he was indeed haunted by Sylvia's death and wrote a huge amount of poems about her; that's good. she was such a wonderful person, deserved so much more and better from life. she would have loved to know that her work got the recognition she so much desired, and bet she wouldnt have imagined it would still be studied and admired in the twenty-first century. your legacy remains, dear Sylvy.

Hughes wasn't just haunted by Sylvia's death but by his unfaithfulness.😢

RIP Ted, Sylvia and their son Nicholas, and also Assia  and Shura💗 I love how this documentary finishes with a reflection on Ted's love of fishing and the peace it brought to him...it reminds me of the poem by W.B. Yeats - 'The Fisherman':

The Fisherman

Although I can see him still—
The freckled man who goes
To a gray place on a hill
In gray Connemara clothes
At dawn to cast his flies—
It's long since I began
To call up to the eyes
This wise and simple man.
All day I'd looked in the face
What I had hoped it would be
To write for my own race
And the reality:
The living men that I hate,
The dead man that I loved,
The craven man in his seat,
The insolent unreproved—
And no knave brought to book
Who has won a drunken cheer—
The witty man and his joke
Aimed at the commonest ear,
The clever man who cries
The catch cries of the clown,
The beating down of the wise
And great Art beaten down.

Maybe a twelve-month since
Suddenly I began,
In scorn of this audience,
Imagining a man,
And his sun-freckled face
And gray Connemara cloth,
Climbing up to a place
Where stone is dark with froth,
And the down turn of his wrist
When the flies drop in the stream—
A man who does not exist,
A man who is but a dream;
And cried, “Before I am old
I shall have written him one
Poem maybe as cold
And passionate as the dawn.”

-By William Butler Yeats (1919, Collection: The Wild Swans at Coole)

I caught this online a few years back. My jaw dropped seeing/hearing Frieda for the first time. Not identical, no, but she looks and speaks so much like her mother…

The Ted Hughes / Sylvia Plath feud goes on and on in the legacy of their work, lives.

Thank you for uploading this documentary.

Ted Hughes was a great poet. As a person far less desirable.

I had the good fortune of seeing Ted read on two occasions. One in Sheffield and one in London. He was a remarkable and greatly talented poet, and I share with him the aspirations for poetry medntioned here. Thankyou for this film, so much appreciated.

Actions have consequences even when around healthy people, but it is even more important around people with mental health problems.

4 people around Ted had died due to suicide: his wife, his lover and their child and then his son Nicolas Plath. That's a lot of tragedies linked to one man. I'm not saying he is responsible for all, but that is tragic and not normal. It reminds me of the Hemingways, a lot of suicides in that family as well. John Berryman, the poet and his father also took their own lives. When Berryman was just 11 years old, his father shot himself outside Berryman's bedroom window.

Let's hope this kind of tragedies are things of the past as the medications improve.

UN-MEASURABLE GRATITUDE FOR THIS VIDEO-THIS IS A GIFT

What a fantastic documentary, thank you! I had read Sylvia Plath's poems and life, but not Teds". Their daughter's words on how anyone from outside could dare to judge struck me. Her love for her father (and, of course, her mother) tells us much about him as well. She decided to live. I am appalled. 💗

My goodness, Freida sounds just like her mother.

He was a narcissist. His affair contributed to Plath's suicide. He then had a child with his lover, Assia Wevill, who he moved into the home he shared with Plath and cared for his two children with Plath.

He then began affairs with two new women. Wevill killed herself and their four-year-old daughter, who he had refused to acknowledge as his.

He married one of the two women he was having affairs with, and she was willing to tolerate his infidelities.

Sylvia Plath was supposed to show "more understanding" to her husband having an affair without any intention of ending it?  What kind of fools are commenting on this program.

Whoever chose the music for this documentary is superbly talented. Perfectly captures the mood.

I am beyond happen this is back, I was so angry it was taken down. Now I can watch it again every single day like I did before

I admit, as a sympathetic Plath admirer I dismissed Hughes until seeing this film. In his own right and on his own terms he was superbly talented and deserving of the credit he received. No one knows all of what occurred in that marriage but those two people; irregardless, whatever may or may not have happened it does not take away his God-given talent.

Sad to have learned that two people featured in this documentary, the poets Elaine Feinstein and Al Alvarez, both died on the same day, 23rd September 2019.

Thank you for this documentary! It is a gem for us lovers of poetry and source of inspiration.

Inspirational
The three hares, chasing one another forever.

He sounds so much like Richard Burton, its bizarre. Poor Frieda. I just wish I could hug her. That pain it never goes away.