I'm beginning to feel a little sorry for Ted Hughes. After years of demonizing him and romanticizing Sylvia Plath, I'm finally starting to de-mythologize them a little. One thing is for sure and that's Ted Hughes loved crazy women! Maybe it had to do with his own inability to express himself, being highly reserved; he was attracted to his emotional corollary. The woman he left Sylvia for was named Assia Wevil.

Assia Wevill was herself an aspiring poet. She began her affair with Hughes after 1961 when he and Plath took up residence in Devon, which continued after Plath committed suicide.

Hughes moved her into Court Green (Mid Devon home that he had bought for Plath). Wevill was haunted by Plath's ghost –even though she attempted to take over Sylvia's place (she even began using things that had once belonged to the poetess). She was anxious that Hughes would leave her and the daughter she bore him on March 3, 1965, Alexandra Tatiana Eloise, nicknamed "Shura."

On March 25, 1969, Assia Wevill took her own life and that of their daughter in a manner that nearly re-enacted Plath's suicide. Dragging a mattress into the kitchen, Assia sealed the door and window, dissolved sleeping pills in a glass of water and gave them to Shura. Taking the rest of the pills, she turned on the gas stove, and lay down on the mattress with her daughter.

In the 2003 film Sylvia, she is played by 1961 when he and Plath took up residence in Devon, which continued after Plath committed suicide.

On March 25, 1969, Assia Wevill took her own life and that of their daughter in a manner that nearly re-enacted Plath's suicide. Dragging a mattress into the kitchen, Assia sealed the door and window, dissolved sleeping pills in a glass of water and gave them to Shura. Taking the rest of the pills, she turned on the gas stove, and lay down on the mattress with her daughter. Source

Ted Hughes' poem "Folktale" deals with his relation to Assia:

She wanted the silent heraldry

Of the purple beach by the noble wall.

He wanted Cabala the ghetto demon

With its polythene bag full of ashes.

The Bell Jar has been called the female The Catcher in the Rye. I have to agree. The Bell Jar along with The Colossus, her first book of poems, are incredible. Also, check out the movie Sylvia with Gwyneth Paltrow - I give it a 7.5 our of 10 rating.

Mad Girl's Love Song by Sylvia Plath

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"