house and make it comfortable, especially when one knows that Assia would move in to replace her, walking on Sylvia's carpets, cooking with her utensils and doing laundry in her beloved Bendix. People have excused Hughes, saying that marriage had become claustrophobic for him, but in fact he and Sylvia had separate spaces and roles; they took it in turns to write in their own studies; they alternated child-care; she was in charge of the house, and he worked mainly in the garden. I think he was mainly motivated by lust, and his treatment of Sylvia seems disgraceful.