please stop reblogging sylvia plath poetry
For ppl asking why she’s an anti black, anti Semite. She has used the n word and compared her depression to the holocaust
Even not counting her poetry her private journals are full of disgusting, overblown antisemitism. She didn’t just use Jewish people for her metaphors, she outright hated them irl and yet decided to use their suffering for her own gain
here’s a source with some quotes
okay, I’m Jewish and I appreciate this sentiment. and if someone wants to cut out Sylvia Plath, go for it, I get it.
But. by this logic we’d also need to stop reblogging TS Eliot, Oscar Wilde, and Shakespeare quotes. Virginia Woolf wrote anti-semetic things in her private journals, too. If you only want to read classic poets who liked Jews and black people, that’s fine, but like. good luck? Sylvia Plath isn’t an exception.
idk. Tumblr’s attitude of “consume nothing problematic” just doesn’t work if you’re part of a group that most culture-creators over the last few centuries have hated by default. For people actually in those groups, it’s not like the only two choices are 1) worship authors who hate you or 2) completely cut the majority of literature out of your life. You learn to read critically and acknowledge flaws where you find them.
anyway, as a Jewish woman, I would much rather see a version of this post that said “please read Sylvia Plath poetry critically because she’s anti black and antisemetic” than just “stop reblogging Sylvia Plath poetry.”
IMO, reblog Sylvia Plath all you want, just not unthinkingly.
I’m reblogging this now because I’m seeing anti-Virginia Woolf discourse lately due to the antisemitism in her journals and like… as a Jewish person who loves Virginia Woolf’s writing and an English teacher who knows that pretty much every writer of the classics is Problematic just…chill pls
The point isn’t to never consume media that isn’t ideologically pure. That’s never the point. Were that the goal, we would NEVER be able to consume any media. Nothing is ever ideologically pure, especially as time goes on and our social consciousness expands.
We should be telling people instead, “Be critical as you read this person’s work. They held bigoted views. Understand how that is reflected in their work, and be mindful of it. Be critical, be thoughtful”
Compelling others to not engage with something at ALL on ideological grounds is in the same vein as burning books. We should be compelling others to be critical and mindful, not narrow and willfully ignorant.
“Understand how it is reflected in their work, and be mindful of it.”
This goes for more than just written literature. All media should be engaged with in this way.
